Boris TibanWhen the UNSA rover ground to a halt and sat hissing exhaust from its methane engines, Boris expected a squad of armed security guards to emerge—like the ones in the Siberian prison camp. The swarm of legs on the vehicle’s underbelly made it look like some strange undersea creature, and its white metallic hull looked out of place among the rust reds, textured blacks and browns with highlights of encroaching green. The rover made too much noise, lumbering ahead as if it assumed everything else would get out of its way: unmistakably a human artifact.
Nothing happened for a long moment, second after slow-motion second ticking into the cold silence. Boris tensed, knotting his muscles, squeezing the titanium rod, knowing that if the humans did not emerge to confront them soon, he wo
