Well, here's the OP's entry. I won't put it into the poll--consider this a very long-winded bump. * * * The cold clawed at Vathis like ten thousand hands as he floundered through the windswept snow. Vathis cursed the cold and cursed the world and cursed the Captain who’d led them here, led them to die out here in this barren waste. He didn’t curse the thing they’d found. No, no. That might call it. He took a deep draught of ether and listened to the stories it sang, but now it whispered of prey and the chase, and he knew the stories were not his. The only sound Vathis heard was the wind, and the Earth animals’ mournful cry. Through the blinding snow ahead, he saw a tall, steep-sloped hill, and began to scrabble across the snow and ice towards it. The ether sang of the scent on the wind, of running fleet-foot across the snow, of pack-brothers joining in glorious song. Vathis redoubled his pace, and clutched his prize against his chest. He remembered Captain Skelsi, so proud of his discovery out here in the wild, so sure he had at last found a key to the Great Machine. A touchstar, faint but unmistakable, far beneath the mountains, far from the delvings of the other Houses. The prize would be theirs. None could steal it from them. Vathis hauled himself up the sharp rocks, the baying creatures closer now. He looked over his shoulder and saw them flowing across the ground, bright yellow eyes glittering in the night. He remembered when they’d found the touchstar, or it had allowed itself to be found, and found the thing which kept it, as old and bitter as the winter wind. Skelsi had died first, and the others, all save Vathis, who had fled, this one fragment of touchstar clasped to his breast. He stood at the top of the hill, crested by a large snowcapped boulder. He placed his back against the boulder, drew his shock pistol with his free upper hand, a knife in each of his lower two. The animals drew closer, circled him, fangs bared, growling to one another in anticipation. The ether crowed of victory, of red joy and white bones. Vathis awaited the inevitable. And then they drew back, turned and fled. The ether’s song was stilled. The touchstar in his hand throbbed, like something alive. Vathis heard a voice behind him. “You cannot steal from the dark,” said Skelsi, and wrapped his cold, dead hands about Vathis’ neck. His fingers bit like ten thousand cold claws.