Chapter 414: The Harrow Cut

Chapter 414: The Harrow Cut

Elsa turned a page in her notebook and began writing the times she could come. On Thursday, her practical ran late. She crossed out the usual afternoon time and wrote another beneath it.

Jin watched her leave that evening’s space shorter than the others. She wanted to be here for everything; admitting that she couldn’t seemed harder than learning the feeding.

"I could come with you on Saturday," he said. "When I’m free."

"You can hold the notebook," Elsa told him. "With clean hands."

He looked at the smear on his thumb. Breeze was already interested in the cloth.

They agreed before they left. Harlow & Pike would manage the hatch once the care setup was ready and Elsa was comfortable with the routine. She would return for further practice with Tamsin and prepare her supplies from the hatchery’s list. The actual date could wait until those checks were done.

Elsa wrote the remaining preparations on a fresh page and left space beneath them for the date.

On the walk back, she was quiet for a long time. Breeze trotted beside her with grey paste drying on one ear.

"You can come," she said finally. "When it hatches. If you want."

"I want."

"You have to be quiet."

"I’m always quiet."

"You’re always thinking loud," she said. "It’s not the same."

That night, he did one short Engine run in the higher chamber. A single Cliffhoof Ibex had moved back onto the high ledges. Flicker found it, and Glitch’s avatar ran it into a corner of fallen blocks.

[Cliffhoof Ibex — defeated]

[Reward: 15,000 Coins]

Half to operating funds. Half to the family note, which now held 227,500 Coins.

Ten million still seemed a long way off. He pictured Elsa frowning over her timetable, trying to make room for a chick that wasn’t even here yet. He hoped he could give her that surprise one day. For now, he had promised to hold the notebook.

He closed the note and went to sleep.

The Harrow Reach looked like somebody had taken a hillside apart with a spoon and then lost interest.

At seven in the morning, mist lay between the old quarry terraces. Grass and small trees grew over the spoil heaps.

Their assessor met them at the gate hut. He was a lean, grey-haired man named Dunmore, with a field slate on a strap and a coat that had seen a lot of hillsides.

"Site Four," he said, and handed Petra a folded survey map. "The seam’s on the north wall of the Harrow Cut. Ordinary energy-bearing mineral. The survey marks two exposures, upper and lower. Either is acceptable."

He handed Vasha a sealed kit: gloves, a small hammer and chisel, padded sleeves, labels and a hard case.

"One sample. Small. Properly handled. Back at this hut by three o’clock."

He looked at each of them in turn. "I’ll observe from behind. The decisions are yours; I’ll intervene for safety, not to coach you."

"And if we’re late?" Vasha said.

"Then you’re late. It’ll be written down."

He stepped back, and they were on their own.

They spread the map on the bonnet of a staff vehicle.

The Harrow Cut was a long, deep notch running east to west. The upper exposure was two-thirds of the way up its north wall, above an old quarry terrace. The lower one was near the bottom, by a stream.

The short way in ran along the high terraces from the east, then down onto the old terrace under the upper exposure. The survey called it the Cutback path.

The long way went down into the valley, along the stream and round the end of a spur, then back up the Cut from below.

"Upper," Vasha said, and put her finger on the survey notes.

Beside the upper exposure: Seam exposed full width, fresh face, good grade. Beside the lower: Partly weathered. Adequate.

"Better, and closer. The Cutback’s maybe forty minutes. The valley’s twice that, and it’s all down and then up again." She glanced at Petra’s badger. "No offence."

"None taken," Petra said. "She hates up."

"And it’s the survey’s own approach. It’s marked as the route." Vasha straightened. "We’d have the best sample in the morning and be back by lunch."

A better sample in half the time sounded good to Jin too. He leaned over the map to check the approach.

"Can Flicker look first?" he said. "Before we commit."

"Obviously," Vasha said. "I’d have asked."

They reached the Cutback approach shortly before eight, after a slow descent round a broken stair. Petra recorded the delay. Vasha kept calling the Ridgerunner back from its impatient scouting trips.

A survey marker post stood at the start of the path, white with a red band.

Petra stopped beside it.

"That’s leaning," she said.

It was. Not much, a hand’s width out of true at the top, leaning toward the drop.

"Could’ve been knocked," Vasha said.

"Could’ve." Petra crouched. The soil at the base had opened on the downhill side in a thin dark crescent. The grass at its edge was torn, not bent, and the roots showed white.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"Flicker," Jin said.

She went off his arm, up and out over the Cut, and he went with her.

From above, the Cutback path ran along the top of the north side, then dipped down onto the old terrace beneath the upper exposure, a long, bright band of blue-grey rock.

He made her fly along it slowly, low and wide, the way he’d taught her to check ledges in the grotto.

Halfway along, the terrace looked wrong.

The map showed a broad shelf, six meters wide. From the air, its outer edge was ragged. A chunk the length of a bus had slumped away down the slope, leaving a raw scar.

Pale rock showed in the scar. Below it, a fan of loose stone and earth spread toward the stream. A young tree lay in the fan on its side, roots in the air.

"Part of the terrace has gone," he said, and described it.

Vasha frowned. "How much?"

"Maybe a third of the width, in one place. The rest looks all right."

"So there’s still four meters of it."

"That’s what I can see from up there."

"Can we look from the end of the path?" Petra said. "Not on the terrace. Just where it starts."

They walked on to where the path began to dip, and stopped while the ground under them was still solid quarry floor. From there, they could see along the terrace.

Vasha saw the tree first.

"Look at that tree," Vasha said, her voice changing. "The leaves are still green."

The fresh leaves and exposed roots made the fall look recent. Jin remembered the rain two nights ago, though he couldn’t tell whether that had brought it down.

"Glitch," Jin said, with a hand on the drake’s shoulder. "Stand here. Just stand."

Glitch planted his feet where the old quarry floor met the terrace, and Tremor Sense opened through the bond. It wasn’t a map. It never was. It was weight and movement, coming up through four feet.

What came back was small: a faint, dry trickle somewhere below the terrace’s outer edge, like sand in an hourglass. It stopped. A few seconds later, it started again, a little further along.

"There’s something moving under the edge," he said. "Grit, I think. It keeps starting and stopping."

"Is it going to collapse?" Vasha asked.

"I don’t know," he said. "He can feel things moving. He can’t tell me what’s holding it up."

The Ridgerunner sniffed toward the slump. Vasha kept her attention on the exposed edge of the path.