novelraw Chapter 145: Where Are They?
Chapter 145: Where Are They?
"The kill is fresh," Zubair announced, crouching down beside the dead carcass.
Elias nodded. "Hours. Not days."
"Scavenger?" Lachlan asked.
"Initial tear is predator," Elias said. "Teeth marks at the ribs. No tool cuts." He touched a gouge where the sternum had been broken and left it at that.
Zubair straightened and took the map in again—the crosshatch of presses, the arcs in and out, the way nothing bothered to hurry. It wasn’t just that big things had been here. It was that they had no reason to be careful.
"Nothing moved when we came out," he said.
"Doesn’t mean nothing’s close," Alexei said, cheerful like always.
"No," Zubair said.
They pushed on, slow, following the lines outward. The bear prints widened as the path bent to skirt their tower.
The wolf set stayed just inside that arc like it liked the idea of someone bigger making choices first.
The cat’s path came in from east and broke away again like it had wanted to know what everyone else was doing, then decided it didn’t care.
The heavy round depressions kept their own counsel and pointed downslope toward the more open ice.
"Why here?" Lachlan asked. "Why kill here and not twenty meters that way?"
"Cover from wind," Elias said. "Leeward side of the wall. Less scent carried." He pointed at nothing in particular and everything at once. "Also, the ice is thicker by the wall. Less chance the fight breaks the sheet."
Lachlan squinted. "So, they’re smarter than we are."
"Or have been doing it longer," Alexei said.
They came to the edge of a drift that had piled hard along a buckled seam of ice. On the far side, the wind had hollowed a low space where the crust bridged between two ridges. A man could crawl in there.
So could other things. The snow at the lip had a smooth polish from bodies slipping in and out.
Zubair put a hand out without looking. "Don’t."
He crouched, reached forward with a glove, and scraped a thin layer away. Frost crystals spilled and the dark under-snow opened two inches more. He didn’t put his face near it. He listened.
Nothing but wind moving through small holes. He tapped the crust with his knuckle. The sound came back dull. Packed space. Good for shelter. Bad for people who thought the flat meant open.
"Dens," he said.
"Under every ridge?" Lachlan asked.
"Enough of them."
They crossed the lee and found another sign: a patch where the ice had frosted over from the inside, not the air. Something warm had passed underneath. The frost pattern was a fan, thin at one end, thick at the other. Zubair stopped, put his glove to the surface, and didn’t move. No vibration now. No sound. Just the memory the sheet held until wind scoured it away.
"Below," he said, and left it.
They followed the cat trail another twenty meters and lost it where drift had filled the presses. The wolf line reappeared two ridges over and then vanished as if it had decided to run. The bear prints doubled back once, briefly, then took their time again toward the open ice. The big round depressions angled west without hurry.
Elias made notes he didn’t show anyone. Lachlan climbed a ridge and peered into the glare and came back quiet. Alexei breathed deep and steady, a man who enjoyed being where he was when he knew he shouldn’t. Sera kept pace and didn’t look back at the seal, which told Zubair more than any expression would have.
He took them another fifty meters for a wider read. More of the same. Not just one animal. Not even one kind. Multiple sets. Multiple sizes. All recent. All closer than he liked.
He looked back at their tower. The smear of frost along the lower pane from yesterday’s scrape caught the light. The distance between that mark and the carcass was shorter than his body would have put it if he’d been the one choosing.
"Back," he said.
No one argued. They moved with the careful ease of people who knew that careful didn’t make them safe. Rope lifted clean. Boots placed light. No one spoke.
At the window, he sent Elias in first and waited until Sera was over the sill before he climbed through. He sealed the frame, leaned his hand to the wall out of habit, and let the cold bleed off his glove.
The greenhouse smell rolled over them in a thin wave: soil, citrus, plant. Alexei shut the second latch. Lachlan held the rag to the seam until the draft died.
They stripped layers. Gear went where gear went now. Zubair stood until everyone had their hands free and then said, "Report."
Elias didn’t need prompting. "Kill site within a hundred meters. Not long dead. Multiple predator tracks: ursine larger than modern, canid oversized, feline heavy. Additional sign of elephantine depressions heading west. Drift dens at the leeward edges. Frost from below—warm body under the sheet recently."
"Neighbors," Lachlan said. He meant it to be light; it wasn’t.
Alexei leaned in the doorway like a man at ease. He wasn’t.
Sera stood with her hands behind her back and watched Zubair like she was waiting for him to add the only thing that mattered. He didn’t make them wait.
"We treat the open like it is occupied by hostile forces," he announced. "We move like we are being watched. We don’t track for curiosity. We don’t put our weight on a roof we haven’t read. We cut anchor points on both sides of the landing. We prep a line for a fast pull-back if something decides we look interesting."
Elias nodded, relief in the task list. Lachlan groaned for form and went to the webbing anyway. Alexei rolled his shoulders and reached for hardware. Sera didn’t move until the others did, and then she did exactly what needed doing without asking for a job.
Zubair went to the window again and looked out at the clean flat and the long white. It was a lie. The sheet was mapped with paths and choices he couldn’t see until he nearly stepped on them. He put his gloved knuckle to the glass once and then let his hand drop.
"If the world is this open," he murmured after a moment, mostly to the room and a little to himself, "where are they spending their time?"
No one answered. The lemon leaves ticked the pane. The generator hummed. Outside, the ice gave nothing away.