Chapter 348: Clear Ground

The shellback ate first.

It worked along the torn root ends below the scoured ledge, drawing loose strands beneath the front of its shell. Ren watched from the checked side. The lifting frame remained on its rests, and Vesper kept the carrying path clear.

He asked the System privately about the animal.

[DANGER TO HOST: LOW.]

Its shell was broad enough to cover the frame’s rests twice over. Ren looked from it to the workers waiting beside Sol, then back to the roots it was gathering.

When the loose ends were gone, it reached for those hanging from the yellow mat.

It caught them and backed toward the breach.

The outer half of the mat dragged across the ledge. Its landward edge caught beneath the paving and pried it upward. Ren’s support held underneath, but grit fell from the seam as the shellback pulled again.

"Stay on the checked side," Ren said.

He went down onto the bare rock.

— • —

Water washed over the ledge around his boots. He found firm footing beside the shell, caught the rim in both hands and set himself against its backward movement.

The animal pulled. Ren held it where it was.

Its feet scraped on the wet stone. It shifted and tried again, but the shell made no progress toward the breach. The roots stopped dragging beneath the paving.

"Tamsin. Where’s the remaining connection?"

She pointed from the sound path.

"Below the flag. The storm tore through most of that edge. There’s a band still joining it there."

He followed her hand. The hanging section remained attached by a narrow neck of roots, stretched clear of the ledge between the two halves.

"That outer part’s lost," she said. "Cut it free."

Ren kept his grip while shifting along the rim. He settled his shoulder against the shell and held it with his left hand, leaving his right free. The root band lay to one side of the animal’s head, within the near distance he had tested at the hall.

From there, he could trace a line through it and between the broken pier ends. Beyond lay open water. The boat and Wake waited behind the wall’s intact end, outside that line.

He adjusted his stance until the whole cutting edge would clear the shell and the surviving mat. His broad release would catch both from here.

"Keep clear of the flag," he told Tamsin.

She stepped back. Ren checked the opening beyond the roots once more, then gathered Stormsever into the release he had named Close Sever.

Green-gold and grey light crossed the root band. The connection parted, and the hanging mat dropped onto the ledge. The cut continued through the breach above the water.

Ren kept the shellback steady as the weight came free. Behind it, the paving settled onto its support.

— • —

The animal still held its mouthful.

Ren put his free hand back on the shell and guided it toward the breach. It dragged the severed growth with it, feet finding mud between the exposed stones. He kept it away from the pier ends until water began to carry its weight.

When the flow drained outward, he let go.

The shellback moved through the opening with the roots trailing behind it. Outside, it turned in the wider water and followed the wall’s seaward face out of sight.

Ren climbed back to the path. He checked the lifted paving and the support beneath it before calling Sol forward. The sill still turned the pulses onto the empty ledge, and the loosened edge settled firmly when he tested it.

Ilse examined the remaining rootstock from the sound side.

"There’s living growth here," she said. "But we’ve lost part of the connected mat. I can’t tell you how much would survive another move."

Tamsin looked along the cut edge, then toward the beds still waiting near the loading reach.

"Leave it. Take the ones we know we can move."

She kept the yellow flag in place. Sol returned to the frame and called Corin and Dray to their positions.

— • —

Vesper checked the tide table with Oda before they resumed.

The water on the landing steps had risen since Wake’s last departure. Oda compared it with the time her first round trip had taken, allowing for boarding and unloading at both ends.

"One trip with the workers, back for the rest of you," she said. "There’s room before the cutoff. Have the gear ready when I return."

Vesper marked the departure they needed to make.

"We keep that margin," she told Sol. "No extra beds after the checked ones."

He nodded and called the next lift.

The crew picked up its earlier pace. Ren held the long side while Corin and Dray kept the frame aligned. At the reach, Vesper brought Wake alongside, and they lowered the tines between the carrying frame’s slats. Eira checked the mat before its wet covering went on.

Wake left by the cleared channel. Beyond the headland, the receiving growers would signal it into the unloading berth. Each return brought an empty frame ready for the next bed.

Tamsin checked off the loads as they left. Her losses included the bed torn away before they arrived, the red-marked growth beside the breach and the divided yellow mat. She recorded what the shellback had taken and what they had left on the support.

The final viable bed came up whole. Sol kept the frame level through the turn in the path, and Ren took its weight while the pair guided it alongside Wake.

Eira checked beneath the covering, then stepped back.

"That’s the last one."

Vesper secured the load. Keep remained upright in its cradle, dry above the water.

— • —

Oda brought the boat alongside the landing for the remaining workers.

Tamsin and two of her crew boarded with their packs. Eira followed with her kit while Vesper climbed to the platform to relieve the lookout. The woman pointed out the water’s position at the broken pier ends, then came down and took the last place beside Tamsin.

Tamsin counted her three before sitting. The other two were already at the receiving shelf.

Oda cast off with Wake following under its final load. Eira sat beside Tamsin and began unwrapping her hand once the boat was clear of the landing.

Vesper watched from the platform. Below her, Ren and Sol’s crew brought the equipment up from the loading reach: the empty lifting frame, tools and the unused coverings. They stacked it beside the landing so the boat could take it without another trip down the stair.

The shelf behind them held empty bed spaces, torn growth and the two flags marking what they had left. Water ran past Ren’s sill and drained across the scoured ledge.

When Oda returned, she tied alongside while they loaded. Corin and Dray secured the frame low in the hull. Ilse stowed the tools, and Sol checked that nothing projected beyond the gunwale.

Vesper came down last. Ren counted her aboard, then stepped in himself.

She checked the time before Oda released the line.

"Clear before the third mark."

The boat passed the moved block and entered the wider channel. Ren looked back at the broken wall until the headland hid it.

— • —

The receiving shelf lay behind an intact curve of stone. Water moved quietly between its beds, and a grower stood at the unloading place folding the white signal cloth.

Wake waited in the sheltered reach with its carrying frame empty. Keep was still seated beside it. Farther up the bank, the last recovered mat had been set onto its supports, its pale stems uncovered while Eira and a receiving grower checked the edge.

Tamsin met the boat at the landing with a clean dressing on her hand.

The worker who had been coughing came down behind her carrying a cup. He put it into her good hand, then stepped aside to cough into his sleeve.

Tamsin held the cup while Ren climbed out. She looked toward the rows of recovered stock before taking a drink.

— • —

They settled the recovery at a worktable above the beds.

Oda checked the party against her list. All six nursery workers were there, along with Sol, Ilse, Corin and Dray. Ren counted Vesper and Eira, then looked down to Wake and Keep in the sheltered water. Nobody had been injured during the recovery.

The receiving growers compared their entries with Tamsin’s. Each delivered mat had been checked and placed on prepared supports. The lost growth remained on a separate list, with the cut section recorded as unsuitable for transport.

The senior grower signed the acceptance and passed it to Oda.

Ren and Sol received copies of the completed recovery entry. The fixed fee was divided as agreed. Sol’s stock allocation was recorded separately, and he went with Ilse to choose the whole mats that fulfilled it.

They walked the rows with the receiving grower. Sol stopped at two beds whose runners remained joined across the full width. Ilse checked their edges and asked about the water depth they had grown in before agreeing to the selection.

The grower marked both for Sol and went to arrange their holding space until transport.

Sol entered the two references in his folder. After he closed it, he stayed beside the nearer bed, looking along its row of stems.

"This one goes on the lower shore," he told Ilse. "Where the last planting washed out."

She crouched at its edge again. "We’ll want the ground ready before we put it down."

"It will be."

— • —

Tamsin found Ren near the receiving wall while Oda arranged transport for the salvage.

"We’ll check the marked pieces when the water drops again," she said. "Anything supporting the wall stays, whatever condition it’s in."

Ren opened his copy of the sketch. The fallen block, detached sections and broken pier ends were marked, along with the damaged frames the cooperative had set aside.

Oda had arranged a stone-carrying barge from the harbor for the next safe loading window. It would take the released material back as declared freight. Ren checked the charge and the route before agreeing to it.

Tamsin waited until he put the papers away.

"You were listening to the vents," she said. "At the old wall."

"I could hear the note change along it."

"It changes when the passages need tending, too. One of our growers teaches that work. Reading the water, keeping the air passages clear, knowing which part to leave alone."

She rested her uninjured hand on the wall beside them.

"If you want to learn, come back once we’ve settled these beds. I’ll introduce you."

Ren looked at the vent mouths along the intact stretch. The broken section he had touched held more than shaped stone, but he still knew little about how the growers had worked it.

"I’d like that."

Tamsin went back to her crew. Ren folded the sketch and joined Vesper and Eira, who had found a place for their equipment above the wet line.

— • —

They stayed at the receiving shelf through the great tide. By the next safe low-water window, Oda had the barge waiting off the nursery’s outer channel.

Ren returned with her, Tamsin and the growers assigned to check the salvage. The exposed shelf had been scoured again. His sill and path support remained, with weed caught along their upper edges.

They examined the marked pieces before releasing any of them. The block Ren had shifted still lay in its hollow, clear of the bank. Both broken pier ends were detached from the standing wall.

One fallen slab had moved. The tide had driven it against the wall’s foot, where it rested beneath a damaged edge. Tamsin struck it from the collection list.

"That stays until we know what’s resting on it."

Ren left it where it was.

The barge crew brought slings and timber supports to the loading place. Ren raised the released stone from the shallows with Earth, then helped position each piece where the crew directed. Its weight went onto the barge’s prepared bed, with chocks and lashings fitted before the next piece came aboard.

The hollow block came last. Ren kept its broken vent opening clear of the sling while they settled it beside the other cultivated stone. The damaged frames were bundled separately; the sound ones had stayed with the cooperative.

Oda checked the loaded draft and the way out against the channel marks. Tamsin matched the cargo tags to the revised list, signed it and handed Ren his copy.

He put it with the contract and the freight papers for the harbor gate.

Everything on the final list was aboard, ready for home.