Beneath Jiang's beak, the dark cord snapped tight.
Snow dropped through the vent. Black water swallowed it, lifted it again as slush, and pressed the pale clasp against the underside of the ice.
Then the ridge settled.
Below the vent, cord slackened and vanished beyond the narrow view.
Jiang backed up too quickly. His failed foot caught under his belly, the sling pulled against his shoulder, and the wind scoop kept half his body pointed downhill while the rest tried to leave.
Black-Crown watched from the opposite wall.
Its expression carried the usual warmth of a landlord discovering a leak and blaming the tenant.
Jiang freed his foot and worked his bill back into the opening.
Wet salt air met him. Beneath it came the shifting weight of real water, louder now that snow no longer sealed the opening. Inside a thinner seam to his right, the black-green root voice kept repeating. A second sound drew away, returned, and lifted the slush with it.
Real sea waited below.
Reaching it was another problem.
Torn-Bib came down the center of the scoop.
Patience had deserted Torn-Bib somewhere above. Its chest forced Jiang against one wall while it drove its beak through the broken crust. Snow gave way around its head. A gust of warm salt air escaped, followed by a surge that darkened every feather around the opening.
Torn-Bib shoved farther into the wet opening.
Black-Crown crossed the scoop in two hard steps and struck the back of its neck. At the same time, blue edges narrowed around Torn-Bib's shoulders.
Trapped between those edges, the adult kicked. One foot tore through the loose floor beside Jiang's beak.
Black-Crown seized neck feathers and pulled with the retreating water. Jiang braced his reliable foot against Torn-Bib's breast and shoved upward. His bound flipper supplied nothing. His shoulder supplied pain.
Torn-Bib came free on the next inward breath of the sea.
It spun and hit Jiang across the face.
His beak rang. Apparently rescue remained a private interpretation.
Black-Crown forced both of them out of the deepest part of the scoop. Torn-Bib stayed near the lip, pecking snow from its breast and watching the vent. The other adults gathered along firmer ice above without crowding the weak center.
No one called the water safe.
One adult climbed down, tasted the wet groove, and backed toward firmer ice. Another lay where Jiang had listened and kept its breast against the tide's changing pressure. Two remained above the scoop, facing downhill while faint family calls came and went in the wind.
Hunger had brought six birds to the same ridge. Each found its own distance from the hole.
Jiang lay beside the vent and studied what the tide exposed.
Each pressure push lifted dark water close enough to wet his bill. On the retreat, a cavity opened beneath the ridge. The pale object rolled into view inside it: a curved bone clasp with three cuts near one end. A white bead sat between the first and second cut.
The dark cord passed through the third.
Farther down, more lines crossed one another. They hung slack when water moved inward and pulled toward the western wall as it withdrew. Something broad and dark folded beneath them.
A net waited under them.
Jiang barked one warning.
Torn-Bib answered by lowering its body toward the opening.
Of course. His warning call came from the stranger with a black-green voice following him. The water smelled real. The old scrape held a real fish scale. Somewhere downhill, a chick waited behind an empty parent.
Black-Crown put its body between Torn-Bib and the vent.
The two adults faced each other until the sea pressed upward again. This time the opening widened past Black-Crown's breast. Water filled the scoop, tugged at their feet, and retreated before either bird committed.
Black-Crown studied the dark water.
Jiang wanted another full cycle. The clasp had moved differently from the water once, and one difference was enough to justify fear rather than understanding.
A shed breast feather lay caught in the scoop wall. Jiang took it in his beak and fed the white tip through the vent as water rose. The tide carried it inward, rolled it beneath the clasp, and offered it back when the ridge released.
On the next retreat, the dark cord pulled west while the feather floated straight beneath Jiang. Water and trap had separate intentions. Black-Crown watched both.
Black-Crown slid through the vent.
Its black back vanished into the ridge. White belly followed. Both feet kicked once above the opening and disappeared before Jiang could get his beak near them.
Torn-Bib called after it.
No answer came through the ice.
Jiang pressed his breast flat. Swimming vibrations traveled badly through the broken snow, but one body brushed the underside of the ridge, turned, and crossed beneath his beak. A faint scrape moved away from the fixed root seam.
The cord remained slack.
Black-Crown's beak broke the next lift of water. Its head and shoulders came through, slick with seawater. The adult dragged itself onto the scoop, rolled clear before the opening narrowed, and shook enough brine over Jiang to improve his mood considerably.
It had entered and returned.
Its crop still looked empty.
Brine ran from Black-Crown's breast into the vent. The adult followed the draining water with one eye, then pecked the solid lip where it had surfaced. Real sea and a usable breath were all it had proved.
Black-Crown turned toward the vent again.
A high call rose from the water.
Torn-Bib locked its body still.
The sound came through the dark opening with the short pitch of a chick. It repeated from the same place below the ridge.
Jiang heard no answer from the stable ice at this distance. Torn-Bib heard a shape he knew well enough to hurt.
The adult pushed past Black-Crown.
Jiang crawled across the lip and put his body in the way. His chest covered most of the vent while his good foot held one blue edge. Torn-Bib struck beside his eye. Jiang stayed.
Another chick call reached them from below.
Same ending. Same distance. Gredudande had found a water route for the recording, nothing more.
Torn-Bib attacked him again.
The blow opened the old crack at Jiang's beak tip. He tasted blood and salt. Torn-Bib's next shove rolled him onto his bound side, and the adult took the tide opening without waiting for Black-Crown.
Its feet disappeared into black water.
Jiang righted himself at the lip.
Black-Crown struck Torn-Bib's trailing foot and missed. The opening narrowed behind the diver. For one ugly breath, only water moved.
Then the cord drew tight.
The pale clasp slammed against the ice below them.
The trapped bird slammed into the ice roof. Snow dropped into Jiang's face as Torn-Bib's beak surfaced through the vent. Its neck followed, but one shoulder remained under water and both feet kicked against something pulling west.
Black-Crown caught the adult below the jaw.
Jiang seized neck feathers on the other side. Together they held Torn-Bib's beak above water while the tide tried to close the opening around all three heads.
The net line vibrated beneath Jiang's breast.
With one foot free, Torn-Bib twisted for the opening. Its trapped leg jerked back so sharply that the whole body struck ice again.
Before loose feathers tore in his cracked beak, Jiang released the neck and pushed his head into the vent. The trapped leg hung below.
A dark loop had cinched above the foot. Its line ran through the three-cut clasp. The white bead remained dull.
Black-Crown pulled upward. The loop tightened.
Jiang barked against the water and struck the line with his beak. Pain jumped through his jaw. The cord felt braided, harder than wet leather and too thick to cut from this angle.
The tide began to retreat.
Torn-Bib dropped until only its bill remained above the surface.
Jiang chose the water.
He waited for the opening to spread, drove his head and white breast through first, and let the sea take the weight his feet could no longer carry.
Cold closed over his back.
The bound flipper pulled him left. He opened the good one, kicked around the curve, and found Torn-Bib thrashing beneath the vent. Black-Crown entered behind him in a burst of bubbles.
Blue light reached through the crack and found a net stretched between bone hoops under the ridge, broad enough to catch several diving birds at once. Most of its body lay folded along the wall except for the outer loop gripping Torn-Bib.
Jiang aimed his beak at the clasp.
The black-green mark beneath his breast feathers passed over the white bead.
Light formed inside the bead like milk poured into clear glass.
Every folded section of net opened.
The loop around Torn-Bib's foot loosened.
Dark cords turned away from the ordinary penguin and closed around Jiang.