They climbed out of the egg basin into a wide, pillared gallery where the reopened vent draft carried them upward toward the heart of the range.
To give Pip’s raw new shell-filaments room to settle, the group spread out into a looser line than usual. Ashaun walked in front with the steaming camp kettle hooked over her right thumb and her tallow lamp held low; Osha followed two paces behind with her heavy oak case; Chaska and Lilt came next, the sandray walking flat-footed with her broad wings folded like a gray tent over her back; and Ysabet walked near the rear where she could match Pip’s slower step without crowding its flanks.
Even at three paces’ distance, Pip looked miserable. The pale, hair-fine filaments along the seam and outer rim of its translucent shell had not retracted once the fall was over. Whenever Lilt’s tail-tip brushed a stalagmite, or Osha shifted the strap of her archive case from one shoulder to the other, the tiny hairs along that side of Pip’s shell rippled like wheat in a gust. Inside Pip’s warm belly fold, the mouse turned around twice to find a cooler spot, and Pip had to stop on five legs to scratch the outside of its own pouch because the mouse’s whiskers tickled its new nerves from within.
