Chapter 156 The Way Back

Oren was standing beside the water jars when I came out of the shelter.

Fully dressed. Blanket folded. Cup in both hands.

He straightened when he saw me.

“You don't have to do that,” I said.

He looked at the cup, then at me.

“Stand up straighter,” I explained.

“Oh.”

He tried to stop doing it. Didn't quite manage.

It was Day 441. The sky above the canyon was pale, and someone had already started the breakfast fire. Beyond the shelters, Dot's hands were laying out fresh cloth, water, and the bags for the first flight.

Oren glanced toward them.

“Are we going out again?”

“Not to search. Not today.”

“I can carry things.”

“I know. Eat first.”

He nodded.

Then, very carefully, he said, “I don't know where the bowls are.”

I showed him.

That was the first lesson of the morning.

Luna began the rest while we waited for the dawn window.

No lines. No shouted names. She gathered the newcomers who could walk and showed them the water, the stores, the safe paths, and the shelter where Toby could usually be found.

Dev watched from his bedding while Nell brought him the names afterward.

Where the ground was marked, they stayed inside the marks. If somebody held an arm across a path, they stopped. If their power did something they hadn't meant, they said so before trying to hide it.

Kellan looked down at his hands.

Liam, sitting beside the fire, lifted one of his own.

“Still applies to me,” he said.

Kellan looked at him.

Then back at Luna.

She nodded.

“All of us.”

The dawn names came and went.

Dot kept the record. Wren checked the last exchange. There was no voice telling us how many pods had fallen, no count we could place beside the map and trust.

I waited until the window was over before asking whether there had been anything new.

“Nothing this unit can identify with confidence.”

I nodded.

Then we used the information we had.

Six landing places still to reach. Two trails whose ends were missing. Wings had watched the nearest sites through the night and found movement at three of them.

At two others, the pods stood open.

The last was beneath a collapsed stand of growth, too dark and crowded for the camera to show us the hatch.

We couldn't spend the morning wishing the map would become clearer by itself.

Luna stayed at camp for the first flight.

Sera and Wren came with me. Risa went with Corr and Ilse along the eastern shelf, where two of the remaining pods were close enough to reach on foot.

Liam helped load, then went back to Kellan. Toby checked the straps on the carrying frame without offering to become the person on every journey.

Risa came to the skiff before we lifted.

“Same rule,” she said.

“Turn back if the ground changes.”

“And tell someone before you decide you're the only person who can go farther.”

I looked at her.

She was smiling, but only a little.

“I will.”

She kissed me, quick and warm, then went to join Corr.

Sera waited until she was out of hearing.

“You're getting very thoroughly instructed.”

“I've noticed.”

“Good. It should improve the chances that one of us is listened to.”

I lifted the hull.

The first two had found each other.

We saw them beside a strip of bare ground below the northern ridge, sitting close together beneath a piece of pod lining stretched between branches.

One of Dot's wings rested on a stone nearby with its light on.

They had spent the night watching it.

When the skiff appeared, the boy stood too quickly and had to catch himself against the tree.

The girl beside him didn't move.

She watched us with the hard, fixed attention of someone who had decided she wouldn't let herself believe another thing until it was close enough to touch.

Wren called from the bow.

We landed.

The wing folded its little light away.

Only then did the girl begin to cry.

Asha Bren was sixteen.

Tom Linn was fifteen.

They knew Nell.

That was the first thing we learned after their names, and the first thing that made both of them look at us properly.

“She's alive?” Tom asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“At the base?”

“At Scarecrow. She's helping keep the arrival list.”

Asha put both hands over her mouth.

Tom sat down again so suddenly that Sera moved toward him, then stopped when he shook his head.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don't be.”

We let them have the moment before asking about injuries.

They had moved because Asha's pod was taking on water.

Tom had heard her calling from the next hollow. He'd got the hatch open with a broken tool and pulled her far enough up the bank that she could breathe without swallowing mud.

His hand was cut. Her ankle was swollen. Both were cold, hungry, and thoroughly convinced they'd be punished for leaving the equipment.

Wren recorded the pod positions while Sera helped them drink.

“There's a fourth in our squad,” Asha said.

“Name?”

“Dena. Dena Holt.”

I looked up at the surname, then wrote it down without making anything of it.

“Have you seen her since the launch?”

Asha shook her head.

“Nell was ahead of us. Dena was behind. We couldn't see once the doors shut.”

Wren put the name beside the two unresolved tracks.

Not under either one.

Beside them, where we could remember the question without pretending we'd answered it.

We brought Asha and Tom home before the morning was gone.

Nell saw them from the shelter.

For a moment, she didn't seem able to stand.

Then she did, and Toby caught the slate before it fell from her lap.

I kept the skiff still while Sera helped Asha to the rim.

Nell reached them there.

All three tried to speak at once.

I looked away long enough to get my own feet beneath me.

Luna met me with water and the updated map.

“Two more coming on foot,” she said. “Risa's party found them together.”

“Names?”

“Elin Marr and Pavel Hart. Both sixteen. Walking slowly. Ilse says they'll be here before the next meal.”

I looked at the four marks she'd changed.

Two remaining confirmed sites.

Both pods open.

Two young people we still hadn't seen.

I rested until Luna let me stand without watching my hands.

Not long enough to forget the map. Long enough that the shaking from the first journey didn't come with me into the second.

Sera stayed with Asha, whose ankle needed another look. Liam climbed into the skiff with Luna and me.

Wren remained at the map, ready to compare whatever the returning wings found.

As we left, Risa's group appeared on the eastern path.

Two new figures between them.

Risa raised her hand when she saw the hull lift.

I answered.

There wasn't time to go and hear everything she had seen.

There would be, if we kept bringing one another back.

The first empty pod lay on its side beside a shallow ravine.

Its hatch was open.

A strap hung over the edge, cut cleanly through.

I landed on the higher ground and looked at the slope before anyone went down. There was no body in the seat. No body beneath it. A little blood on one corner of the lining, dried dark.

Luna crouched beside the cut strap.

“Tool?”

“Could be,” I said.

“Could be something sharp that wasn't one.”

I nodded.

The ground around the hatch was confused. Boot marks. Narrow grooves. The many-pointed tracks we'd learned to recognize.

Teeming.

Liam looked at me.

Neither of us said the first thing we'd thought.

The second pod was farther down the ravine.

Also open.

This one had no obvious blood. One boot lay beside the hatch, its fastening broken. A piece of cloth had been caught on a branch lower down.

Luna marked both positions.

“No conclusions yet.”

She said it to herself as much as to us.

I looked along the ravine.

The tracks continued toward a narrow opening beneath the roots of a fallen tree. Too small for the skiff. Wide enough for people to crawl through if they had to.

Or be carried.

Dot's wing settled on the bank above us.

Its lamp turned toward the opening.

We called.

No answer.

Liam knelt at the entrance without putting his head inside.

“Hello? We're from Scarecrow.”

A sound came back.

Not a word.

Then another, thin and angry and unmistakably human.

“Stay back!”

Luna moved beside him.

“We're people. Luna Windsor. Liam Calder. Lucas Dask.”

A pause.

“You're not.”

Liam looked at her.

She kept her eyes on the opening.

“We can wait here while you look.”

“You're not people.”

The voice broke on the last word.

I felt the shape of the situation change.

Someone inside had been frightened for a very long night.

We were arriving at the end of it without knowing what had happened first.

Luna held the lamp low.

The entrance widened after the roots. Beyond it was a shallow chamber, open on one side to a thread of daylight.

I could see two figures.

A boy sitting with his back against the wall. A girl lying beside him, her head on a pale folded thing.

Between us and them stood a Teeming.

It turned toward the lamp.

Liam's hand warmed beside me. I felt it through the air before any flame appeared.

He closed his fingers.

The creature lifted one front limb across the opening.

Luna stopped.

So did we.

The boy saw us beyond it.

His face changed.

“Help her.”

“We will,” Luna said. “Tell me your name.”

“Jory. Jory Fen.”

“And hers?”

“Safi Arden. She won't wake up properly.”

I looked at what I could see of her face.

She was breathing.

I could tell that much. I couldn't tell enough about the rest from outside, with the creature between us and the lamp at the wrong angle.

The Teeming kept its limb across the way.

Luna didn't push against it.

She pointed to Safi.

Then to the bag in Liam's hand.

Opened the flap slowly, showing the cloth and the water.

The creature lowered its head.

Its limb remained up.

Jory made a small, desperate sound.

“They won't let us go.”

Luna looked past the creature to the floor.

I followed her gaze.

There was a hollow immediately beyond the entrance, half covered by a mat of loose fibers. Beneath it, water moved over stones we couldn't see clearly.

The boy was on the dry side.

The Teeming stood with one set of limbs braced across the edge.

Luna moved the lamp.

The creature shifted its raised limb with it.

Not toward us.

Toward the hollow.

I picked up a small stone from beside my boot.

Held it where the creature could see, then let it fall onto the loose mat.

The fibers parted.

The stone disappeared into the water beneath with a splash farther down than I'd expected.

Liam swore softly.

Luna looked at the Teeming.

Then moved the lamp toward the narrow dry ledge on the other side of the entrance.

The limb lowered.

The creature stepped back.

There was room to pass there.

One at a time.

I went first because I needed to look at Safi.

Luna followed with the lamp. Liam stayed at the entrance until we were across, then brought the bag along the same dry edge.

The Teeming moved out of the way.

Jory stared at it.

“It was stopping us because of the floor?”

“Maybe,” Luna said.

He looked at the hollow.

“I thought—”

“We can talk about it when she's ready to move.”

I knelt beside Safi.

The pale folded thing beneath her head was woven fiber, dry on top. There was a shallow dish of water nearby.

Someone had put both within reach.

I didn't know who until the Teeming moved the dish away from my knee so I wouldn't knock it over.

Safi was fifteen.

Jory told us that while I checked her.

She'd struck her head in the landing. She roused when Luna spoke close to her, tried to answer, then drifted again. The things I knew to look for were there to be looked at, but knowing where to look didn't make me know everything.

I didn't find a large pocket of blood pressing where it shouldn't.

I told Luna exactly that.

Not that she was fine.

“We take her carefully. Keep watching her. Toby needs to see her as soon as we can.”

Liam unrolled the folded carrying cloth.

Jory reached to help, then pulled back when his wrist failed under the weight.

“Show me,” Luna said.

He shook his head.

“Hers first.”

“We have more than two hands.”

She took his wrist gently while Liam and I prepared the cloth.

The Teeming brought another piece of woven material.

Laid it beside Safi.

Then stepped back.

I looked at the creature, at the pod lining caught on Jory's sleeve, at the tracks we'd followed into the ravine.

“Did they bring you here?” I asked him.

He nodded.

“I couldn't carry her. They came to the pod. I tried to keep them away, but—”

His voice went thin.

Luna waited.

“They picked her up. I followed. I thought if I stayed close—”

“You did stay close,” she said.

Jory looked at the folded material.

The water.

The hole in the floor.

He had no words for any of it.

Neither did I yet.

We took the offered cloth.

Getting Safi across the ledge took all our attention.

Liam went backward. I held the front of the frame we'd made from the carrying cloth and two straight pieces of pod strut. Luna kept the lamp where both of us could see our feet.

The Teeming stood beside the hollow.

It didn't touch Safi as we passed.

At the narrowest place, one of the struts came close to the wall. The creature lifted a limb beneath it, holding that side level while Liam shifted his grip.

Then withdrew.

A little help.

Precisely where the weight had been going wrong.

I looked back once we were clear.

It remained at the entrance, with the water dish beside its feet.

I raised my empty hand.

Its limb lifted in return.

Jory walked with Luna's help.

He kept looking over his shoulder.

“They could have hurt us.”

“Yes.”

“They didn't.”

“No.”

He was quiet for several steps.

Then, “I hit one. When they came near her.”

Luna glanced toward the entrance.

“I don't know what they understood,” she said. “You were frightened. They still brought her somewhere dry.”

Jory looked down at his injured wrist.

For the rest of the walk to the skiff, he said nothing.

We laid Safi along the open places in the hull.

Jory sat beside her head. Luna stayed where she could watch both of them. Liam took the bag and the nearest vessel, making room without waiting to be asked.

It was a crowded journey.

I kept it slow.

Every rough movement in the air felt larger because I knew who was lying behind me.

When Safi opened her eyes and asked where the ceiling had gone, Luna answered as though it were an ordinary question.

“We're outside. We're taking you somewhere with people.”

Safi blinked against the light.

“Jory?”

“Here,” he said immediately.

She closed her eyes again, but her hand stayed in his unhurt one.

Toby met us at the landing place.

Risa was with him. She'd returned from the eastern shelf and rested long enough that she could help without pretending she wasn't tired.

I told them what I'd seen. What I hadn't seen. How Safi had answered during the journey.

Toby asked the questions while Risa helped us move her.

Then they took over.

I stood beside the skiff with the empty bag in my hand until Sera came and removed it.

“Sit.”

“I need to tell Dot—”

“I'll bring her.”

I sat.

Sera stayed beside me until I stopped looking as though standing was still an option I ought to consider.

Then she went for Dot.

By evening, all twelve confirmed landing sites had names beside them.

Twelve young people brought to Scarecrow.

Thirty-four humans now. Two kits. Thirty-six names under HERE, though Wren had needed a second board to give the new ones the same space as the old.

Two tracks still ended nowhere on the map.

Dena Holt was still a name we were looking for.

There might be others beyond those two tracks.

We didn't call the search finished.

We called the first twelve accounted for, and let that be the good thing it was.

Dot showed Wren where the last two trails had disappeared behind cloud.

She didn't draw straight lines through the missing part. She marked the area they might have reached, then the smaller places her wings had already checked.

Nell stood beside them with Dena's name on a separate strip.

“Can I tell you what her pod looked like?” she asked.

Wren moved the map so she could reach the edge of the table.

“Anything you remember.”

The description might help. It might not. A color seen in the launch room could look different under burnt casing and mud.

They wrote it down anyway.

Then Dot asked about the number beside the hatch, and Nell closed her eyes to try to remember.

I left them working.

There were things to do for the missing that didn't require me to be the one doing them.

Safi woke properly before supper.

Toby told me from the doorway, quietly, because the whole camp didn't need to crowd her bed to prove we cared.

She knew her name. Knew Jory. Asked for water and complained about the lamp.

Toby looked relieved when he repeated the complaint.

“We'll keep watching her.”

I nodded.

Jory came out later with his wrist supported against his chest.

He stopped beside the fire.

“The thing in the cave,” he said.

Everyone near him grew quieter.

He looked at the ground.

“It kept the water where she could reach it.”

Nobody interrupted.

“I thought it was waiting for her to die.”

His voice broke.

“I don't think it was.”

Sera made room beside her.

Jory sat down.

We told the queen's guide the part we could tell.

Not the names. Not the whole story. We didn't have that much shared language yet.

Dot brought the recording of the ravine to the field turn when the guide appeared. We showed the carrying cloth, the shallow dish, the limb lifting the strut.

The creature watched the moving image.

Then touched the screen with the edge of a limb.

It might have recognized the other Teeming. It might have been examining the light. We didn't claim either.

When Jory saw what we were doing from the shelter, he asked whether he could come nearer.

We let him choose the distance.

He brought an empty cup.

Set it on the path.

Stepped back.

The guide looked from the cup to him.

Then lowered one limb beside it.

Jory stayed long enough to see that.

Afterward, he went back to Safi.

Luna found me beside the new name board after dark.

I was checking the spellings against Nell's slate.

“Leave it for tonight,” she said.

“Two more lines.”

She looked.

Waited while I finished them.

Then took the pencil from my hand.

We walked back together, slowly. At the shelter, she stopped and put her hand against my cheek.

“I missed you today.”

“I was with you for most of it.”

“I know.”

I understood a moment later.

The flights. The questions. The counting. All the words that had passed between us because someone else needed something done.

I set the slate down.

Kissed her.

When we parted, she kept her forehead against mine for a moment.

“That,” she said quietly.

“Yes.”

Risa and Sera were waiting with food.

We sat close enough that none of us had to raise a voice. There were things to discuss tomorrow. Another flight. The two missing tracks. Whether the new pods had carried any record of their full launch group.

We left most of it until tomorrow.

Risa told us Pavel had asked whether the bowl he ate from would be assigned to him permanently. Sera said Kellan had made a flame no larger than a seed and held it steady long enough to look pleased before he put it out.

Luna stole the last piece of bread from my bowl.

I let her.

Then Sera put half of hers in its place, which made Risa laugh.

Ordinary things.

Not because the day had been ordinary.

Because it hadn't, and we still needed somewhere to come back to inside it.

Day 441. The way back.

Asha Bren, sixteen. Tom Linn, fifteen. Together beneath a shelter beside the northern pods. Nell's squad. Dena Holt still missing.

East party: Elin Marr and Pavel Hart, both sixteen. Home on foot with Risa, Corr, and Ilse.

Last two confirmed pods open. Tracks into the ravine.

Jory Fen, sixteen. Safi Arden, fifteen. Teeming had carried Safi to a dry place. Water beside her. One stopped us at a covered hole in the floor.

We waited. Found the safe ledge.

It helped hold the frame level when we took her out.

Safi awake before supper. Toby watching. Jory's wrist supported.

All twelve confirmed landings accounted for. Thirty-four humans at Scarecrow. Two kits. Thirty-six names here.

Two tracks still unplaced. No declaration that everyone is found.

Jory put a cup on the path for the guide.

We don't know all the reasons they helped.

We know they did.