Near-the-Cold-Ridge asked to speak before the human party reached the contact court.
Jalem met them on the upper path with the receiving stone’s current mark copied on a small board. Kesh read the mark, looked beyond the shoulder, and saw a line of birds lift from the immense body’s forward plates.
“It wants the east route,” Jalem said.
“Today?”
“It hasn’t given us a human date.”
Kesh smiled at the familiar correction and followed him down.
The body lay across the feeding hollow in a long curve of armor and softer ground. Its distant rear ridges disappeared behind a low rise. Water shone beneath the lower feeding margin, and the dark microbial mats there had been grazed into pale-edged patterns. A person seeing only the contact court could forget how small a part of the animal reached its stone.
The receiving fringe rested below the forward crown, moving slowly against the known water.
