By late afternoon the gardens glowed with the rich, false peace he was already learning not to trust. Long shadows reached from the trees. A few of the people moved closer together when the shade deepened, and several looked back toward the crash site with the half-nervous interest children gave a room after hearing a ghost story. Elias took that chance and started away while they were distracted by music somewhere downslope.

The path back to the landing platform curved between silver-leaf trees and over a narrow bridge above running water. With each step his relief rose, thin but real. The machine was damaged, yes. The casing had torn. He had no tools, no diagnostics worth the name, no spare parts. But it existed. It was evidence. It was shelter if nothing else. It was a problem he understood.

He rounded the last stand of low flowering shrubs and stopped so hard his knees almost gave under him.

The platform was empty.

For a moment the scene refused to fit itself into sense. The pale circle of stone was there. The shallow grooves cut by the machine’s impact were there. Black scorch marks fanned across the edge where the braking field had burned hot on arrival. But the machine itself—its bent chair, the broken housings, the split frame, all of it—was gone.

Air scraped into his throat and stuck there.