“The rascal,” Hati said, when Marak told her that. She had banished her own watcher’s chatter in frustration, during the last shiver of the land. Ian himself was proving a nuisance, this morning, arguing with Auguste that the heavens should not spend any effort to offer them a path to the beshti, which only encouraged their adventure. They should not go down farther, Ian argued. Auguste, however, agreed with them, that there might be time, even yet, to get the beshti back and give them a fast route off the spine, which—Auguste hinted—might not be that stable, once the flood reached it.

Auguste had said meanwhile that Procyon was still engaged, that he, Auguste, intended to stay on duty through this shift and half of Drusus’s. That Brazis would give his watchers both a few hours’ sleep, leaving only Hati’s watcher on duty during the coming night.

Another shaking began. The beshti stopped where they were, and their riders bent down low to the saddles, to lessen the strain of a high load on the long-legged beshti’s balance.

“Husband!” Hati exclaimed, pointing straight ahead, as—at first silent, hazy in the distance—a section of the towering cliff face gave way, an immense promontory splitting from the ridge above and falling, falling down to the next terraces, where its ruin provoked a tremendous landslide and carried a plume of dust all along its course.

That might have been above their heads. They were lucky.

On the other hand, it might have spooked the beshti below them into another run.

Marak stole a look up, not his first, as he had watched for cracks and flaws in the rocks of the cliffs above them. They had avoided one easy-looking descent as unstable. Harder, however, to judge the terrace directly underfoot. Hati was curt with her watcher’s renewed attempt to question her, in no mood to give a detailed description.

He, himself, had far rather Procyon’s modest silence, at the moment, than Auguste’s worried questions. And if, on the other hand, he ever wanted information from Auguste, that cautious watcher always said wait, he would find out. What he knew was never enough: he always wanted to ask the absolute latest before telling him a damned thing.

“Do you judge it safe to continue?”Auguste asked of him, however, wavering in his support.

“Safe? Do we seem to be fools? It is by no means safe with the cliffs coming down, but our other choice is no better.”

Not wise to berate Auguste into silence. He was usually more patient than that. He was running out of resources, he was down to two watchers. And he had no wish to drive Auguste and Drusus toward Ian’s side of the argument.

“Forgive me.” He wanted a favor from Auguste and decided not to antagonize the man. “No, we are not in a safe place at the moment.” They urged their nervous beshti into a judicious descent down a sandy stretch. Beneath his left foot, in the crook-legged posture in which one sat a saddle, he had empty air. A cloud of dust still lingered where the section of cliff had come down, the last of the ruin just now reaching the basin floor.

Let the oncoming flood begin to saturate the ground, however slow its advance, then more of the cliff might come down. He foresaw that event, looking very differently at the ridge above and around them. The watchers aloft could not see the rocks as they were, split with ancient cracks, sandstone that had resisted wind and rain, but which might not resist saturation, basalt layers which occurred in natural pillars, already fractured, that strong current could carry apart. Seawater rising and lapping about the base of these cliffs could seep through cracks, eating toward the spine to the layered rock of the Needle Gorge itself, so that this might not be the future shore—only a half-drowned island.

The rock fall and its earthshaking thunder played over and over in memory. He felt an unaccustomed fear, and thought that, on this occasion, Ian could have been right about the rocket, but Ian was not right now. Ian and his trucks or an arriving column of riders could not be fast enough to rescue them.

And knowing that Ian and Auguste were likely engaged in debate on his case, he did what he rarely did: he tapped into the dialogue.

“Marak,”Ian said, recognizing his arrival. “Where are you now?”

“I thought you knew.”

“In general, yes, well down off the ridge, not taking advice from anyone. Give up this chase, Marak, in all friendship. Your position is growing far too precarious.”

“Once the sea arrives, very much too precarious. This whole expanse of cliffs is fissured and apt to give passage to water going toward the gorge, Ian. A section of the cliffs just gave way in the last quake. All our arguments aside, we are not safe here. We need the beshti now to get ourselves and the boys out of here, back toward the Plateau.”

A small silence. Ian was considering his argument. “If it’s that dire, go down now, do you hear me? I can send a plane to the basin.”

“I have young men waiting up on the rim.”

“If you need rescue that badly, Marak, you and Hati. I can save you. If it comes to that. Don’t refuse the thought. I can get you out, if you don’t wait too long…or divert yourselves in a useless chase. Go straight down now. I’ll send a caravan after the others. But get yourself and Hati out.”

Hati’s danger was, Ian knew damned well, the thought hardest for him to bear. He was hardly subtle.

“Save your plane, Ian. We shall find the beshti and get us all off the ridge, quite handily. Auguste has promised us a safe trail along the terrace. It saved us being in the path of a landslide just now.”

“A rocket is going out within the next hour to deliver our reserve relay to Halfmoon.”

Doing what they had failed to do. What he had argued against, months ago. “I truly wish it luck.”

Luck, which a soft-landing in that place certainly needed. They had as well drop it from a height.

“It’s a spectacle out there, Marak, a long, long waterfall that ends in a plume of spray. I have the transmissions from Concord and the satellite. I hate to say, if you had stayed here and gone by plane in the first place, you might have both seen it and gotten pictures.”

Ian tormented him. Ian had to make his point, even now, while he had empty space beneath his left foot and little sand-slips sliding down from every step the beshti made.

“Send out your rocket,” Marak retorted, and let fly his own annoyance. “Send your plane to the Wall and get your pictures. You were right, Ian, I entirely admit it. We shall not be there to see it. We are here, on the face of this cliff, which is our just reward. But we deserve more help than we have gotten from the heavens in the last two days, do you hear me, Ian-omi? Now Brazis is saying Hati’s watchers will give Drusus relief tonight. By noon, tell Brazis so, I wish all my watchers back as they were. This is not a moment to indulge some foreign lord’s whims, and the threat to our camp does not take the night off because two men are tired. I ask you make this clear to him, Ian.”

“Marak, be patient.”

“Is there reward for us in patience? We had little warning of this event. Where was my warning, Ian? Was all-seeing heaven perhaps distracted from watching us, while it was watching this foreign lord?”

“You know the difficulties of prediction. Your position is between us and the epicenter.”

“Excuses, Ian.”

“You cannot argue with physics.”

“I canargue with distraction and delay of information.” He grew angry much more slowly than Hati. He took far longer to let it build, but here, on this slope, after the ruin that had cascaded down to the basin, and with the gnawing thought that if he had managed better, and used Ian’s damnable wire-cored rope, he would not be chasing the beshti, his temper was very near the boiling point. “I find it remarkable that when we should have had some slight warning, Brazis was busy reassigning my watcher to this foreign lord, and he either has not explained to Drusus why this is, or has told Drusus to lie to me, promising me Procyon’s return soon, soon, soon, which has not happened yet.—Are you listening, Auguste? Ask Brazis when we will have his full attention.”