Kesh recognized the refusal before Miv translated it.
The low call crossed the basin in three unequal movements. The last held against the sounding stone, not loud enough to be anger and not shaped like uncertainty. Kesh had heard related patterns at resting places, work boundaries and once beside a nursery where human visitors had mistaken patience for an invitation.
Miv put her hand on the recording board and waited until the vibration ended.
“Not that interval,” she said.
“Not the whole connection?”
“No. The interval.”
Kesh looked at the water schedule they had carried from Spindle Field.
The proposed warm return ran during the steadiest wind hours, when the little pumps could honestly promise capacity. Those hours overlapped the lower basin’s use by Dappled-Edge and two younger bodies. Human operators had marked the water point as used occasionally. They had not marked what occasional meant to the bodies using it.
