Credit: Jamie Tufrey

They turned away. Defeated, Holden started breaking down the drill while Asa grabbed the few loose tools that were still scattered around the site.

"We'll find a way, Holden. Maybe I can twitch our orbit, hit another rock on the way home."

"We don't have the fuel. You know we don't."

"Well, look. You said it yourself, it's a big rock. Let's just put some distance between us. Move to the other side. Anyone catches us, we just act like we didn't know it was here. I mean, it's not like the thing comes by and introduces itself, right?"

Holden lifted the drill's motor housing. "Thanks, but I can't ask that. I've put you at enough risk as it is."

"Hey. You're the first human being to talk to an alien. How could I miss that?"

"Yeah." Holden tried to force a laugh. "Well, it's not really an alien, you know. It's just a robotic appliance."

"So you're the first person to talk to an alien's refrigerator. That's still pretty strong."

This time his laugh bubbled out on its own. "I'll put that on my resume. Human Ambassador to Kitchen Gadgets."

"There you go."

"Jjjjaaazhzhzhzh begawwwwwwz."

"What now?" Holden looked back at the bug. Twice, it repeated the motion of tapping the asteroid and then its body. It scuttled backward, turned, and walked back to its drive unit. It lifted itself to its full height and attached itself to the front of the stubby cylinder. The legs folded up and flattened themselves against the bug's sides.

The two men watched as the whole assembly lifted on tiny thrusters. It spent ten minutes drifting clear of the asteroid before the bright, blue-white spear of its main drive lit up.

"What the hell?" Asa walked over to the spot where they'd left the bug.

Holden set the drill down. He felt drained, too exhausted to enjoy the hope he was beginning to feel.

"Hey, Holden?"

"Yeah."

"You need to see this, buddy."

"What is it?"

"What'd I just say? You need to see it."

Holden trudged over to find a metre-wide rectangle cut into the surface. Inside it, intricate lines and swirls were etched into the flat surface.

"What's this, some kind of warning?"

Asa laughed. "Stand on this side."

Holden stepped across it. From Asa's side it became clear. It was a perfect reproduction of the family photo he'd shown the bug.

"'Jasmine's Hope' it is," Asa said. "Who am I to argue with a bug? That's apparently your job."

Holden got down on his hands and knees. He traced the lines with his finger. "We're OK."

"We're more than OK. We're profitable."

"No, I mean all of us."

"Oh, come on." Asa squatted down next to him. "You don't really think it understood, do you? It was just mimicking."

"It could have killed me. Worse, it could have ignored me. Wouldn't mimicking be the first step toward communication?"

"Maybe. But it's still nothing more than an automated bulldozer."

"I know." Holden looked up to where the bug was just beginning to show motion against the curtain of stars. "But they designed it to drive around the anthills, didn't they?"