Before Chaska could offer a guess—or suggest feeling their way along the wet wall on hands and knees—Pip stepped to the edge of the slate steps and tapped one front foot twice against the stone.
Then it pointed its broad snout down at the dry gravel bar.
The young quartz predator was no longer lying on its side or licking stone-grit. Now that its airway was clear and its chilled blood had warmed past shock, it had climbed the first two stone steps on its six suction-padded feet and was standing at the lower edge of the main ledge.
It paid no attention at all to Pip, Chaska, or the faint yellow crack of Osha’s dying candle. It was not looking for a warm belly pouch to crawl into, nor waiting to be fed scraps from a pack.
Instead, the small eyeless beast lifted its blunt head toward the dark vault and struck its heavy, flat tail three times against the limestone floor: thump, thump, thump.
It waited two seconds, its six padded feet spread wide against the rock to catch the faint mineral echo returning down the galleries, while the heat-pits along its snout opened and closed to taste the warm air currents rising from the vents ahead. Three branching passages led upward from the end of the river shelf: a steep rubble chute on the left, a wet overhang above the foaming water on the right, and a narrow, winding chimney in the middle that looked from below…
