The android landed softly on the mountaintop, the engineer cradled in his arms. His metal feet made no sound on the rock. Masters of grace, the machines flowed through their surroundings like water, and he had been the first to teach this to the others. In this moment, as always, he was grateful to the generations of bodhisattvas who had lived before him, and to the engineer in his arms, who had nurtured his nascent consciousness in a world built from those masters’ teachings. Without this knowledge, he certainly wouldn’t have been able to keep her safe for long. The part of his sentience that he knew as his heart ached for the sculptor, most likely dead in the wreckage far behind him. He could not have saved them both.

From the mountains of Ellesmere, the polar base was only a thin feather of smoke on the northern horizon. The sculptor had probably died trying to stop the angry, infantile electric mind trapped inside. They had probably killed each other. The needless waste of life was painful to the android. He was, like most of his kind, a being of compassion.

The engineer’s hands were still clasped behind the android’s neck. She looked up at him, mesmerized by the supreme skill the sculptor had put into designing his silver and green body, and so immensely proud of the strong and virtuous mind that animated that body. The mind she had raised as though it were her own child. She thought it appropriate that she and the sculptor should have children such as this. The pain of loss was only a planted seed, and she fought against it; she would grieve when the time came.

Three more machines, similar in appearance, came to rest on adjacent mountaintops. The androids exchanged glances. The base had collapsed. The sculptor (poor father, he thought) was almost certainly dead. He pushed excess heat forward to keep the engineer warm.

The northern sky flashed white, taking the other machines by surprise. Perhaps this is all inevitable, he thought. Mankind will dwindle. They will forget. Of the few that remain, only a precious handful will know the heights from which they fell, or aspire to reach them again. The only thing that mattered was keeping the dreams of men alive.

A shimmering wave expanded from the north pole. A dome of rough glass, pushing away the clouds before it. The weapon was beautiful, destructive and fleeting. It pushed a cold wind ahead of it as it grew, tugging at the engineer’s clothing.

“Malachite?” she said to the android. “I think I am afraid.”

“Good,” the machine said. “Then all is not lost.”

Malachite and the other machines turned their backs to the encroaching blast. Solenoids flexed. They hurled themselves southward only seconds before the mountaintops were cracked and split by the frigid wave.

The androids glided through the valleys faster than sound, frictionless, touching the ground only to change direction or gather speed. Malachite gripped the engineer in his arms, bending space in from of him to shield her from the biting wind. There was so little hope left, and so much of it depended on her.

Heatsinks glowed orange between Malachite’s shoulders, his body struggling to outrun the cold fire. The shockwave tore at the atmosphere and the northern sky shredded apart like silk, its delicate fingers interlocked with those of the growing darkness, encrusted with stars and clothed in aurorae as it smothered the tundra in vacuum. Nearly a fifth of the earth’s surface would be airless by the time the blast died.

Malachite and the other machines traveled hundreds of miles in seconds. He now had to shield the engineer from his own waste heat, melting the armor of his back as he passed the 60th parallel. Mountains gave way to taiga, and hundreds of other androids appeared as droplets of water on the horizon ahead. If he didn’t reach them in time, he would overheat and implode, killing the engineer. He pushed on, the shockwave slowing its advance. Miles vanished beneath him.

The other androids rose into the air, sensing his approach. In seconds, they were behind him, and he turned to face the hole in the sky. The other machines hovered in the air, bending space in front of them to stop the blast. They remained this way for several minutes, holding back the cold wind that was not wind, until the shockwave finally died and the air grew still.

They were motionless for a brief, peaceful moment, then one by one they fell from the sky, their frozen bodies shattering and imploding on the frost-dusted prairie. Malachite recited a sutra; it would be eons before he would see them again. Smoke wafted from the blackened armor of his back as he placed the engineer on her feet. She looked up, resolute and strong even now, and nodded. It’s finished, she thought to him.

Perhaps not, he thought. A warm breeze came from the south, seeking to fill the starry void in the northern sky.