Chapter 103: Carry It Out

Chapter 103: Carry It Out

The message from Elyra arrived while Silas was lacing his boots for the assessment.

I have to cancel tonight. The taxonomy instructor wants a rewrite by morning after all, and I’m going to write it so politely he’ll be ashamed of himself. The day after tomorrow instead? Don’t give my evening to anyone else.

He read the last line twice and wrote back, The day after tomorrow. It’s yours. Then he went down to the east yard.

***

The lane was thirty paces long and built to be annoying: low timber hurdles at uneven intervals, a stretch of loose gravel in the middle, and a narrow plank bridge over a shallow trench near the far end. Two padded sacks hung from swinging booms on either side of the lane, each worked by a yard hand on a rope. A third sack ran along a short overhead rail just beyond the starting circle. They would pass it going out and face it again on their return.

At the far end, on a post, stood a small wire cage. Inside sat an open tin pail with a red band painted around it.

"Listen once," Ferrow told the dozen students along the fence. "Pairs. One pair at a time. You cross the lane, open the cage, take the pail, and bring it back here to the chalk circle. The pail’s full to the red line with water. When you finish, I measure what’s left."

Someone groaned.

"Scoring," Ferrow went on. "Safety first. Take a hit, or put your partner in front of one, and you lose more than for spilling the whole pail. Water second. Time last. I care if you arrive with what you went for and both of you still standing."

He held up a whistle. "One short blast, freeze. Two short, carry on. One long, the attempt’s over and you walk back to the circle. The sacks are padded. They’ll knock you over, not hurt you. There’s a medic on the bench, because somebody always finds a way." He checked his slate. "Rooke. Kest. You’re together."

Rovan Kest came over, gray-edged ears turned toward Silas with polite interest. Rovan had lost to him two to one in the assessment hall and didn’t seem to be holding it against him.

"You open the cage," Rovan said at once. "I saw the latch from the fence. It’s on the far side, facing the trench. You’d have to lean over the gap to reach it by hand."

"I can get it from the bridge," Silas said. "You carry?"

"I carry." Rovan flexed his fingers. "Surefoot. I don’t trip on gravel. It’s the one thing I’m better at than everybody." He said it without boasting, the way someone might say they were tall.

"Then I’ll steady the pail when you’re on the bad ground," Silas said.

"Good. Don’t steady it when I’m not. I hate being helped when I don’t need it," Rovan said.

That was fair. They went to the chalk circle.

***

The first half went well. Rovan crossed the hurdles in an easy, loping rhythm, and Silas kept a step behind him, watching the left boom. When its sack swung toward the lane, he said "Left," and Rovan let it pass without breaking stride.

At the plank bridge, Silas reached across the trench with Remote Grasp and turned the cage latch. It was stiff and took two tries. The cage door swung open. Rovan lifted the pail out by its handle, and the water sat just at the red line.

Then they turned for home, and things went wrong.

On the gravel, Silas used Remote Grasp to steady the pail while Rovan carried its weight. He had planned to release it on firmer ground. For four paces the water barely moved.

Then Rovan saw the right sack coming and sped up.

He didn’t say anything. He just went, quick and sure-footed across the gravel. The pail went with his hand. Silas’s hold on it didn’t go quite as fast. For an instant they were pulling the same pail two different ways, and Silas, feeling it twist, overcorrected hard in the other direction.

Water slopped over the rim in a fat wave. It went straight down the side of the pail and into Silas’s left boot.

The whistle blew once. They froze.

Two short blasts. They went on, and Silas felt his sock filling as he walked.

Ask when he’s going to move. Before you pull against him.

At the next hurdle, he stopped holding the pail.

"I’ll touch it when you change," he said quickly. "Not the whole way. Just when you change pace. Tell me before you do it."

Rovan’s ears flicked back. "How?"

"One word. Anything," Silas said.

"Up," Rovan said, which apparently meant he was about to speed up, and did.

This time Silas was ready. He touched the pail with Remote Grasp for a single heartbeat as Rovan’s pace changed, just enough to stop the swing, and let go again. The water rocked and settled. It cost almost nothing. He kept his own feet moving the way the sled had taught him, step and close across the gravel, and didn’t trip.

"Down," Rovan said at the second hurdle, slowing. Silas touched the pail, let it go.

It was simpler and cheaper. Rovan knew when Silas would act, and Silas knew when Rovan would change. Neither of them had to guess.

The last stretch was the overhead rail.

The sliding sack had been slow while they were going out. It wasn’t slow now. The yard hand on that rope had clearly been told to make the return interesting, and the sack was swinging fast across the shortest line to the chalk circle, back and forth in an irregular rhythm.

Rovan slowed. "It’s quick."

"Wait." Silas didn’t look at the sack. He looked at the yard hand.

The man was pulling the rope hand over hand. Every time he was about to reverse it, his back shoulder dipped and both hands shifted grip. It was the same tell the sled operator had given him on the first day: the rope warned you before the target moved.

He watched two reversals and checked the space beside the rail post. There was room to go around. The straight path was quicker, but one hesitation would leave them under the sack.

"Not straight," Silas said. "Round the post. The long way."

Rovan looked at the extra four paces. "We’ll lose time."

"Time’s last," Silas said.

Rovan thought about it for half a second, then nodded. "Slow."

They went round the post. The sack swept past behind them, close enough that Silas felt the air move. They stepped into the chalk circle together, and it was over.

Ferrow came over with a measuring stick and dipped it into the pail.

"Two-thirds," he said, and glanced at Silas’s soaked left boot. "Most of the loss in one place, I see."

"Yes, Instructor," Silas said.

"Good recovery. Good choice on the last stretch. That short line was there to tempt you." He made a mark on his slate. "Rooke, you’re qualified for a retrieval role. Kest, so are you, if you want it." He looked back at Silas. "One correction. In the field there won’t be a whistle, and the person you’re working with won’t have practiced with you for five minutes first. Pick your signals before you need them and keep them short. Don’t explain halfway through a hurdle."

"Understood," Silas said.

Ferrow moved on to the next pair.

***

They sat on the bench afterward while Silas pulled off his boot and poured a surprising amount of water out of it onto the sand.

"That’s most of what we lost," Rovan observed.

"I know where it went. I was standing in it," Silas said.

"I should have told you before the first speed change." Rovan rubbed the back of his neck. "And on the gravel, my tail hit the pail. Twice. I felt it." He looked faintly embarrassed. "It does what it wants when I’m moving fast."

Silas stared at him. "Your tail?"

"You didn’t see?" Rovan asked.

"I was busy drowning," Silas said.

Rovan laughed, a short surprised bark, and so did Silas, sitting there with one wet sock and one dry.

He pulled the wet sock off and wrung it out. Ferrow had written his name down without mentioning his old medical restrictions. Retrieval. A role someone could rely on him to fill. He hadn’t needed to show anything beyond Remote Grasp to earn it, either.

His communicator buzzed before he could put the sock back on.

Osk says yes, Alden had written. If we’re both going, let’s compare partners. I might have someone in mind. Tomorrow after drills?

Tomorrow, Silas wrote back, and put his wet boot back on with the air of a man who’d earned it.