He straightened too quickly. The world tipped and righted. A dry taste filled his mouth. More than the crash, this was the moment he understood how exposed he was. Before, he had been a stranded scientist beside a damaged device. Bad enough. Solvable in theory. Now the one piece of technology that tied him to his own life had been removed by an unknown force that knew its value before he did.

He was no longer a visitor. He was something being watched.

A burst of laughter sounded from the path behind him. Elias turned. Four of the garden people had followed at a distance, not from concern, it seemed, but because his urgency had become interesting again. Lina was with them, a little apart.

“Where is it?” Elias demanded, stepping down from the platform. “The machine that was here. Who moved it?”

The nearest man glanced at the empty stone and then at Elias, smiling with uncertain kindness. “Gone.”

Elias said, “I can see that. Who took it?”

A woman covered her mouth as if his bluntness embarrassed her. “Why hold a broken thing?”

“Because it’s mine.” He pointed to the platform, then out toward the garden, forcing each word through teeth that wanted to chatter with rage. “Who. Took. It.”

They laughed then, not at his loss but at the intensity of the question itself, at the idea that ownership could matter so much. Two of them wandered to the platform edge and peered down over it as if they might spot the answer under the stone.