The front door rasped open, heavy against its hinges, letting in a blast of dry wind and the scent of static-drenched iron. The lights inside the Virek home flickered once, then held steady.
Mirena stood at the kitchen unit, sleeves rolled up and hands stained with grease, halfway through replacing the nutrient recycler's filter mesh. She looked up, blinking in surprise at the sight of her husband standing on the threshold long before his shift's end.
"You're early," she said, wiping her hands. "Don't tell me the shaft collapsed again."
"I found something," Arik interrupted. His voice was low. Steady, but different. Not cautious, not tired. Something quieter. With a look of slight uncertainty.
He stepped into the room and gently shut the door behind him.
Mirena's brows furrowed. Arik never interrupted. He never looked uncertain.
Then she saw what he was holding, something bundled in a scorched rescue cloth, the edges charred and flaking like burnt paper.
She crossed the room without a word.
"Arik... what is that?"
He held it out carefully, awkwardly, like he wasn't sure if it would break or bite.
Mirena peeled back a corner of the cloth.
Her breath caught.
A baby.
Maybe a few days old. Skin pale and smooth, cheeks flushed only slightly from the temperature change. Black hair clumped softly against his brow. Eyes… wide open. Watching her and not blinking.
Mirena stared, heart thudding louder with every second. "Where did you?"
"Ridge Nine," Arik said near the old survey line. Something shimmered under the dust. I cleared it off. It was a capsule. Sleek. Unmarked."
"Not Guild?"
He shook his head.
"UG?"
"No transponder. No military stamp. No registry code. Nothing."
"And… no one else?"
Arik looked away. "Just him."
Mirena reached in and touched the child's tiny hand. It closed over her finger instantly, not in a grasping reflex, but in something intentional. She looked back at the child's face.
Still watching her.
Not with fear. With quiet focus.
A chill ran down her spine.
"He didn't cry?" she asked.
"Not once," Arik said.
She looked up. "You opened the capsule. Was there anything else? Logs? Supplies?"
He hesitated.
"I didn't check."
"What?"
"I... just saw him. Then it closed itself."
Mirena raised an eyebrow. "The capsule closed itself?
"Sank under the sand," Arik muttered. "Disappeared like it was never there."
Silence stretched between them. The only sound was the soft mechanical hum of the home's ancient air filters and the faint, steady breathing of the child.
Mirena gently took the bundle from Arik's arms, holding it close to her chest. The baby didn't squirm. He just kept watching her, like he was memorizing the lines of her face.
"We'll need to check for implants," Arik said, uncertainly. "Could be biotech, hidden trackers, birth chip"
"There's nothing on him," Mirena replied without looking up. "I scanned already. He's clean."
"How do you know?"
"Because I did it the moment you walked in."
She glanced up. "You think I wouldn't?"
Arik scratched the back of his neck, glancing at the floor.
"Mirena…"
"Arik."
Another pause.
Then she turned to the back of the room and gently laid the baby into the old cradle that had been collecting dust behind a stack of mining gear. She smoothed the blanket, then stood and crossed her arms.
"We keep him," she said.
Arik's mouth opened slightly, closed again. "You don't even know what he is."
"I know what he's not," she said. "He's not trash. He's not a weapon. And he's not going back out into that storm."
Arik stared at the child again. The baby blinked once, slowly.
He nodded, finally. "Alright."
Mirena looked down once more and smiled, faint but genuine.
"Kael," she murmured.
Arik looked over. "What?"
"His name," she said. "Kael. It means ember. Small, quiet… but impossible to extinguish."
The child made no sound. But something behind those eyes, something Arik couldn't name, flickered like a promise.
*******
The next morning, Grey Hollow woke to another dust storm rolling in from the north ridge. The sky outside was a dull, copper-red haze, lit faintly by the distorted glow of the twin suns. The air filters whined in protest as fine mineral grains scraped against their vents.
Inside the Virek home, the family stirred.
Arik was already up, strapping on his reinforced leg brace and locking the knee joint into place. His old mining suit, stitched and patched in too many places to count, hung neatly on the wall hook, waiting like a loyal hound. He moved with practiced silence, gathering his gear without a word.
In the adjoining room, Mirena cradled Kael against her chest, gently rocking him while checking the readout on the wall-mounted nutrient dispenser. The water ration was low. Again.
Kael didn't cry. He hardly made a sound, nestled in the crook of her arm like he belonged there. His eyes, sharp, impossibly alert, moved in slow, deliberate sweeps, studying the light fixtures, the exposed cables, the subtle blue shimmer of the purification coils in the corner.
"You don't miss a thing, do you?" Mirena whispered.
Kael blinked once.
"Mirena," Arik called from the front room. "Have we got enough patch foam for the loader plates?"
She glanced at the shelf. "Half a can left."
"That'll get me through another shift."
As Mirena stepped out with Kael on her hip, she found Jace and Lenn already awake. Jace, tall and lean, sat lacing up his dust boots while gnawing on a chunk of dried ration bar. Lenn, shorter and broader on the shoulders, was hunched over the central table, poking at a sparking micro-pump with an old solder wand.
Jace looked up first. "Is the little alien still quiet?"
Mirena shot him a look. "He's not an alien."
"Then why doesn't he cry?" Jace grinned.
"Maybe he's smarter than the two of you were at that age," Arik muttered from the supply locker.
"He watches everything," Lenn said without looking up. "Like… like he's mapping it."
Kael shifted slightly in Mirena's arms and tilted his head toward Lenn, gaze fixed on the sparking tool with uncanny focus.
Lenn smirked. "Told you."
"You're imagining things," Jace said. "He's a baby."
"He's not like other babies," Mirena murmured. "I don't know how, but… he sees."
Arik finished loading his gear and clapped a hand on Jace's shoulder. "You're with me today. The storm's pushing dust into Shaft Six. Lenn, you're running drone diagnostics in bay three."
The boys groaned in unison.
Mirena chuckled. "And I'll be doing what I always do, patching up whoever gets themselves caught under a rockslide."
Kael gurgled once. Soft, amused.
They all froze for a second.
It was the first authentic sound he had made.
Jace raised an eyebrow. "See? He's learning sarcasm."
As the family dispersed, Mirena remained behind with Kael. She laid him gently on a folded cloth mat near the warming unit, then knelt beside him with a stack of old picture pads. Each pad contained simple images, basic symbols, objects, and some were even programmed to emit basic sounds.
Most babies ignored them until at least six months.
Kael tracked each one as she held it up, his eyes lingering longer on shapes with symmetry or moving color.
When she moved one out of view, his gaze followed it around the arc of her movement. Then he reached precisely, not in aimless infant flailing, but as if calculating the distance, mimicking what he had seen.
She exhaled slowly. "You're not going to stay hidden forever, are you?"
Kael blinked. Just once.