Chapter 171 What They Needed

Sera took my shirt away before breakfast.

I was still wearing it at the time, which made the operation difficult.

“Hold still.”

“What have I done?”

“Nothing. That's the problem. You've caught the seam three times and decided it was somebody else's shirt.”

She turned the edge of the sleeve toward the light.

I could have fixed it in a moment.

She knew that.

She also knew I'd been about to leave with it hanging loose again, so I stood still while she made the last few stitches.

Risa watched from the table.

“Very distinguished.”

“I'm trying.”

“I meant Sera.”

Luna set the route beside my bowl and smiled without looking up.

It was Day 483.

We were going to meet Harrow Dane.

The ground had been checked before we agreed to the time.

Dot's wing had found the stone shoulder. Corr had walked the final approach from our northern shelter and marked the places where the rock hid a drop until you were too close to it.

Dane had agreed to four people from each side.

No requirement that I come.

I'd chosen to.

That distinction mattered to me, even if it made no difference to the number of hours in the day.

Luna, Risa, Corr, and me.

Risa's ankle could manage the short walk from the open landing ground. If it objected, we'd change the arrangement rather than ask it to respect the importance of a meeting.

Sera would stay at camp.

Her morning treatment was already done, and she had plans with Kellan at the forge that involved talking about fire without making much of it.

She finished my sleeve, set the needle down, and put both hands against my chest.

“There.”

“Will I pass inspection?”

“Depends who's inspecting.”

Then she kissed me.

I decided I didn't care about the others.

Before we left, Wren brought one more message.

A second party wanted to attend.

The request had reached the northern mirror through Dane's people, but the sender had asked for it to be repeated in her own name.

Iona Rell.

Five at her camp. Second wave. Wanted to discuss moving.

No trade list.

No request for a demonstration.

Luna read it twice, then asked Wren to send that Iona was welcome and we wanted to hear what the five needed.

Risa looked at the route.

“Are they together?”

“The messages don't say,” Luna answered.

I looked at the two names on the slate.

Harrow Dane.

Iona Rell.

After so long listening for anyone, we'd reached the difficult part of finding people.

They would be different people.

The flight north was clear.

We passed the western mast, then the shelter beneath the saddle. A mirror flashed acknowledgment as we crossed the open ground.

Corr checked the straps without being asked.

Luna watched the approach.

Risa sat beside me, close enough that her knee touched mine when the hull shifted.

Once, as the stone shoulder came into view, she put her hand on my wrist.

“Breathe.”

“I am.”

“Good. Keep doing it.”

Below us, a flat patch of pale ground lay between two ridges.

A powered carrier stood at one end.

A proper carrier. Enclosed cockpit, landing feet, a cargo platform with straps fitted where somebody expected cargo to go.

I looked at it longer than I meant to.

Risa noticed.

“That's useful equipment.”

“Yes.”

The person standing beside it watched us land.

Harrow Dane looked about my age.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Not much older. Not a man who'd spent a lifetime learning how to make people stand where he wanted.

A cadet, like us.

His hair was neatly cut. His suit had been repaired, but with matching material and proper fastenings. His boots were worn and intact.

Two people stood behind him beside the carrier. Both watched the hull as though they were trying to decide where its engine was.

Dane watched me.

“You're Dask.”

“Lucas.”

“Harrow Dane.”

He offered his hand.

I took it.

His grip was firm and dry, and he held it a fraction longer than I would have.

Then Luna introduced herself, and his attention shifted with interest.

“Windsor.”

“Luna.”

Risa said her name before he could choose which part of it he wanted.

Corr simply said Corr.

I liked him for that.

Iona arrived on foot a few minutes later.

She wore a patched second-wave suit and carried a bag held closed by two different kinds of cord. There was dirt along one sleeve and an angry red mark where a strap had rubbed her neck.

She stopped when she saw the two craft.

Then looked at us.

“Scarecrow?”

“Yes,” Luna said.

Iona let out a breath.

Dane nodded toward the low stone we'd chosen for the meeting.

“We can begin.”

Iona remained standing for a moment.

“I need to ask about the people first.”

Dane's expression changed only slightly.

“We'll cover relocation.”

“How many are hurt?” I asked her.

She looked straight at me.

“Two who can't make the walk. One might, if we had somewhere to stop often enough. Five altogether.”

Luna moved the map so Iona could reach it.

“Show us where.”

Her camp lay beyond the ridge east of Dane's position.

Not inside his settlement.

They had a roof. Water if someone carried it. Enough food for the moment, although the last two days had come partly from Dane's stores.

She said that plainly.

“Thank you for helping them,” Luna told him.

Dane nodded.

His expression eased a little.

Iona went on.

A damaged leg. A shoulder that hadn't healed properly after a fall. A third person who'd been weak for long enough that she no longer trusted the word tired.

I asked questions Toby had written for me before we left.

Not because the answers would give me an examination through a map.

Because we needed to know what to bring.

Iona answered carefully. Corrected herself once. Took a folded page from her bag when she couldn't remember the day of the fall.

Someone at that camp had been keeping records.

I was glad of it.

“Can we come to you?” she asked.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

It was such a small sentence for the amount she'd brought to put behind it.

“Yes,” Luna said.

Dane leaned forward.

“You haven't discussed capacity.”

“We have room for five more people,” she answered.

“What contribution would they be expected to make?”

Iona's hands closed around the page.

I looked at her before answering him.

“We'll ask what people can do when they're well enough to tell us. They don't have to prove that before we help them get there.”

Iona looked down.

Then nodded once.

Corr slid the water vessel closer to her.

She took it with both hands.

Dane waited until she'd drunk.

Then he opened the case he'd brought.

A clean slate. Printed cargo sheets in a protective sleeve. A small sample of metal wrapped so neatly that it looked strangely out of place on the rough stone.

“I have twelve people to keep supplied,” he said. “We have a stable site, functioning equipment, and a collection arrangement with the station.”

Luna listened.

“So I've heard,” she said.

“I can obtain things you can't make. Instruments. Medicines. Replacement parts with components neither of us can reproduce.”

He glanced at the hull behind me.

“Transport.”

I didn't pretend that last word meant nothing.

A craft that didn't need my eyes and my strength to move it could change the shape of every rescue we'd planned.

Dane saw me think it.

He turned the slate toward me.

“And you can provide material.”

His quantities were lower than Command's.

That was the first clever thing about them.

Low enough to look reasonable beside the bigger demand. Regular enough to become a claim on every month afterward.

He had divided the list into stages.

An initial consignment. Then continuing supply. Then access to larger equipment once the arrangement had demonstrated value.

“Value to whom?” Risa asked.

“To the people who authorize the equipment.”

“Which people?”

“Station procurement.”

“A name?”

Dane's thumb stopped beside the slate.

“The contact isn't the part you need to worry about. I handle that.”

I looked at Luna.

She was still reading.

Sera would have recognized the quietness in her face.

It meant she'd found something she disliked enough to be exact about it.

“When do we receive the items listed here?” Luna asked.

“After the first shipment clears.”

“Which items are guaranteed?”

“Subject to availability.”

“And if nothing is available?”

“The contribution remains credited.”

She turned the slate a little farther toward the light.

“Credited against an unspecified future delivery.”

Dane sat back.

“You're making this sound worse than it is.”

“I'm reading it.”

He looked at me instead.

“You can see the advantage.”

I could.

I could see a carrier going out without me. Sera taking a journey without having to plan it around where I could fly. Toby receiving equipment that didn't come in pieces we'd rescued from somewhere else.

I could see wanting those things so badly that I'd supply the missing promise myself.

“Who decides what happens to the material after collection?” I asked.

Dane's mouth tightened.

“That isn't information I'm authorized to share.”

Corr hadn't spoken much.

Now he pointed to the printed sheet beneath the slate.

“Is that the receiving route?”

Dane looked down.

“Part of it.”

I could see the code in the corner.

The same destination code that had appeared after station receiving on the acknowledgment for our trial load.

I didn't have to guess at it. I'd looked at the sequence too often the previous evening.

I pointed.

“We've had material sent there.”

Dane looked at me sharply.

“Then you understand the system.”

“No,” I said. “We asked what that code meant. Nobody answered.”

For the first time, he didn't have something ready to say.

Risa shifted beside me.

I could feel her attention sharpen.

Dane put the sheet back beneath the slate.

“The destination is approved.”

“That wasn't the question,” she said.

Iona sat very still through all of it.

I could see her trying to work out whether this conversation would take away the yes she'd been given.

Luna saw it too.

She put one hand on Iona's map.

“Your people aren't part of this agreement.”

Dane frowned.

“There isn't an agreement yet.”

“Exactly.”

Luna turned to Iona.

“We'll arrange the visit to your camp. Whatever happens with the trade discussion.”

Iona looked at her, then at me.

I nodded.

Her shoulders lowered.

Dane watched the exchange.

“You'll find that generous arrangements become expensive.”

Holt would have had something to say to that.

I found I didn't need to borrow his voice.

“So do bad ones,” I said.

We didn't agree to the supply schedule.

We asked for named contacts, specific equipment commitments, and an explanation of the receiving destination.

Dane agreed to pass on the questions.

He didn't agree to answer them himself.

That was where we left the business.

Iona came with us to the hull to go over her route in more detail. Dane's people stayed beside their carrier, and one of them began checking a panel beneath the cargo platform.

I watched for a moment.

Good tools. A spare part taken from a fitted case. No long search through a box of things that almost worked.

Iona followed my glance.

“They get deliveries,” she said quietly.

“How often?” Risa asked.

“I don't know the schedule. More than once since we found them.”

I looked at the clean replacement in the mechanic's hand.

I didn't know what that proved.

I knew what it made me want to ask next.

Dane came over before we left.

He waited until Iona had stepped aside with Corr.

“Did you really build the tower?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“How long did it take?”

I looked at him.

“Longer than the part you're asking about.”

He smiled as though I'd made a joke.

“I'd like to see it.”

“We can discuss a visit.”

His eyes moved to Luna, then Risa.

“I meant the work.”

“So did I.”

He held my gaze for a moment.

Then nodded.

“I hope we can do something useful for each other, Dask.”

“Lucas.”

This time he used it.

“Lucas.”

I couldn't tell whether that was progress or simply good manners arriving late.

We took Iona as far as the northern shelter.

She wanted to return to her people before nightfall, and the route from the shelter gave her a better approach than walking back along the exposed shoulder.

Corr went with her to the next clear marker, carrying the supplies she'd agreed her camp could use immediately. He would return on foot to the shelter, where Ilse was waiting, and the two of them would come home by the marked route.

We had checked the timing before offering it.

No one vanished into the distance because a map looked short.

Before she left, Iona touched the water outlet inside the shelter.

“You made this for people passing through?”

“Yes.”

“Even people you don't know?”

I nodded.

She looked at the bench. The lamp hook. The route home written on the wall.

Then she turned back to Luna.

“Tomorrow?”

“We'll send the time at the agreed signal,” Luna said. “Lucas will come to look at the injuries after his morning work. We'll bring what Toby needs us to bring.”

Iona nodded.

Then she and Corr went down the path.

On the flight home, Risa was quiet.

Luna held the folded proposal on her knees.

I could see the matching destination code through the clear sleeve.

After a while, I said, “I wanted the carrier.”

“I know,” Luna answered.

“Enough that I nearly began working out how much extra I could make before we'd finished reading.”

Risa put her hand against my arm.

“That was why he brought the list.”

“It would help.”

“Yes,” she said. “It would.”

I glanced at her.

She didn't make me choose between wanting something useful and noticing the price of it.

Luna folded the sleeve closed.

“We can keep looking for transport without giving him an answer today.”

I nodded.

Then watched the route ahead until the canyon came into view.

Sera was waiting outside the room.

She looked at our faces before asking how it had gone.

“Five people want to come,” I said.

Her expression changed.

“All right?”

“Some hurt. We need to see them. They have food and water for tonight.”

“And Dane?”

I looked at the proposal in Luna's hand.

Sera sighed softly.

“Come in.”

We did.

She had food ready. Not because feeding us was her job, but because she'd known we'd get home tired and had wanted the room to be ready for us.

I kissed her before sitting down.

She held me a moment longer than the kiss.

Then took the papers from Luna and put them beyond the bowls.

“Eat first. You can tell me without pointing at anything.”

We told her about Iona.

About Dane's carrier. The equipment list. The credit that might become equipment later if someone we couldn't name approved it.

About the destination code.

Sera listened without interrupting until I reached the part where I'd wanted to say yes.

Then she put her spoon down.

“Of course you did.”

I looked at her.

“You want us to be able to go somewhere without borrowing every part of the journey from you.”

“Yes.”

“So do I.”

The admission hurt and helped at the same time.

She saw that.

“Wanting another way to travel isn't wanting another person.”

“I know.”

“I'm saying it anyway.”

Risa leaned against my shoulder.

Luna took my hand beneath the table.

I let the sentence settle before trying to answer it.

Toby came while the bowls were still on the table.

Wren was with him, carrying the clean copies of Iona's account. They asked before spreading anything beside the food.

Five names, written in Iona's own hand.

Iona Rell. Neri Cole. Aven Moss. Pella Orr. Bram Keel.

Neri was the one with the damaged leg. Aven had the shoulder injury. Pella was the one Iona could describe only as getting weaker, despite eating what the others ate.

Toby read that line twice.

“We need to see her before deciding what that means.”

“Yes.”

He set out the questions he wanted asked and crossed out one that Iona had already answered. Then he looked at the space between the beds on the shelter drawing.

“We can move the supply chest. Give them a way through without climbing over anybody.”

“Five more,” Wren said softly.

“If they all choose to come,” Luna answered.

Wren nodded and wrote their names on a separate page. Not on HERE yet. With the place they were waiting and the time we'd promised to signal.

Sera watched her write.

“What do they have to pack?”

I looked at her.

“Clothes. Records. Iona had a bag.”

“That wasn't what I meant.”

I remembered Anja's old pot. The things we'd nearly left behind because we'd counted water and bedding and decided the rest could be replaced.

“I'll ask.”

Risa reached for the pencil and added the question where I couldn't miss it.

Holt found us afterward, on his way back from checking the path lamps.

He looked at the five names and asked which way their shelter faced.

I showed him.

“Morning light on the approach,” he said. “You'll see the loose ground better then.”

He tapped the place where Iona had marked the final turn.

“And don't land on the shaded patch just because it's flat. Could be wet beneath it.”

I added that to the route.

He stayed long enough to tell Toby which bench could be moved if the new arrivals wanted to sit outside together.

Then he went home to his own chair.

The plans on our table had become less frightening while more people put their hands to them.

I didn't have to pretend that meant the work would be easy.

It meant it wasn't all mine.

Later, Sera asked me to walk outside with her.

Only to the bench. She'd done enough during the day, and I wasn't much better.

The lamps had begun to come on along the path.

She sat close beside me.

“How much of tomorrow are you carrying already?”

I looked at her.

She smiled a little.

“The five people. The visits. The carrier. The code. I can practically see the list moving behind your eyes.”

“Most of it.”

“Put one thing down.”

“Which?”

“Dane. Until he sends an answer, you've done what you can.”

I leaned back.

For a moment, nothing changed.

Then my shoulders began to loosen.

Sera took my hand and laid it against her cheek.

“Hello,” she said.

I laughed quietly.

“Hello.”

She kissed me.

The list became less interesting.

When we went back inside, Luna had opened the route map.

Not the proposal.

Iona's camp. A landing place to check. A list of medical supplies Toby had already begun preparing.

Risa sat beside her, testing the words of the return signal so nobody at the far end would confuse an examination visit with a promise to move all five in one flight.

Work we could actually do.

I sat down with them.

We planned the morning.

Then Luna closed the book herself.

Risa stretched and asked whether anyone else was tired of Harrow Dane despite having met him only once.

“Yes,” Sera said. “And I haven't met him at all.”

I laughed.

Luna smiled and leaned her head against my shoulder.

We stayed at the table a little longer without reopening anything.

Before bed, Risa drew me to the window.

“You didn't let him separate you from us.”

“I wasn't sure whether I was being difficult.”

“You were being clear.”

She rested her hands on my chest.

“I like you clear.”

“I thought you liked me confused.”

“Only when it gives me an advantage.”

I kissed her, and she smiled against my mouth.

Across the room, Sera said that if we intended to stand there all night, one of us could at least close the curtain.

Risa reached behind herself without letting go of me and pulled it shut.

Luna laughed.

There were still things I wanted that I couldn't make.

There were things I could make that wouldn't solve what was wrong.

And there were these three, close enough to touch, who didn't ask me to confuse one with the other.

I went to bed beside them.

Day 483. What they needed.

Met Harrow Dane. Good carrier. Proper replacement parts. Regular deliveries according to Iona, frequency unconfirmed.

Trade proposal offered equipment after material shipments, subject to availability. No named contact given. No agreement.

Receiving code matches the trial consignment's onward destination. Meaning still withheld.

Iona Rell. Separate camp of five. Two cannot make the walk. Another weak. Food and water for tonight. Asked to come to Scarecrow. Yes.

Medical visit planned after morning treatment. No promise to move five people in one lift.

Corr accompanied Iona to the route marker. Back at northern shelter with Ilse before dusk. Both home afterward.

Wanted the carrier. Said so.

Sera told me to put one thing down. Put Dane down until he answers.

Tomorrow, people we can help.