The copy for Mother Vale had a blue stain on the animal’s nose.
Brin had made it while trying to reproduce the mosaic from Elian’s sketch. He claimed the stain improved the likeness. Vale said it made the animal look as though it had been stealing berries, which was a respectable occupation for an animal of any size.
Iven sat at the kitchen table while she examined the drawing. The room smelled of onions and bread. The morning meal had ended, but people still came through carrying bowls, notes, and questions about the clinic. Derrit’s wife had left word that he had slept and that Sera expected the leg to heal if infection stayed out.
“Who made the picture?” Vale asked.
“We don’t know,” Elian said.
“And where?”
“In a room off an old maintenance route.”
She looked over the top of the paper. “You don’t want to tell me exactly.”
“We don’t want anyone going there without knowing the floor,” Neri said. “The ceiling has already shifted.”
“That’s sensible. I dislike it.”
Brin pointed to a figure on the sketch. “That one might be carrying a basket.”
“Or a kettle,” Vale said.
“It’s too square.”
“Then it’s a square kettle.”
Iven leaned back. “A revolutionary design. What will you put in it?”
“Anything that doesn’t fit in a round one.”
Vale handed the drawing back to Elian. “I’ll keep a copy, but I won’t pretend it proves more than you can see. People have painted stories on walls for as long as there have been walls.”
“Some stories are records,” Sera said.
“And some records are stories. That’s why I want the drawing, not just the explanation.”
Elian nodded. He had made four copies. One would stay at the kitchen, one at Liss’s yard, one with Sera’s samples, and one in his office. The fragments were in a padded box, each wrapped separately. He had labeled the folds to match his drawing.
Neri set a bowl of nails beside the box. “We still need to make the entrance safe.”
Tavin was waiting outside with a handcart loaded with braces. They had planned to return to the rooms for one last survey before the transport board sent its engineer. Iven hoped the engineer would be more useful than Hobb’s drill. It was not a demanding hope, but he had learned to specify it.
Kesh met them at the junction. She held a piece of pale mineral material in a cloth.
“It came off the wall near the drill hole,” she said. “The creature was gone when I found it.”
Sera examined the fragment. Its underside was damp and ridged, as if it had been pressed against the broken surface. “Did you see it leave?”
“No. There were tracks toward the lower channel.”
“Were there other creatures?”
“Tracks from at least two. I can’t tell whether they were there at the same time.”
Iven studied the fragment. “Could that have formed on its own?”
“Possibly,” Sera said. “I want to compare the material with what we took from the wall before drilling.”
They went down through the drain. The shelf they had placed across the service opening remained in position. Water had risen a finger’s width overnight, leaving a line of silt against the wall. Tavin checked the rope tied to the ladder and secured it to a second rung.
“Why two?” Brin asked.
“So we have one when the other goes wrong.”
“Do they often go wrong?”
“Often enough that I carry two.”
The mosaic room was quiet. The temporary post held the ceiling, though its wooden crosspiece had compressed under the load. Neri replaced it with a metal brace and checked each end with her gauge. Iven helped fit a second support beside the first. They worked from the sound part of the floor, using a board to spread their weight.
Elian began recording the corridor beyond the green door. He drew each room, the positions of the beds, the basin, the hooks, and the opening to the drainage passage. He marked the extent of the old settlement as unknown rather than drawing a boundary he had not seen.
“I thought surveyors liked straight lines,” Iven said.
“We do. It’s the world that keeps objecting.”
Sera examined the old wall behind the mosaic. She found a narrow gap between the wooden backing and the hard pale surface. A strip of flexible material filled part of it, now dry and brittle.
“There’s room for movement,” she said.
“Neri noticed the same thing at the beds.”
“This gap is deliberate. The picture wasn’t fixed directly to the wall.”
“Would that keep it from breaking?”
“It might have delayed it.”
Kesh crouched at the doorway to the first room. “There are scrape marks here that weren’t here yesterday.”
Iven joined her. Three parallel lines ran across the dust near the table. The tracks led toward the exposed hinge, then back toward the drilled hole. They did not enter the sleeping room.
“Could the creature smell the fluid?” he asked.
“Maybe. Could be sound, temperature, vibration, or something we haven’t thought to ask.”
“Is there a way to test all of that?”
“Not at once. That’s the problem with real places. They do several things while you’re watching.”
Brin had brought the blue-bird cup back. He put it where he had found it, and Elian recorded the position. The painted beak faced the fallen shelf. A thin crack ran through the handle beneath the wire repair.
“Someone fixed it before,” Iven said.
Brin looked at him. “Can you fix it properly?”
“I could make it hold tea. I don’t know if that would be the right thing to do.”
“Why not?”
“Because the wire is part of what happened to it. If I replace it, we lose that.”
Brin considered the cup. “You could keep the wire.”
“I could.”
“Then fix it.”
Sera came over. “Not until we’ve recorded the repair.”
Iven gave Brin a look. “You see what happens when you bring a doctor to a cup.”
Sera smiled. “It survives.”
They left the cup in its cloth. Elian finished his drawing, and Neri marked the places where the floor needed support before anyone could safely return. Tavin suggested installing a temporary ladder from the drainage passage rather than relying on the old door. It would take materials and permission, but the transport board’s engineer might approve it if shown the damaged ceiling.
A sound came from the first room: the soft clatter of wood against wood. Kesh lifted her spear. Everyone stopped.
The table had tipped. One leg had slipped off its folded cloth support. Beneath the edge of the table, pale claws appeared, followed by the blunt head of the larger creature they had seen the day before.
“It found the room again,” Brin said.
“It found the table,” Tavin replied.
The creature pushed the table aside and moved toward the corridor. Its damaged shoulder scraped the frame. Iven stepped between it and Elian, seating the plate brace. Neri guided Brin back toward the drain.
The creature paused near the fresh support. It touched the lower end of the metal brace, then struck it once. The brace rang. The creature recoiled and struck again, harder.
“It’s going to knock it loose,” Neri said.
Iven moved forward. “Can you lead it away?” he asked Kesh.
“I can try.”
She tapped her spear on the floor and moved toward the old door. The creature turned to follow the sound, but the damaged frame shifted under its weight. A piece of pale wall dropped onto its back. The animal twisted and struck the frame with both forelimbs.
The temporary support groaned.
Iven had a choice between holding the ceiling and pushing the creature away. He could not do both with the plate brace already spread thin. He called to Tavin instead.
“Rope around the table leg. Pull it toward the drain.”
Tavin understood. He looped the rope and dragged the table across the floor. Its legs scraped loudly. The creature turned toward the noise. Kesh struck the floor beyond it, adding another sound in the same direction.
Neri seized the moment to drive a wedge beneath the brace. Iven shifted his plate support to the top, where the ceiling was settling. The pressure ran up his forearm. He held it steady while Neri hammered the wedge until the metal brace carried the load again.
The creature followed the table three paces. Then it stopped at the fresh cut in the wall and pressed its head against it.
“Still interested in the damage,” Kesh said.
“Or the smell,” Sera replied.
“Or both.”
They retreated through the drain, leaving the creature space. At the ladder, Brin realized he still had the cup in his hand. He had picked it up when the table moved and never put it back.
“I didn’t mean to take it again.”
“You meant to keep it safe,” Sera said. “That’s acceptable.”
“Does the office get it?”
Elian took a breath. “I’ll tell them we found it. I won’t hand it over until we have a record and an agreement about where it goes.”
“You can do that?” Iven asked.
“I can ask. If they refuse, I can ask why.”
“That sounds dangerously close to being useful.”
Elian gave him a tired smile. “Don’t tell them.”
They reached the surface in the middle of a change of shift. Workers crossed the upper walkway carrying lamps and tool rolls. A transport-board engineer waited by the passage entrance, accompanied by two guards. The engineer held a clipboard and wore a coat with a brass badge at the collar.
“I was told there were unauthorized alterations,” she said.
Neri showed her the support drawing and the damaged post they had removed. “There were. We replaced a temporary brace with a stronger one.”
“Who authorized it?”
“The ceiling.”
The engineer did not smile. She examined the drawing, then asked for the measurements. Neri gave them. Iven expected an argument, but the engineer only made notes and sent a guard to fetch a second lamp.
“If the floor is as weak as you say, no one goes back until I inspect it,” she said.
“That includes us?” Brin asked.
“That includes everyone.”
He looked disappointed. Neri put a hand on his shoulder. “You were hoping to live there?”
“I was hoping to see the rest of the picture.”
“So was I.”
The engineer took Neri and Tavin down to inspect the supports. Iven stayed above with Sera, Elian, Kesh, and Brin. A messenger arrived from the survey office carrying a sealed order for Elian. He broke the seal and read it twice.
“What does it say?” Sera asked.
“I’ve been told to surrender my original notes and the fragments for review.”
“By whom?”
“The governor’s survey secretary.”
“Is that your father?” Iven asked.
“No. But the secretary answers to him.”
Elian folded the order. “I’m also instructed not to return to the site without an escort.”
Brin tightened his grip on the basket. “They want the cup.”
“They want everything we found.”
Sera looked at the seal. “Can you delay?”
“I can ask for a receipt and a reason for removing the material from local custody. I can’t pretend the order doesn’t exist.”
“Don’t,” Iven said. “Make them put their names on it.”
A second messenger came up the walkway behind the first. This one wore a guard’s dark coat and carried no paper. He stopped at the passage entrance and looked toward Elian.
“Commander Dain is on his way,” he said. “He’s been assigned to secure the survey site.”
Kesh put the wrapped fragment back into her satchel. “If he wants the rooms empty, he should know there may still be a creature inside.”
The messenger nodded. “I’ll tell him.”
“Tell him the floor is unsafe as well,” Neri said as she emerged from the passage with the engineer. “And the support is temporary.”
The messenger repeated both warnings under his breath, committing them to memory. He was young enough that the task seemed to matter to him. Iven hoped it would matter to the commander too.
The noise of the shift continued around them. A cart rattled over a joint in the deck. Someone called for a missing wrench. Iven looked at the basket in Brin’s hands, then at the order in Elian’s.
“Secure it from whom?” he asked.
The messenger did not answer. He did not appear to know.