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Barely conscious, Key hangs from the straps of his seat. The pod's nose down, wedged between two large rocks, the window isn't broke. Below him, Alice lays across the window lays. She's still breathing, and that's all he knows. Drudge has his nanites working hard to fix his back, until then he can't move.

Finding his voice, he weakly groans, "Alice."

Not getting a response, he tries again, a little louder. "Alice?"

Still no response.

"Pond?"

Drudge answers instead. "Pond is too busy to respond."

That can't be good. If her AI's too busy to even talk, she's in really bad shape.

"How long was I out?"

"Three hours."

Key sighs heavily. Pond's still that busy, that's _really_bad news for Alice. "How much longer till I can move?"

"I'm estimating 30 minutes."

Not knowing what else to do, he starts talking to Alice in an attempt to keep his mind off just how bad she could be.

He starts with the day they met, nearly ten waking years ago. He speaks of how he'd felt more for her than any other person he'd met since his wife.

When he gets to their first dinner date, he starts to cry, and can't help but watch as his tears land in her hair. He hopes she can feel them, hopes she can hear his sincerity.

He goes on about his first mission with her, and then about the one mission she was not there. He talks about how the whole thing didn't feel right, and how he learned why when he finally saw her again.

Feeling starts to return to his body and he realizes that Drudge has finished with his back. Bracing himself, he releases his harness and eases down beside Alice.

"Hun? Can you hear me?"

No response.

He quickly grabs a med kit and pulls out a short cable, an AI tether. He attaches one end to his sternum and the other to hers.

"Drudge."

"Assuming life support functions."

His heart sinks. Her AI's keeping her alive. That's why Pond couldn't answer.

Holding back his tears, he asks, "Prognosis?"

Pond answers. "I repaired her body, but I am sorry. I am unable to restore her mental functions."

Key swears that the AI is crying, and can't help but to start crying himself. "You're saying that she's brain dead?"

"I am saying that everything is repaired. She should be awake, aware, and alive on her own. I do not understand why she is not."

Key gently picks her up and holds her close. "Alice, hun, don't go. Don't leave me," he sobs.

He already knows she's gone.

She can't hear him anymore.

With tears flowing, he manages to say, "AI transfer protocol. Pond to secondary matrix."

"That will--"

"I know." His voice is barely a whisper.

Drudge quietly acknowledges the command as Key stops holding back.

He cries. Hard.

* * *

Getting out of the pod through the door wasn't possible, so Key shot out a front window.

The ground is covered by pebbles. It was a riverbed at some point, but Drudge couldn't find a trace of ground water within his scanning range. The air though is hot, and thick with water, 100% humidity at two atmospheres makes it intolerable.

He's been digging for three hours with a survival shovel, and with every scoop he takes out, the gravel keeps wanting to fill back in. fortunately, the planets reduced gravity makes him feel stronger, and his determination keeps him going.

Behind him, lies Alice. She's wrapped in a burial shroud, created from the nanites that Pond used to keep her healthy. Now, inert as they are, they'll keep her body safe.

Pond now resides with Drudge, using the secondary AI core that Key had built to increase Drudge's processing power. That core lies along Keys femurs, while Drudge's core lines the inside of his skull(where AIs are normally installed.)

Key digs for another hour before gently laying her in the grave. After filling it in, he places a meter sized stone at the head of her grave. He sits next to it and slowly reads it again.

Alice Hamilton Yorkshire-Berris

August 7, 2984 June 19, 3130

BA 57

Beloved Wife, Mother, Friend

Sighing heavily, he adjusts the stone slightly and then heads to the pod. He stands on the back of the seats and starts dropping equipment and supplies through the window he shot out.

When he's emptied the compartments, he turns to the com array. "Drudge, can you find the other pods?"

"I can detect only one nearby pod, but the array is damaged. Its range is limited."

"Well, let's head to that pod then and see if it's in any better shape."

After dropping out of the pod, he grabs a pack and starts loading all the supplies and equipment in it.

As he stands to leave, he slings the pack over his back. Giving Alice's grave one more look, he sighs. "Drudge, start new database, titled Merrin. Start survey, prepare to create maps and log biological life."

"Acknowledged."

Key takes a long slow look around, letting Drudge record as much as he can. With the look-around finished, he nods. "Overlay magnetic compass points, and flag the probe and the pods bearings and range."

Several ghostly arrows appear, floating in his vision. A quick look around, tells him that east and west are reversed, Merrin spins backwards when compared to Earth.

Finding the arrow for the probe closer, he sets off in the south, south-west direction for it.

Unseen by him, a small, four legged, crab-like creature crawls out from the gravel near the grave and follows.