Chapter 154 Three Marks

Risa had brought nothing useful.

No slate. No measuring cord. No little pieces of metal to set beside a wet seam and follow with a spark.

She stood by the path with her hands empty and looked at my notebook.

“Are you bringing that?”

I looked down.

“I hadn't thought about it.”

“I noticed.”

I put it inside the shelter.

When I came back, she took my hand.

We went no farther than the flat place above the field. The light was beginning to leave the canyon, and the water in the trough looked dark instead of red.

For once, I didn't stop to check its level.

Risa noticed that too.

She didn't congratulate me.

She leaned against my shoulder when we sat down.

We talked about things that weren't wrong.

It took a little practice.

I asked whether she'd always liked drawing, because the maps she made on the slates had begun acquiring little pictures beside the dangerous places. A cracked cup. A boot. One very recognizable sketch of Liam beside a mark that meant don't let him lift this alone.

“I used to draw my father's visitors,” she said.

“Portraits?”

“Not the kind they would have paid for.”

I laughed.

“Did he find them?”

“Once.”

“What happened?”

“He told me to respect.”

She looked out across the canyon.

“So I drew him in a larger chair.”

I laughed hard enough that she had to sit up.

“There,” she said.

“What?”

“I wanted to hear that.”

Later, she kissed me without either of us making a speech first.

I liked that more than I'd expected.

The ordinary part of it. Her fingers at my wrist. The way she smiled when my nose brushed hers at the wrong angle. The fact that we could try again without it becoming a story about how clumsy I was.

When the evening watch called from the path below, we went back together.

Sera had saved us food.

Luna sat beside her, looking over Wren's copy of the ridge marks. She made room when I came near, then touched my hand under the edge of the table.

I sat between the warm bowls and the people I wanted to come back to.

For a few minutes, that was all.

Then Wren put the second slate beside the first.

“I think I know where the marks point.”

Ellis had copied them from memory badly enough that he didn't trust the copy.

Wren had drawn what we'd seen on the ridge carefully enough that the two looked almost unrelated.

But when she turned his slate, the shape became clearer.

Three cuts. The first short. The next two longer, descending toward the right.

“I thought they were strokes in a number,” Ellis said. “I wrote down too much of the weathering round them.”

Wren pointed at the last cut.

“Could be steps. Three shelves down the southern side. That's what the wing's picture shows.”

“Or three scratches,” Luna said.

“Or three scratches.”

We sat with both possibilities.

Then Luna drew a route that followed the open ground above the shelves, with places to land and a line beyond which she didn't want us going without another look.

“We find out tomorrow,” she said.

I went to the forge before bed.

Sera had finished the last piece for the new trough guard. She was putting away the tools, leaving them where the next person could find them without having to ask what her arrangement meant.

“South again?” she asked.

“Yes. Luna, Risa, Wren, me.”

She nodded.

“Room for someone coming back?”

“Yes.”

“And you're coming back even if the last shelf looks interesting?”

“I've been given a line.”

“That has never stopped you being interested.”

“No.”

She came over, took the front of my coat gently between two fingers, and kissed me.

“Try to be interested from the correct side of it.”

“I'll try.”

She let go of the coat.

It took me longer than it should have to remember what I'd come to the forge to collect.

Day 440 dawned clear.

We waited through the eleven seconds before leaving. The names came. Dot kept the record. We repeated the last confirmed exchange instead of adding a new one on a morning when half the people who understood it were about to fly south.

Toby sat inside his wall with a bowl in his hands.

He looked better than he had a week ago. Still tired sometimes. Still hoarse when he forgot and tried to speak across the whole camp.

He handed Risa the bag before she climbed aboard.

“Liam knows where everything is, but he isn't coming. So I've put the list on top.”

She opened it and checked.

“Thank you.”

“Tell me what you use.”

“We will.”

He didn't ask whether we needed him.

We didn't make him.

Dot sent a wing ahead of us.

She had chosen the morning for the survey and left the afternoon clear for her reading. Luna had the water checks covered. Ilse had the camp. Sera and Corr would go to the upper shelf if the guide came with a cup.

There was a plan for what happened while we were gone.

I was beginning to understand how much easier it made leaving when the plan wasn't simply everybody wait for me.

We lifted off.

At the edge of the camp, Sera raised her hand.

I answered before turning toward the river.

Risa, beside me, caught my sleeve as the hull shifted in the first crosswind.

“Eyes on the rim.”

“I know.”

“Good. I would like another walk.”

I kept my eyes on the rim.

The reflector was still in its cleft.

Sunlight found it as we rounded the southern shoulder, a brief, hard flash that vanished when we changed angle.

This time we knew what it was.

That didn't make it useless.

Someone had wanted it seen. Someone had fitted it where rain couldn't easily loosen it and the rising sun would do the work they couldn't stay to do themselves.

We landed above the first shelf.

Wren checked the three marks against her drawing. Luna walked the open ground while Risa looked at the exposed seams near the edge.

No probing deep into the hill. No searching for a heartbeat through every layer of stone.

Just what we needed to choose the next few steps.

The first shelf held nothing but broken rock.

The second had a shallow hollow where water collected after rain. A little line had been cut in its rim so the overflow would run toward the third.

Luna crouched beside it.

“Made.”

“Yes,” I said.

The groove was rough. Repeated strokes of a tool instead of the smooth change I would have left.

Wren touched one edge.

“Someone spent time here.”

“How much?”

She shook her head.

Below us, the third shelf disappeared behind a leaning slab.

The wing went around it first.

Its picture showed a dark opening, low and narrow, with something pale hanging inside.

We called before entering.

No answer.

Called again from closer, where our voices would carry beneath the slab instead of away over the slope.

Still nothing.

Luna went first, lamp held ahead of her. Wren followed. I waited until Risa nodded, then stepped into the shallow shelter with her behind me.

The pale thing was a strip of cloth tied to a peg.

Beneath it stood three covered vessels.

Two empty.

One holding dark water that had seeped in from the little channel above.

At the back, someone had fitted a flat panel against the wall and scratched words into it.

Not many.

Enough that I stopped breathing for a moment when the lamp found them.

IF YOU CAN READ THIS, LEAVE THE WATER.

Luna moved the lamp lower.

There was more beneath it.

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED. LEAVE THE REST.

Then a rough arrow pointing along the ridge.

No name.

No date we could make out. Something had been scratched beneath the arrow, then scraped over or worn away until the marks no longer held a shape I trusted.

A shelter for someone passing through.

I looked at the vessels.

The way the little rain channel had been kept clear. The cloth marker tied where the darkness wouldn't swallow it.

Somebody had been trying to leave more than they'd been left.

I wondered how many people on this planet had learned that lesson alone.

There was a storage tin beneath the panel.

Wren opened it carefully.

A broken knife. Two lengths of cord. A folded piece of suit lining, cut into strips for binding. Nothing that gave us an answer about who had put it there.

Risa lifted one of the cords.

A knot had been worked into it, then another, spaced along its length.

“For measuring?” she asked.

“Or counting,” Wren said.

Luna looked toward the arrow.

“We photograph it. Put it back. Mark the place.”

I nodded.

We added clean water from one of our vessels, kept separate from the old jar. Food wrapped against damp. A new strip beside the panel with our name, direction, and the day.

Then we stood in the opening and looked along the ridge.

There was another shoulder beyond the line Luna had drawn.

It looked very interesting.

“Tomorrow?” I asked.

“After we look at the wing's pictures,” she said.

I nodded.

She glanced at me, surprised enough that I noticed.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I can learn.”

“I know.”

Her voice softened on the second word.

She touched my arm once as she passed, then went to help Wren carry the empty packing cloth back to the skiff.

Risa waited beside me.

“Another walk,” she reminded me.

“I remember.”

We came away with a place on the map instead of inventing a person to put there.

It was enough for one morning.

The first light appeared while we were loading.

High above the far ridge. Too bright for the hour. A white point with a thin line behind it.

I looked up because Wren stopped speaking.

For a moment, none of us said anything.

Then a second point appeared.

Then a third.

Luna set down the water vessel.

“Lucas.”

“I see them.”

The white lines lengthened.

Not one object breaking apart. Separate tracks, widening away from one another as they came down.

I knew the shape before I wanted to.

I'd been inside one.

Pods.

They came through the sky in a spread too wide for us to see all of it at once. One toward the hills beyond Scarecrow. Another south of our ridge. More farther east, their trails fading into cloud.

I counted six.

Lost one behind the shoulder.

Found two more.

“Dot,” Luna said to the wing. “Incoming pods. Record bearings. Tell the camp.”

The little machine turned its camera upward.

Risa put a hand flat on the side of the skiff.

“They're doing it again.”

Nobody asked who she meant.

For a moment, I was back inside the falling dark.

The suit against my skin. The knowledge that the ground was somewhere below and I wasn't going to get to negotiate with it.

Then Luna was in front of me.

“Nearest one first.”

I looked at her.

“Not all of them at once. Where can you reach?”

I turned toward the southern track.

The light was lower now, burning above the next valley. A dark shape separated from it and dropped behind the ridge.

“There.”

“Route?”

“Along the river. Then over the low saddle.”

She nodded.

“Go.”

We climbed aboard so quickly that Wren nearly left her slate. Risa caught it and put it in her lap.

I lifted the hull.

We did not fly as high as panic wanted.

I kept the skiff low over the ridge and took the saddle where I'd said I would. The weight pulled at me when I turned too sharply, and I corrected it before the vessels slid.

Luna watched the sky.

Wren watched the ground.

Risa watched me until I told her to look for a clear landing place, because I needed her eyes on something I couldn't give mine to yet.

She did.

Behind us, the wing climbed, carrying our view back toward Dot.

Ahead, smoke rose from a shallow valley full of silver-green.

The pod had struck a bank above a stream.

It lay tilted on one side, half buried in torn soil. A groove behind it showed where it had bounced before stopping.

I set the skiff down on bare stone above the bank.

No fire.

No moving figures.

The hatch was closed.

I could see enough through the damaged side to know there was someone inside, but not enough to make every hurried thought into an action.

“Alive,” I said.

Risa was already climbing out.

“Wait.”

Luna's voice stopped all of us for a breath.

“Ground first. Then hatch. Wren, mark our position.”

I looked at the bank.

Loose earth. Stone beneath. A narrow place where the pod's weight was still settling.

I made that place hold before anyone went down to it.

We called through the hatch.

No answer.

I looked at the fastening. Jammed, twisted by the impact, but separate from the frame around the person inside.

I changed only the damaged latch.

Luna and Risa pulled the hatch free together.

Cold air came out.

Then the sharp, enclosed smell of a suit and a person who had been shut inside it for too long.

A girl lay in the seat.

Young.

Her eyes were open, but she didn't seem to see us yet. Her lips moved. One hand worked against the strap across her chest as though she'd been trying the same motion for a long time.

I crouched where she could see my face without having to turn.

“My name's Lucas. We're going to get you out.”

She looked at my eyes.

The movement stopped.

“No,” she whispered.

I stayed still.

Luna lowered herself beside the opening.

“Can you tell us where it hurts?”

The girl's eyes moved from me to her.

“Squad leader?”

“Luna Windsor.”

The name did something I could see but couldn't interpret. The girl's breathing changed. Her hand let go of the strap.

“They said—”

“What did they say?” Luna asked.

The girl looked back at me.

“Scarecrow.”

I glanced at Risa.

Her face had gone very still.

“Yes,” I said. “That's where we live.”

The girl began to cry.

We didn't ask her to explain while she was still strapped into the seat.

Risa found the releases. Luna kept talking, short ordinary sentences, telling her what would move before it moved.

I checked what I could see. A bruised shoulder. A cut near her hairline. Nothing that made me want to pull her out faster than we could do it carefully.

Her legs shook when the last strap came away.

Wren brought the blanket.

We helped her sit at the opening first, then waited while she learned that the ground wasn't moving beneath her anymore.

Only then did she tell us her name.

“Nell. Nell Armitage.”

Luna repeated it.

“How old are you, Nell?”

“Sixteen.”

The word went through me more cleanly than the sight of the pods had.

Luna didn't look at me.

She stayed with Nell.

“How many came with you?”

“I don't know.”

“How many in your group before the pods?”

Nell tried to answer.

Stopped.

“Four in my squad. There were others.”

“That's enough for now.”

“They told us the bases were ready.”

Risa handed her water.

Nell took it in both hands, spilling a little onto the blanket.

“Reception sites,” she said. “Someone would be waiting.”

I looked at the torn slope, the empty stream, the sky still holding pale lines where people had fallen through it.

“We're here,” Wren said.

Nell drank.

The Teeming arrived while we were bringing the bag from the skiff.

Three at first, moving along the stream bank. Then more behind them, emerging from the silver-green with their heads turned toward the pod.

Nell saw them.

The cup fell out of her hand.

Risa moved between her and the bank, keeping her own hands low.

I stood beside the pod and looked at the approaching shapes.

For one dreadful moment, all the work at the water model felt very far away.

These weren't the guide we'd watched walk into our field. We didn't know them. We didn't know whether the queen below Scarecrow had anything to do with this valley at all.

Luna lifted her arm across the way.

The nearest creature stopped.

The others didn't stop immediately.

Then they did.

We kept the pod behind us.

Luna held her arm steady. Risa stayed with Nell. Wren moved the bag without turning her back on the stream.

The first Teeming lowered its head.

One limb touched the bank.

Then lifted toward the pod.

I didn't know what it wanted.

I didn't make it into an enemy because not knowing was frightening.

I pointed toward the skiff. Open hand. Slow movement.

Luna stepped back with me, one pace.

The creature remained where it was.

We took another.

Still nothing.

Nell could walk with help.

Risa gave her an arm. Wren took the other side. Luna and I stayed between them and the stream until they reached the skiff.

The Teeming moved only when we were almost at the rim.

Toward the pod.

Not toward Nell.

One touched the open hatch. Another went around the torn bank, following the groove where the hull had struck.

I couldn't tell whether they were examining it or waiting for something inside to answer.

We left the pod where it was.

Nell came with us.

When I lifted the skiff, none of them followed beyond the stream.

I watched until the turn hid them.

Then I put everything I had into bringing the hull home steadily.

Nell sat between Wren and Risa with the blanket pulled to her chin.

After a while, she looked at me.

“They stopped.”

“Yes.”

“They said they never stop.”

“Sometimes they do.”

She looked toward the ridge behind us.

“Did you make them?”

“No.”

I kept my eyes on the rim.

“We asked for room. They gave it.”

She didn't answer.

I didn't need her to believe everything we'd learned in the time it took to cross one valley.

She had seen them stop.

That could be the first thing.

The camp was moving when we returned.

Not running in circles. Moving with purpose.

Liam and Sera stood beside a second load of water and blankets. Ilse had cleared space near the shelters. Toby waited with the clean cloth, his wall close around him. Dot had a map open beneath two hands, marks appearing on it as the wings returned pictures.

More than the eight tracks we'd counted.

Some far beyond the canyon.

I set the skiff down.

Risa stayed with Nell while Wren helped her out.

Luna went straight to Dot.

“Confirmed landings first. Not trails. Which can we reach before dark?”

Sera came to the rim and looked at my face.

“One?”

“One here. Alive. There are more.”

She took my hand briefly.

“Sit. Drink. Then we decide the next flight.”

I wanted to argue.

I drank instead.

Nell stopped beside the scarecrow.

She looked at the patched shirt, the empty cloth face, the boards beneath its arms.

Here.

The search list.

Rafe Dunmore.

People came toward her slowly enough that she could choose where to look first.

Toby introduced himself. Asked whether she wanted to sit near the fire or under the shelter.

She looked back at me.

“They said it was a man,” she said.

“What was?”

“Scarecrow.”

I looked at the figure, then at the camp around it.

“It's a place,” I said.

Nell held the blanket tighter.

Then she let Toby show her where to sit.

I had a little time before the next flight.

Enough to check the hull. Enough to eat something Liam put into my hand without asking whether I wanted it.

Enough for Luna to show me the nearest confirmed landing and Risa to tell us Nell was answering clearly now.

Not enough to understand why Command had sent another wave without warning us.

Not enough to know how many were still coming down in places nobody was watching.

Dot kept drawing marks on the map.

Sera sat beside me while I ate.

“We said we'd make time,” I said quietly.

She looked at the sky, then back at me.

“We will.”

“Today—”

“Today we bring them in. That doesn't make yesterday untrue.”

She kissed my cheek and stood to help Liam load the blankets.

I finished eating.

Day 439–440. Three marks.

Risa drew her father in a larger chair. I wish I'd seen it.

Day 440. Three shelves. Old rain channel. Shelter beneath the slab. Water jars. Tools. An arrow farther along the ridge.

Take what you need. Leave the rest.

No name we can read. Recorded. Added supplies. Came back to the line we'd agreed on.

Pods in the sky before we left. At least eight tracks from where we stood. Dot has more.

Nearest landing south of the saddle. Nell Armitage. Sixteen. Bruised, frightened, alive.

They told her reception sites were ready.

Teeming at the stream. Luna raised her arm. They stopped. Examined the pod after we moved away. Didn't follow Nell.

We don't know who they answer to. We know what they did.

Nell at Scarecrow. Twenty-three humans. Two kits.

The others are still coming down.

Drink. Eat. Check the hull.

Go again.