Sera began to draw a boat beneath the low groove, then lifted her pencil. She had not yet asked whether seeing it required a boat at all. Since morning, one small hollow on the outer face had been pulling her hand toward the sea.
It was the hundred and ninety-sixth morning. Yesterday's tenth departure and ninth limited round trip were complete. Two eyes, one at sea and one on land, had matched the same horizontal fissure end to actual positions and reading times. The low groove beneath it remained a different target. So far she knew only that higher water obscured its face.
The observation officer brought a candidate tide time. Near low water did not necessarily mean a clear view. Light returning from the wet face could change the apparent boundary between the groove's shadow and the water's shine. Beside time and bearing, Sera left a line for surface conditions.
Nume was finishing the boat's existing work when she reached the pier. An adult crew member wound rope beside them; the captain was asking about the wind for returning. Instead of beginning with a request to visit the groove today, she asked when they could hear her question.
“Briefly, now.”
She showed the candidate. Nume read the figures, then looked at the water beyond the pier. The groove would become exposed after today's possible operating end. Waiting for it would change the conditions for coming back.
Sera almost asked whether an earlier departure would help.
“I haven't reached the question of arriving yet,” the captain added. Wind could change during a long stay at the candidate position. Neither today's boat nor today's people were assigned through that later time.
She knew the sound of her own persistence. Alter one more detail and perhaps they could go. But stretching her curiosity in front of the person responsible for the return would only make them explain the same wind again.
“Then we aren't leaving for this candidate today.”
“That's right.” Other work might arise, but Nume was accepting no new departure to observe the low groove. Sera left the departure count at ten, the limited round trips at nine.
They asked whether she was disappointed.
“Quite.”
Nume did not offer an apology in place of better wind. They too would have liked a proper look at another tide. For a moment they watched the wet stones at their feet.
Sera supported her knee with her palm. Even the short descent had left it aching. Her body was not the sole reason the boat would stay, though that did not remove its limits. She would sit before climbing back. Nume might visit briefly after work; she would hear the land officer's questions from her own place meanwhile. No departure did not mean every question about the sea had to fold shut.
The permitted land position could supply a view check. An adult observer would examine the equipment and what could presently be seen; Sera could hear the explanation from the lower chair. She proposed no descent to a new ledge.
Late that morning the first description arrived. The long branch and horizontal fissure were visible, but wet foreground rock overlapped the low groove beneath the vertical mark. Same rock did not answer today's question. They needed to distinguish that particular face.
The observer needed more time to determine whether its front could be separated from land. Sera noted the scope: one land eye, no new sea reference and no lane established by a lone instrument reading. A single view could still tell them what needed asking.
Tio turned the paper boat on the table.
“A headwind makes it sail by itself.” He paused. “Actually, the window frame pushed it.”
She laughed at the correction. He was keeping his finger's work brief again today.
“Does the groove look like a house door?”
“I can't tell from this drawing.” Calling the observer's small patch of darkness an underwater entrance would enlarge it very quickly. First there was a boundary on wet stone, not a doorway inviting people through.
She showed him the separate branch, fissure and vertical mark. He almost put the boat beside them, then moved it inward because he did not know the actual scale. That did not make his drawing less interesting, she said.
Turning the sheet, she caught her cup. A little water crossed the table without reaching the records. Tio started looking for a cloth.
“My dry handkerchief is here.”
He made room without hurrying his finger. She wiped the edge. The remaining film looked bright and dark as window light caught it, but she did not call this a reproduction of the groove. The table had neither the sea's waves nor the rock's slope. She dried it before giving a likeness more work than it could do.
“Good thing I didn't bring the sea in,” Tio said.
He checked that the drawing was dry and returned to his place. While the wet patch faded, Sera left her pencil down. Some resemblances did not need a place on today's paper.
Varen sat with his right leg comfortably extended. Hearing the tide question, he said that keeping account of the tide was work too.
“Including not sending the boat?”
“If you considered its return.”
He did not avoid the shortened copy in which he had omitted movement conditions. They were waiting to learn the permitted scope for examining its use markings. Sera did not make today's stopped voyage an example by which to judge his earlier days. Those records belonged to other times.
He knew. Watching a safe choice now, he admitted, made him want to imagine that the past had been equally careful. She had no immediate answer to that. She could hear that he had offered the wish himself.
“We're waiting for the paper that might show whether it was.”
“Yes.”
Remembering harder would not enlarge the face they were allowed to examine. He climbed no further stairs, and she asked for no extra chest.
At lunch Miran said they had heard the notice that the boat would stay. Sera explained the mismatch between the groove's candidate time and the return conditions.
“Still separate from a date for going home?”
“Yes.”
Miran had expected that. Hearing observations were possible each morning could nevertheless make their own threshold seem closer. Sera asked whether more explanation was needed. Today, distinguishing those two things was enough.
She would not turn a possible drawing into a return date. Miran's eaves inquiry also remained separate: the mark in the present photograph had no established date, and they were asking what another tide might reveal. Same tide, different house, different rock. Miran collected their food and went to their seat.
The afternoon land report said that falling water had lengthened the darkness beneath the vertical mark. The wet foreground boundary still could not be distinguished from the groove's actual lower end. The observer read no value there. Sera recorded the hold.
Water covering a face and another rock overlapping it were different obstructions. Today's single view was not necessarily the same shape seen at sea. It did clarify what two future observers would need to describe when calling their target the same one. She read that scope back and received confirmation. Yesterday's fissure reference remained limited to yesterday's conditions; the groove could not extend it into a lane.
Nume came at the brief time they had offered. She told them the land observer had not separated the lower end. They did not claim their boat would have seen it better. Another direction might help, but that eye had not yet been there.
“I recorded the decision not to leave too.”
“Will you start counting my non-departures?”
“Only that the actual departures haven't increased.”
“A less busy number, then.”
They laughed. Beside them she admitted that she was still very disappointed. Saying it once had not finished the feeling. Nume had spent today looking stubbornly at the wind, they said. When they asked whether she wanted to hold hands, she did.
Their hand was warm. She did not take it to find the next tide. They promised nothing about her knee. They looked at the same real table for a little while, then let go when the agreed time ended.
Before supper the custodian replied. A separate face bearing use markings could be identified within Varen's received bundle, but the extent of masking private names needed deciding first. Sera passed on the answer. Varen did not ask to open it immediately; she asked the custodian when a viewing might be possible.
Two waits shared the day without waiting for the same result. Both reserve lightstones stayed clear in their chest. The bell had no clapper; all twenty residents remained at Roan. Tio moved his boat inward before the night wind, and Sera covered her drawing. People had added what today's eyes could establish. Darkness was still no entrance. Its lower end remained indistinct.
Before sleeping she looked at the space where she had first wanted to draw a boat. It was not merely the shape of failure. Asking about the return had kept it empty. When another tide candidate came, she would first ask which eye could actually see which end.
