Chapter 169 Beyond the Ridge

Luna was still asleep when I found the pencil.

It had rolled beneath the edge of the mattress, where I'd been searching with one hand while trying not to wake her. Sera had turned away from the window. Risa lay with her good foot against my leg and an expression that suggested she would object to the morning if it tried anything.

I closed my fingers around the pencil.

Luna opened her eyes.

“Going somewhere?”

“Only to the table.”

“Why?”

“I thought of something for the mirror support.”

She looked toward the window. The light was barely beginning.

Then she looked back at me.

“Will you forget it?”

“Probably not.”

“Then come here.”

I put the pencil on the shelf and lay down again.

She moved close enough to rest her forehead beneath my chin.

For a few more minutes, the support remained unbuilt and the world managed.

It was Day 476.

The western shelter stood. The new steps had survived the rain. We had a proposed route around the Teeming crossing and several good reasons to stop pretending every place beyond the canyon was a separate expedition.

We needed ways to reach one another.

Paths where we could make paths. Shelters where people had to wait. Mirrors high enough that a person who couldn't get home could still tell us why.

The first new mirror would go above the western shelf.

Not another tower like Scarecrow.

A short mast on sound ground, with a platform broad enough for somebody using a stick or carrying a bag. A frame that could be turned without wrestling the whole thing into the sun.

Wren had ideas about the frame.

Several of them were complaints about every mirror she'd ever used.

I wrote them all down.

We checked the outer route before building it.

Holt came, as he'd promised. Corr carried the tools. Luna brought the map, and Risa came for the broad section with her ankle supported and no intention of proving anything on the rough part.

Sera stayed at camp after her treatment. She'd been tired after the visit below, and a morning of drawing seemed more attractive to her than another journey over stone.

She kissed me before we left.

“Don't improve the seat without asking the people who sit in it.”

“I wasn't planning to.”

“That isn't always a reliable guide to what you'll do.”

I smiled.

She put her hand against my cheek.

“Home for supper?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I'd like you here.”

There was no emergency in the request.

I liked how much it mattered anyway.

The guide met us above the watercourse.

I couldn't be certain it was the same one until it touched the small model Corr carried, then the branch lying beside it.

Even then, perhaps another could have known the same things.

We stopped worrying about the name for a moment and showed it the route.

The actual ground this time.

The low shoulder. The exposed stone beyond it. The broad turn that would keep our supports away from the passage used by the carriers below.

Luna set a marker on the first safe place.

The guide crossed in front of us, went down toward the opening, and returned along the ledge we'd left clear.

Then it continued past the marker without raising a limb.

We followed only as far as we'd already checked.

Holt watched the narrow entrance below.

“People could miss that,” he said.

“That's why we're marking it.”

“Mark the reason too. Somebody will decide the straight line is quicker.”

Luna wrote it on the map.

Not empty ground.

A crossing.

We moved slowly enough that Risa's ankle didn't become the day's argument.

At the broad shelf, she sat with Luna and checked the line of sight back toward the canyon while Corr and I examined the mast's footing.

Holt held the sighting frame.

It looked absurdly small in his hands.

He moved it a fraction when Wren's mirror flashed from home.

“There,” he said.

Luna marked it.

Then Risa turned the little frame toward the north.

Past the near ridge. Through a gap between two higher shoulders.

“Could we see farther from here?”

I came to look.

Open sky. A pale slope. Another ridge beyond it, faint in the distance.

“Yes.”

“How much farther?”

“I don't know.”

She smiled.

“Then we might find out.”

The mast took the rest of the afternoon.

I made the parts where I could see them and understand their load. Corr helped fit them together. Holt checked the platform before trusting my opinion of how easy it was to step onto it.

Luna recorded the bearings.

Risa tested the adjustment from a seated position, because standing shouldn't be the price of sending a message.

The first handle caught her sleeve.

I changed it.

The second worked.

We sent a short message back toward Scarecrow.

Wren answered.

The return came so clearly through the glass that I found myself laughing.

It wasn't a new voice.

It was a familiar one reaching a place where yesterday we'd have had to wave and hope.

We stopped before testing the northern line.

The light was changing. Risa had done enough on the ankle. Holt was ready for his chair, although he described this as wanting to conduct a comparison between seats.

I could have asked for another hour.

Maybe found the right angle before the sun went.

I thought about Sera at our table.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

Luna looked at me, then at the mirror.

“Tomorrow.”

We secured the frame, put the tools away, and went home.

The northern ridge remained where it was without me watching it.

Sera had made supper with Priya.

Not all of it. No hours over heat. She had prepared what she could sitting down and argued about the seasoning, which she reported as a useful contribution.

She was waiting in the room when we arrived.

I set my stick beside the door.

“Before dark,” she said.

“Yes.”

She came to me and put her arms around my waist.

I held her until Risa complained that some of us would like to sit down before becoming part of the furniture.

Luna helped her settle.

Then we ate, and I told Sera what we'd built.

When I reached the part about the northern gap, I stopped.

She looked at me.

“You wanted to stay.”

“Yes.”

“But you didn't.”

“I wanted this too.”

Her hand found mine beneath the table.

“I was hoping you would.”

After supper, Sera showed us the picture she'd finished.

The room, from the doorway.

Not the room as it ought to look. The room as it was.

A cup where it didn't belong. Risa's blanket half off the seat. Luna's jacket on its hook, one sleeve turned inside out. My book open beneath a corner of paper because I'd forgotten what I'd been using as a marker.

Sunlight on the low bed.

No people in it.

It looked occupied anyway.

Risa studied it for a long time.

“That's ours.”

Sera nodded.

Luna touched the edge of the page.

“Will you put it up?”

“If you want.”

We did.

I held it while Sera chose the position, and for once I didn't offer to make it a better frame before we'd enjoyed the picture.

Wren went to the new mirror on Day 477.

Toby walked with her as far as the shelter, stayed for a cup, and returned with Holt while she and Corr tested the northern sightline.

I went later, after Sera's treatment and the work Toby wanted me to help with for Merrin.

His knee still hurt. There was older damage around it that wouldn't become simple because we'd got him out of the ravine.

We made one careful change that helped the support sit more comfortably and left the rest for when we understood it better.

Ossa watched from the next bed.

Before I left, she asked where the new mirror faced.

I showed her on the map.

She put one finger beside the northern gap.

“I saw a light beyond there once.”

“When?”

“I don't know. Before the last cold spell. I couldn't make anyone answer.”

I looked at her.

“May I tell Wren?”

“Yes,” she said. “That's why I'm telling you.”

Wren had already found something when I arrived.

Not a message.

A light.

It came from beyond the second ridge, visible only when the air cleared between thin bands of cloud.

She showed me where to look.

At first I saw nothing.

Then a brief white point.

Gone.

Returned.

Wren kept one hand on the frame.

“That isn't reflection from a fixed surface.”

“Are they sending?”

“Maybe. Or trying to find our angle.”

Corr set the slate where she could reach it.

I stood well clear of her elbow.

She sent our name.

Scarecrow.

Waited.

Sent it again.

The far light vanished behind cloud.

Nobody spoke until it came back.

The first answer was too quick.

Wren caught part of it and shook her head.

“Slow,” she murmured, sending the request back.

The light paused.

Then began again.

This time, she wrote as it came.

DANE.

WAIT.

She underlined the first word once.

I read it over her shoulder.

A name, perhaps. A place. Something we would know more about if we kept the mirror steady and didn't turn three letters we wanted into four we hadn't seen.

Wren repeated what she'd received.

The answer came back.

Correct.

My mouth had gone dry.

We didn't have a full conversation that afternoon.

We had pieces.

Harrow Dane.

Second wave.

Twelve alive.

Request exchange.

Each part repeated back before the next began. A cloud took away the ridge halfway through twelve, and Wren waited for it to clear rather than deciding the number from the shape of a hope.

By the time the light weakened, we had a time to try again and the sender's claimed location in rough relation to the ridges.

Not a route.

Not proof that twelve people were well.

A beginning.

Wren put the chalk down.

Then she looked at me and smiled in a way I'd seen when a name came back on the dawn line after we'd been afraid it wouldn't.

“People,” she said.

“Yes.”

We sent the news home before packing up.

Risa was at the room's table when I came in.

Luna stood beside her. Sera had brought the map nearer the lamp.

Dot's report had reached them ahead of me.

“Twelve?” Risa asked.

“That's what they sent.”

“Names?”

“Only Harrow Dane so far.”

She looked down at the page.

I waited.

It took her a moment to ask the next thing.

“Will you ask whether Sigmund Friese is there?”

“Of course.”

She nodded once, quickly.

I sat beside her.

No pretending I knew what she hoped the answer would be. No deciding that because she'd told me painful things about her brother, his name couldn't hurt to leave unanswered.

She took my hand without looking up.

I held it.

“I don't know what I'll feel,” she said later.

We were at the window. Sera and Luna were making space on the map for the new bearing, talking quietly enough to leave us our corner of the room.

“If he's there?”

“If he is. If he isn't. Either.”

“You don't have to decide before we hear.”

“I know.”

She watched the field for a while.

“He could be kind. Sometimes. That's part of what made the other times so difficult to explain.”

I remembered enough of what she'd told me not to offer an easy answer.

“I won't tell you what you're supposed to feel.”

She turned toward me.

“Thank you.”

I brushed the hair away from her cheek.

Then kissed her, gently, until the tightness in her hand eased.

Behind us, Sera asked whether we'd like tea.

Risa said yes.

Her voice sounded more like her own.

The news had crossed camp by supper.

Twelve people became twelve people coming here in the space between the water jars and the cooking shelf. By the time Nessa reached our door, she wanted to know where their beds would go.

“We don't know whether they're coming,” Luna told her.

“Could they?”

“Yes. If that's what they want, we'll work it out.”

Nessa considered this, then asked whether they had children with them.

We didn't know that either.

She found the number of things we hadn't asked disappointing.

I couldn't disagree.

Outside, Kellan stood beside the supply bench, turning a piece of cord around his fingers.

He looked at Risa when she came out with me.

“Will they know anything about Earth?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “We'll ask.”

“More than we do?”

“Perhaps.”

He pulled the cord straight.

“I hate that word.”

Risa leaned against the bench, taking the weight off her ankle.

“So do I, sometimes.”

He looked at her more closely.

She didn't tell him about the question she'd asked us to send. She didn't need to give him something private to make the answer honest.

“I keep thinking the next person will know,” he said.

Risa nodded.

“When the shuttle came, I thought that.”

“I remember.”

“And now there's twelve.”

“We'll ask them what they know,” she said. “If they don't know, it won't mean there isn't an answer somewhere.”

He stopped twisting the cord.

After a moment, he asked whether he could help with the next supply bundles.

I told him Corr would welcome somebody who knew which knots could still be opened after rain.

He looked at the cord in his hand and went to find him.

Risa stayed against the bench until he was out of hearing.

“I sounded very sensible.”

“You were.”

“I don't feel sensible.”

I stepped closer.

She rested her forehead against my shoulder, just for a moment.

“You didn't promise him anything you couldn't give,” I said.

“I wanted to.”

“I know.”

The door opened behind us. Sera came out with Risa's jacket and put it around her shoulders. Luna had already set another place at the table where the window wouldn't blow directly on her.

Risa lifted her head and looked at both of them.

“Thank you.”

“Come and eat,” Sera said.

Risa took my hand, and we went back into the light.

We sent the question the next morning.

Along with the questions that belonged to everyone.

How many injured. Whether they had water. Whether anyone needed immediate help. Which names they could confirm.

We gave our number too.

Thirty-eight humans. Two kits living with us. Forty people.

Wren had worked out how to send the distinction without making it sound like we were counting equipment.

Dane's answer to the medical questions came slowly.

No immediate evacuation requested.

Water available.

Names to follow.

Then a question for us.

DASK PRESENT?

Wren looked at me.

I nodded.

She sent yes.

The next question arrived much faster.

PROCESSING CAPACITY?

I stood looking at the slate.

There were perfectly ordinary reasons someone might want to know what I could make.

We'd asked for tools. Supplies. Help carrying people who couldn't walk.

A working base could need material for roofs and filters and a hundred other things.

Still, I disliked the order of the questions.

Wren waited with her hand on the mirror.

“What shall I send?”

“Ask what they need.”

She did.

The far light paused for long enough that I began watching the clouds again.

Then it sent a list heading.

REFINED STOCK.

TRANSPORT.

TRADE TERMS.

No request for a roof.

No amount yet.

I asked Wren to say we would need particulars before answering.

She wrote that down beside the rest.

Nothing had gone wrong.

I reminded myself of that while we waited for the next reply.

At home, Luna read the exchange without speaking.

Sera sat beside her with the earlier requirements from Command.

The words weren't identical.

They didn't have to be identical to make us look at the pages together.

“Could be coincidence,” I said.

“Could be,” Luna agreed.

Risa leaned back in her chair.

“Could also be someone who's hungry and knows trade is a word people answer.”

I looked at her.

She shrugged.

“I don't like the question either. I don't want to turn that into knowing the person.”

Sera nodded.

“Then we ask about actual needs. And we keep asking for the names.”

We had received an acknowledgment of the request about Sigmund.

Nothing more.

Risa kept that little line separate from the others.

I didn't ask her to put it down.

Luna wanted to go.

Not immediately. Not alone. She wanted to survey an approach, establish a place to meet, and see the people behind the light.

I wanted to go too.

That was where the conversation became difficult.

Sera looked between us.

“How far?”

“We don't know yet,” Luna said.

“How long away?”

“We don't know that either.”

I thought about the morning's treatment. The compound that still wouldn't remain useful long enough to be packed for several days.

Then I thought about Risa waiting for a name.

I began doing the old thing, trying to make wanting hard enough into an answer to distance.

Sera saw it.

She didn't interrupt.

Risa did.

“We can send someone other than you to look.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I looked at her.

Then at Luna.

Luna's expression was gentle and completely unhelpful to the argument I'd been preparing.

“Yes,” I said, more honestly.

We began with reconnaissance from the places we could reach and return from.

Dot would examine the next visible approach with a wing, within the link she could maintain. Wren would ask Dane for a clearer route. Corr and Holt would compare it with the ground they'd crossed before.

No promise of a visit before we knew what it required.

No promise of material just because the sender had learned my name.

The first thing we sent back was an offer to exchange confirmed survivor names and route information.

The first thing we asked again was whether anyone needed care.

When Luna finished the message, she set the pencil down.

Then looked at me.

“You're disappointed.”

“Yes.”

“So am I.”

That surprised me.

She smiled a little.

“I'd like to find them today too.”

I reached for her hand.

We sat with the wanting without turning it into a bad departure time.

That evening, I found Sera outside the room.

She was looking at the field, her arms folded loosely against the cooling air.

I stood beside her.

After a while, she said, “I don't want you resenting being here.”

“I don't.”

“You can tell me if you do.”

I turned toward her.

“I want to know who's beyond that ridge. I want to help if they need help. I also want to wake up beside you tomorrow.”

Her eyes lifted to mine.

“All of those are true,” I said. “The first two don't make the last one an obligation.”

She let out a breath.

I put my arms around her.

She held me tightly for a moment, then moved back enough to kiss me.

The door opened behind us.

Risa looked out.

“Are you two coming in, or shall Luna and I eat everything?”

“Coming,” Sera said.

She kept my hand as we went inside.

We ate before opening the map again.

Then we didn't open it at all.

Luna told us about Wren's face when Toby brought her supper at the mirror and asked whether she wanted company or quiet.

“Which?” Risa asked.

“Company. Apparently he asked properly.”

Sera smiled.

Liam and Anja passed the window together, walking slowly enough for her ankle. Anja said something we couldn't hear, and Liam laughed without performing it for anyone else.

I watched them disappear around the turn.

There was more than one way for people to stop being alone.

Some came through a mirror after months of silence.

Some walked past our window with their hands touching.

Before bed, Risa put the acknowledgment about Sigmund in the drawer beside her things.

Not hidden.

Put away for the night.

I sat beside her while she settled her ankle.

“I'll tell you when we hear anything,” I said.

“I know.”

She rested her head against me.

“You don't have to stay awake until we do.”

“I was going to tell you that.”

“You can. I'll pretend to be persuaded.”

I kissed her hair.

Then her mouth when she turned toward me.

Luna came to the other side of the bed. Sera put the lamp where we could reach it without getting up.

The room in her drawing was full of us now.

I thought about the light beyond the ridge.

Then Luna's hand found mine, and I turned toward the people I didn't have to search for tonight.

Days 476–478. Beyond the ridge.

Outer route checked with the guide. Crossing left clear. First western mirror mast built. Wren reached us from home.

New light through the northern gap. Harrow Dane. Claims second wave, twelve alive. No immediate evacuation requested. Water available. Names promised.

Asked whether Dask was present. Asked processing capacity. We asked what they need.

Refined stock. Transport. Trade terms. Particulars requested. No promises made.

Risa asked about Sigmund. Request acknowledged. No answer yet.

Route reconnaissance first. Survivor names first. Morning treatment continues here.

Sera's drawing on the wall. Our room without us, looking lived in.

Came home for supper.

Map stayed closed afterward.