Two drone pods sat on the ice like fat beetles, one orange, one green, both drilling toward the same lucky vein. Inside the orange shack, Priya watched her bore-counter tick eleven meters ahead of Theo's. Then both screens flickered turquoise. Far below the crust, something deep in the ocean was glowing back at the drills.

Priya killed the drill and watched the light instead. It wasn't random. The glow blinked in patterns, long and short, the same loop over and over. She leaned close to the screen. "That's not a mineral," she whispered. "That's a message."

Priya recorded the pattern and ran it through her translator software. It chewed on the data for a full minute, then spat out three words on her screen: COLD. HUNGRY. CURIOUS. She swallowed hard and reached for the radio.

Priya radioed Theo. "It's curious, it's hungry, and it knows we're here." Together they melted a slab of their ration paste and lowered it down the bore hole as a gift. The glow swarmed it, pulsed warm and bright, then blinked a brand-new pattern: FRIEND.