Chapter 323: Other Boots

The office opened the connection at the arranged time. Ren and Eira stepped onto the receiving shelf with the empty pack between them.

Vesper came down from the post.

"Everyone’s here. Nobody’s passed us on the road."

Ren went up with her and filed a supplement to the collection record: a worked fragment had come loose from the inspected substrate during planting. He included the mark and kept a copy with his papers before lodging the sheet in the box.

"We follow the road to its end," he said when they rejoined the party. "Riptide ahead."

Eira checked Mistwhisker’s dressing. It was clean and still secure, so Vesper lifted the cat while the others settled the pack back onto Ward. They left the landing in the same order, following the channel around the shoulder of stone.

— • —

The road continued past the blocked side channel. Riptide checked each new stretch before Ward entered it, and the land group kept to the inland side of the slabs where the bank looked loose.

The depot stood where the map placed it: a low stone building with a closed door and shuttered windows. The survey office’s mark was fixed above the entrance. No one was outside. Ren looked along the wall as they passed, but they did not enter.

Beyond it, gaps opened between the road slabs. The stakes continued, though farther apart, and the channel narrowed beside them. Riptide returned from the last stretch and stopped Ward at a deeper pocket with room to turn.

The final stake was visible ahead, just below a low rise.

"Hold here," Ren said. "Tarin, you have the water group. We’ll look from that rise. If we lose sight of Ward, we come back."

Wheel ruts cut through the damp ground beside the slabs. Their edges crossed older tracks that had dried hard beneath them. Ren followed them with his eyes toward the road’s end, where the mist thinned over the rise.

Hammering carried back from beyond it.

He checked the time on his slate and allowed for the return to the landing, including the slower stretches beside the damaged banks. He showed Vesper when they would need to leave.

"We turn back by then, whether we’re finished or not."

She checked the time herself before putting her slate away.

— • —

They followed the road toward the final stake, then left it where scrub covered the rise. Vesper passed Mistwhisker to Eira before they lowered themselves onto the ground. Eira settled the cat against her coat, its dressed paw tucked clear of the grit.

From the crest, Ren could still see Ward behind them. Below the other side lay a cleared yard.

Boards covered the wet ground. Crates stood in two rows beside a canvas shelter, its near side rolled up. A wagon rested with its shafts down. At the nearest row, a worker was hammering a lid into place.

Ren counted four people handling crates, one writing at a board under the shelter, and another moving between them to direct the work. An armed lookout stood at the yard’s approach, watching the road. The rear of the shelter remained closed.

Vesper drew the rows, the wagon and the shelter in her notebook. Beside the sketch she recorded seven visible people, then marked the lookout’s position.

The nearest crate had a reference painted across its end. Part faced them; the rest was hidden by the crate beside it. Vesper copied the characters she could distinguish and left a gap for what she could not read.

— • —

A handler opened a crate and pulled straw away from a grey component about the length of a forearm. Fittings projected from one side. The handler carried it beneath the shelter’s lamp and turned it while the person at the board examined each end.

After a few words and an entry on the board, it went into a lined box.

The next piece had a broken fitting. They wiped it, turned it under the lamp and set it on the boards beside the table. Another intact piece went into the box. Each received an entry before the handler returned for more.

"They’re sorting components," Ren murmured.

He remembered Halvern’s account of old network parts traveling in survey cargo. Nothing he could see established that these pieces came from those networks. He watched the fittings and the way the workers separated the loads, keeping the restricted briefing to himself.

One handler brought another empty lined box from beneath the table. They had packing ready for it, and space beside the wagon for the completed loads. Nobody had to leave the yard to fetch anything.

The supervisor crossed to the far row and stopped a worker reaching for a lid.

"Leave those two sealed. The Crimson Serpent’s consignment goes on as it came."

The worker lowered the tool and moved to another crate.

Beside Ren, Vesper wrote the words down.

— • —

The lookout left the yard and walked toward the final stake.

Ren lowered his face behind the scrub. The man followed the firmer edge of the road, stepping around the ruts with his weapon resting across one arm. He came close enough for Ren to see dried mud along the strap.

At the stake, the lookout shifted the weapon. His sleeve drew back, exposing a small serpent inked inside his wrist.

Ren recognized it from the campus attackers.

Vesper’s pencil stopped against an unfinished word. She kept it there while the lookout examined the road and the mist beyond it.

Eira rested her hand on Mistwhisker’s back. The cat remained still against her coat.

After a moment, the man turned toward the yard. His boots scraped the slabs as he went downhill. Vesper waited until he had returned to his position, then finished the word.

— • —

Ren checked the time beneath the cover of the scrub. Before they needed to leave, the workers began loading the wagon.

The sealed pair went aboard first. Three lined boxes followed, placed between them and the sides. The handlers drew ropes over the load and secured them while the recorder came out from beneath the shelter to check the crate ends against the board.

Two workers took the shafts. The supervisor walked ahead, and the lookout stayed at the approach, facing the road.

The wagon left through the far side of the yard.

Pale cloth flags marked its path into the low ground. The first few were close together around softer patches; farther out, the workers steered from one to the next through the mist. Vesper extended her sketch to show the departure and the flags they could see.

Ren eased the habitat record and map out of his coat. Keeping them below the crest, he found the road’s final stake and checked the bearing of the last recorded nesting site.

The flagged path crossed the approach he had plotted from the road. He could not see where the wagon would go beyond that crossing. The supervisor and handlers were already becoming indistinct between the farther flags.

Ren folded the papers.

"That’s enough. Back to Ward. Nobody follows the wagon or enters the yard."

Vesper glanced at the partially copied reference. "I can’t get the rest from here."

"Keep what you have. We report the yard and the consignment."

She closed the notebook, holding the page in place until it was shut.

— • —

They backed down the covered side of the rise before standing. Eira kept Mistwhisker in her arms while Vesper checked the route to the road. Ren looked back once, but the yard was hidden below the crest.

Ward waited in the deeper pocket, with Tarin on the bank and Keep dry in its cradle. Riptide had already checked the room behind the whale. Ward turned within it and started back along the channel, following the water they had used on the way in.

Ren told Tarin they had found a staffed yard beyond the final stake. He kept the party together as they retraced the road, passing the closed depot without stopping.

They had time to reach the landing before the report was due. The notebook held the yard’s position, the visible crew, the spoken consignment name and the incomplete reference. Vesper checked those entries as they walked, leaving the sketch of the flagged path open beside them.

The wagon’s marked route crossed their planned approach to the last recorded nesting ground.