Chapter 162 Someone Expected Back

The third chair was finished before breakfast.

Holt inspected it with the air of a man accepting the surrender of a disappointing army.

“Better,” he said.

“It's the same as the second.”

“Then you're learning consistency.”

He put his cup on the arm and told me to stop hovering. He had a walk to take and wanted to finish his tea while it was hot.

“Where?”

“The ridge cache.”

I looked up.

“Luna's going. Corr too. I'll take the first stretch with them.” He caught my expression. “On the broad path, Dask. With my stick. She hasn't asked me to climb the mountain on my teeth.”

It was Day 462.

I had been thinking about an empty chair as a place somebody had left.

Holt was thinking about it as somewhere he would sit when he got back.

Luna had the map out beside the morning records.

The route beyond the water cache bent around the ridge. Dot's wing had followed it until the rock folded over itself and there was no longer enough space to see where a person could put their feet.

That was where a person needed to look.

Luna, Corr, and Risa would follow the path. Holt knew the shape of the western slopes and would go as far as the wide shelf, then return with the first report. Dot would send a wing ahead while keeping another over the open approach.

Nobody needed me to fly them there.

That took a moment to settle.

“I could go after Sera's treatment,” I said.

Luna looked at the map rather than immediately looking at me.

“And come back before tomorrow's?”

“Yes.”

“What if we find someone who can't move?”

I thought about the ground beyond the ridge. A narrow path. A journey that might become longer because somebody needed it to.

“I'd have to leave you.”

“Or you'd stay and make a different promise harder to keep.”

She touched the broad shelf on the map.

“We can look. If we need the skiff, we'll tell you where.”

I went to Sera before they left.

She had already washed and was sitting with the blanket folded beside her instead of around her shoulders. I noticed. Tried not to give it the weight of a miracle.

She noticed me noticing.

“I'm warm enough.”

“Good.”

“Ordinarily warm.”

“Also good.”

Toby arrived with the notes, and we did the morning's work.

Same careful sequence. Fresh compound. Check what remained. Watch what changed. Record what we could actually see rather than what yesterday made us expect.

Sera was still improving.

The process that ought to supply the compound still wasn't finishing properly on its own.

Both things belonged on the page.

When we were done, she asked where Luna was going.

I told her.

“And you're staying?”

“Yes.”

She studied my face.

“Are you angry about it?”

“No.”

Then, because she deserved the answer under that one, I added, “I'm trying to stop feeling useless when somebody else leaves.”

She reached for my hand.

“You've just made something my body needs to work. You may have to find a different word.”

Risa found me outside with the supply bundles.

She checked the knots while I checked them, which should have been unnecessary but wasn't. One of mine would have tightened itself into a permanent argument the first time it got wet.

She loosened it and tied it again.

“Watching?”

“Yes.”

“You're watching my face.”

“I can do both.”

“Apparently not.”

I watched the knot properly.

Then she put her hand behind my neck and kissed me.

It wasn't a farewell that asked the whole camp to stand still. Just a kiss before a walk that might take the day.

“Don't spend the afternoon inventing things happening to us,” she said.

“I'll try.”

“Do something with your hands.”

“Holt will have enough chairs to furnish a dome.”

“He'll complain about every one.”

She smiled, lifted the bundle, and went to join Luna.

Luna came over last.

I kissed her too.

“Come back,” I said.

“That's the plan.”

I let her go without adding six instructions she'd already put on the slate.

Wren watched them leave from beside the signal frame.

Toby was with her. Not doing anything useful, as far as I could see. Standing close enough that their sleeves touched when she raised her arm.

He moved when she needed the space.

Stayed when she lowered it.

She said something, and he laughed.

I went to the workbench before I could turn into somebody who watched other people being happy as though it required supervision.

Anja had claimed one end of the table.

She was marking the storage jars with little strips that could be felt as well as read. Lena had asked for a way to distinguish the contents without having to ask somebody every time.

One raised line. Two. A rough patch. A smooth circle.

Anja handed me a strip.

“Can you make this less sharp without changing the mark?”

I did.

She ran a thumb along it, then passed it to Lena, who sat on the other side of the table with three jars in front of her.

Lena felt the edge.

“Better.”

Liam arrived carrying two more jars and tried to put them down in the space where the finished strips were drying.

Anja caught his sleeve.

“Other side.”

He moved them.

Then stayed to watch her explain the next mark.

There was no pot handle to repair. No reason he couldn't have gone away.

He stayed anyway.

By midmorning, Sera wanted to see the forge.

Not work in it.

See it.

She said the distinction before I could make a face about it, which was fair.

We chose a short visit after she had rested. Liam came to carry the folded seat. I brought water and managed not to bring the notebook.

The forge looked like a place where its owner had been away.

Nothing terrible. The ash was cleared. The tools were present, most of them where Sera believed they should be. But one work surface had acquired a box that didn't belong there, and somebody had set a damaged fitting aside without saying whether it was waiting to be repaired or thrown away.

She pointed at the box.

Liam moved it.

She pointed at the fitting.

I explained.

She asked three questions, identified the part I'd been overlooking, and looked very pleased with herself.

Then she sat down.

No fire.

No proving anything by standing longer than she could.

She leaned against the back of the seat and looked around her forge.

“I missed this.”

“I know.”

She smiled faintly.

“No. You missed me being well in it. I missed the place.”

I looked at the marked bench, the tongs, the familiar darkening above the hottest part of the work.

After a moment, I nodded.

“I think I understand.”

Liam waited until she had settled before asking whether she thought Anja liked walking.

Sera looked at him.

I looked at him.

He looked offended by both of us.

“She asked you to walk,” Sera said.

“Yes, but perhaps she wanted to get somewhere.”

“Where did you go?”

“To the field.”

“Did you do anything there?”

“Talked.”

“Did she hurry back?”

“No.”

Sera folded her hands in her lap.

“I think you may have enough information to ask her again.”

Liam considered that with more seriousness than he'd ever given my advice.

Then he looked at me.

“If you laugh, I'll burn your jacket.”

“It isn't a very good jacket.”

“I'll wait until you've made a better one.”

Sera laughed.

It filled the forge in a way the heat hadn't been doing lately.

We took her back before she was exhausted.

That mattered.

She was tired, but she was still talking when we reached the shelter. Still able to say what she'd liked and what she wanted to do differently next time.

Liam put down the seat and went to find Anja.

Sera watched him leave.

“Good,” she said.

“He hasn't asked her yet.”

“I mean him going.”

I sat beside her.

For most of the last weeks, Liam had arranged his whole face around whether hers looked better. He'd needed something to look forward to that wasn't another result on a medical page.

She lay back.

“Let me know when they hear from the ridge.”

“I will.”

“And Lucas?”

“Yes?”

“I'm glad you stayed. Even if I spend half of it asleep.”

I kissed her cheek and left the flap where she liked it, with light coming through the upper corner.

Holt returned shortly after noon.

Walking. Annoyed by a stone that had found its way into his boot. Carrying the first report folded inside his jacket.

He sat in his chair before giving it to me.

“Still want the third?” I asked.

“I've used it twice.”

“Then you admit it's useful.”

“Don't get ambitious.”

He took off the boot and tipped it upside down.

A tiny pale stone fell out.

He looked at it with profound dislike.

Then handed me the report.

The old cache had changed.

Not much.

One of our clean water vessels had been moved from the inner side of the shelf to the outer side. Some food was gone. The strip bearing Scarecrow's direction and the day remained where we'd left it.

Beneath it was another piece of lining.

Luna had copied the words exactly.

TWO.

BELOW THE SPLIT.

CAN'T GET UP.

No name. No date.

But the lining lay over the strip Luna had left on her last visit while I was studying Sera's illness.

Newer than that visit.

Newer than the old, undated arrow that had kept drawing us back to the ridge.

I read it twice.

Holt watched me.

“That's why they're continuing,” he said.

I looked toward the path they'd taken.

Two.

The word made the landscape larger all at once.

Dot brought the screen to the table.

Her wing could relay a picture from the open ridge, but the turn beneath the overhang hid the ground from it. She kept the wing above the last place it could see Luna and sent a hand along the path with Corr.

I watched them shorten the space between themselves before moving under the stone.

The camera gave me gray rock, a shoulder, part of a boot.

Nothing I could reach through.

I reminded myself of that before I began wanting to move the rock from here.

Luna's voice came thinly through the relay.

“Cache confirmed. Following the split. No sound yet.”

Holt leaned forward in his chair.

“Ask her whether the outer stone is red.”

Dot passed the question.

A pause.

“Red under the dust.”

Holt nodded.

“The shelf doubles back beneath it. There was a runoff cut on that side when I crossed the next ridge. Tell her to look below the lip before following the upper edge.”

The picture turned.

A narrow dark line appeared beneath the path.

Luna said, “I see it.”

Toby came over without his bag.

He listened to the report, asked how far a stretcher could be carried before the path narrowed, and went to prepare what might be needed.

Wren followed as far as the supply shelf.

“Do you need me?” she asked.

He began to answer too quickly, stopped, and looked at her.

“For this? No. I've got it.”

“All right.”

She touched his arm.

Then went back to the signals.

I found I was proud of him for a thing that wouldn't have looked like anything to somebody who hadn't known him before.

The first answer from below was too faint for the relay.

I knew there had been one because Luna lifted her hand and everyone stopped.

Risa crouched near the edge of the split.

No reaching into the mountain with current. No bright demonstration. She was listening with her head tilted, one hand braced on ordinary stone.

“Again,” Luna called.

Wind moved across the little microphone.

Then something underneath it.

A scrape. A voice, perhaps.

Corr lowered the hand's lamp into the opening.

The screen filled with the opposite wall and a patch of pale material farther down.

It moved.

I stood before I knew I was doing it.

Holt caught the edge of my sleeve.

“Let them look.”

I sat.

There was a ledge below the split.

Not directly under the opening. Farther back, beneath a shoulder of stone. The camera had to turn before the light caught it properly.

A person sat there.

One arm raised across their face against the sudden brightness.

Beside them, blankets or clothing made a long shape against the wall.

Luna lowered her voice.

“We're from Scarecrow. We found your message.”

The raised arm came down.

The figure tried to stand.

Couldn't.

I heard Risa say, “Stay there. We can see you.”

A reply came through this time.

Rough. Barely enough breath around it to carry the words.

“There's two.”

“We know,” Luna said.

The figure bowed over their knees.

I couldn't tell whether they were crying.

We got water down first.

Not we. Corr and Risa, with Luna holding the line and watching the edge.

I sat beside a screen and watched people I loved do work they knew how to do.

The first vessel swung too far toward the wall. Corr drew it back, changed the angle, lowered it again.

The person on the ledge reached slowly.

Caught the cord.

Pulled the vessel close enough to undo it.

Then turned toward the shape under the blankets before drinking themselves.

Toby leaned nearer the screen.

“Ask if the other person is awake.”

Dot relayed it.

A pause while Luna repeated the question.

“Yes.”

A second voice, weaker than the first, said something we couldn't make out.

Two voices.

I heard Wren let out a breath behind me.

She had come back from the signal frame without my noticing.

The way down wasn't safe to use as it was.

A section of the old path had fallen. What remained looked broad from above and narrowed to almost nothing halfway beneath the overhang.

The people below had lowered themselves on a line that was still visible against the wall.

The line had frayed where it passed over stone.

One of them had hurt a leg. The other had been making the climb for water until the last attempt ended badly.

That much came through in pieces.

Enough to understand the message.

Not enough to decide how to lift either person without seeing them properly.

Luna sent the next report while Corr and Risa secured the supply line.

“Sheltered ledge. Two adults. Both answering. We're staying with them until relief arrives. Need a proper approach and Toby's instructions for the lift.”

I looked at the map.

Then at the position Dot had marked beneath the ridge.

A place I could reach in the skiff before dark if I stayed above the open ground.

A place I could return from tonight.

Toby and I worked through the load.

He would remain at camp, ready for them. His wall stayed where it belonged, and nothing in the plan asked him to prove he was brave by leaving it behind.

I would take the broad carrier, clean bedding, splints, more water, and the ordinary rope Corr had asked for.

Ilse would come with me.

We would land at the open shelf. Look at the approach from there. No flying blind beneath the overhang with a hull full of rock above our heads.

Holt drew the likely slope from memory and marked the part he hadn't seen.

I liked him more for the empty space than the lines.

Sera was awake when I went to tell her.

She listened to the whole plan.

“Back tonight?”

“Yes. Even if we have to make a second trip tomorrow.”

“Toby knows what to watch here?”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

“Then go and look.”

Before we left, I found Toby tying the last bundle.

Wren stood beside him with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her jacket.

“I'll be here when you need the signals,” she said.

He nodded.

“And after,” she added.

He looked up.

I was far enough away that I could have pretended not to hear. Close enough that pretending would have been dishonest.

“After?” he asked.

“When everybody's settled. I'd like another evening.”

“So would I.”

She looked down at the knot, then back at him.

“Toby. I don't only mean because you're good company when there's work.”

His hands stopped.

“I hoped you didn't.”

She smiled.

“Good.”

I turned toward the carrier.

Behind me, there was a silence of a different sort from the one that came when a conversation had failed.

When Toby brought the bundle over, he was smiling too.

Ilse climbed aboard with the case between her feet.

Dot gave me the last clear position. Holt told me to watch the crosswind at the saddle. Liam checked a strap, and Anja checked the one beside it without either of them needing to be asked.

Then Liam stepped back.

Anja's hand found his for a moment.

Just a moment.

Enough that he looked at her instead of the skiff when we lifted.

I took us out over the open ground.

The canyon fell behind us, red stone and lamps and a line of people becoming smaller.

Somewhere below the far ridge, two people were waiting for the sound of someone coming.

For once, we had heard them before we had to guess whether the silence meant they were gone.

We landed on the shelf with daylight left.

Risa came to meet us. Dust on one sleeve. A scrape on the back of her glove. Nothing in her face that meant the plan had become a disaster while we were crossing the sky.

“Both still talking,” she said.

I touched her shoulder as she passed me the line.

Then followed her to the split.

From above, with my own eyes, I could see the broken edge properly.

Ordinary rock. Fractures running toward the wall. Enough sound material farther back to hold a new support if I made it wide and kept the load away from the loose lip.

Below, Luna sat where the people on the ledge could see her.

She looked up when I came around the stone.

“You found us.”

“Yes.”

“Come and meet them.”

I knelt well back from the edge.

A tired face turned toward the light.

Another moved beneath the blankets.

“I'm Lucas,” I said.

The nearer one stared at me.

Then asked, very quietly, “Are you the one who kept calling?”

My throat tightened.

“Yes.”

The person under the blankets began to laugh. A small, broken sound that became a cough, then stopped when Luna told them not to waste breath answering yet.

I put my hand on the safe part of the stone and looked at the place where the path had fallen.

“All right,” I said. “Let's make a way up.”

I didn't begin with the path.

I began with the loose stone above it.

Corr held the lamp where I asked. I followed the visible cracks, changing only the parts I could see clearly, making the unstable edge rest against sound rock before anybody put weight on it.

Then a broad anchoring point farther back.

Then a second, separate from the first.

Ilse tested the line while Risa watched the edge from the side. Luna stayed where the people below could see her face.

Nobody hurried me by saying it looked strong enough.

When the first safe length was ready, I stopped to rest my eyes.

The nearer survivor watched the new support with both hands around the water vessel.

“Does it stay?”

“Yes,” I said. “I don't have to keep holding it.”

They looked at the rock again.

Then at me.

“Good.”

The person beneath the blankets asked whether we had food.

Ilse lifted the wrapped bundle.

“And beds,” she said.

A pause.

“People?”

“People too.”

I thought about giving the number. Thirty-six humans. Two kits with names. All the counting that had brought us this far.

But Luna answered before I did.

“A medic waiting for you. Someone making supper. Someone who'll want to know whether you take sugar, although we probably haven't got what you mean by sugar.”

The nearer survivor lowered their face toward the cup.

I looked away long enough to let them have that.

Above us, the last light lay across the upper ridge. The lamp made a steady patch on the new support. Risa checked the fastening once more, then held out the end of the line to me.

We had a way to begin.

At home, there were chairs waiting to be sat in, a treatment I would make in the morning, and two conversations that people wanted to have again.

I took the line.

We would bring these two into all of it.

Day 462. Someone expected back.

Third chair finished. Holt walked to the broad shelf and returned. His account helped us find the split.

Sera visited the forge. Sat down before she had to. Treatment continues. Coming back tonight.

New writing over our last strip at the cache. TWO. BELOW THE SPLIT. CAN'T GET UP.

Luna, Risa, Corr found the ledge. Two adults, both answering. Water down. Supplies down. Old line damaged; path partly fallen.

Toby prepared the lift notes and stayed at camp. Wren said she wanted another evening. He said he did too.

Liam and Anja checked the straps together. Held hands before we left.

Ilse came with me. Reached the shelf before dark.

They heard the calls.

We heard them back.