The Painter's Honeymoon

Something stirred within the crater. First there was only a sound, a droning mechanical sound swelling in intensity asif to compete with the howling wind. Then the thing moved—something that glintedin the bright afternoon light as it slowly began to ride from the crater. The object appeared to be some form of alien organic life, its head a multiorbed,skull-like horror, its dark-lensed blister eyes training their cold gaze across the evencolder reaches of wilderness. But as the thing rose higher from the crater, its formshowed it clearly to be a machine of some sort, a circular head, and equipped withcameras, sensors, and metal appendages, some of which terminated in crablikegrasping pincers. The machine hovered over the smoking crater and extended its appendages invarious directions. Then a signal was set off within its internal mechanical systems,and the machine began to float across the icy plain. The dark probe droid soon vanished over the distant horizon.