When the Wind Returns

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The cries stopped when Laila stopped the truck.

For a few seconds the silence seemed to prove that Tavi had been wrong. Iria could hear only the support vehicle coming up behind them and a loose fastening tapping against their own roof rack. Then a bright scrap of orange moved above the ridge to their left.

A woman was standing beside a small, pale van. She lifted a cloth, lowered it, and lifted it again. Beside her lay a hand horn with a split bell. Each time she raised it to her mouth, the wind tore the note into something almost animal.

Laila answered with the truck's horn. The woman lowered the cloth and sat down abruptly.

They did not drive straight toward her. Between the track and the van, the ground fell into a shallow channel whose edges were difficult to distinguish in the slanting light. Laila followed the firmer approach while Eren took the support vehicle farther along the track. Ada had the medical bag beside her before the second engine stopped.

The woman called out as they approached. "Don't come behind the rear wheel. The ground has gone under it."

She was sitting on a folded blanket, her left boot unlaced. A narrow strip of shade lay across one shoulder. Her face had the fixed composure of someone who had spent a long time concentrating on the next manageable thing.

Ada introduced herself and asked whether she could sit beside her. The woman moved the blanket's edge toward her, then gave her name: Nera Dast.

"There's no one else in the van," she added. "My child is in Kesh. If you've got a radio, please tell Hessa that before anything else."

Laila went back to the truck to make the call. Iria remained beside the van, holding the small shade sheet Nera had already rigged between a door and a pole. There were water containers, food, tools and a sensible arrangement for waiting. This was not a woman who had wandered into the basin carrying a secret and no supplies.

"How long?" Ada asked.

"Since this morning. The engine stopped. I stepped down to look, and the wheel dropped farther. My foot found the space between two rocks before I did."

Tavi crouched near the van's front, keeping his dressed hand away from the sharp edges. Nera pointed out the failed part before he found it. They discussed the damage in short, practical sentences. Iria could not follow all of it, but she understood the conclusion: the van would not be repaired by fitting a spare from either expedition vehicle.

"Could you tow it?" Nera asked.

Tavi looked toward Laila. Laila had returned from the radio call, and Nera's shoulders eased as soon as she heard that Kesh had answered. The message would be taken to Hessa. Sef was with her. Nobody was preparing to send the child out looking for his mother.

Laila walked around the van without approaching the sunken wheel. The trailer coupling on the expedition truck was rated for their equipment trailer, not for dragging a damaged vehicle out of uncertain ground. Even reaching it from a safe angle would take time they did not have before dark.

"Not tonight," she said. "I can take you and what you need. We can arrange a recovery from Kesh."

Nera closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she asked how much room remained in the support vehicle.

"Enough for you," Ada said. "Let's start with that."

While they worked out the transfer, Iria heard the other sound.

It came from beyond the van, through a break between two slabs of stone. A low note rose, held, and fell away. Two others followed it. The second was shorter. She knew the pattern before she had decided that she was hearing it.

Her case lay in the truck. She looked toward it, then back at Nera, who was explaining which of the tool boxes had to travel with her and which could safely remain locked in the van.

Eren had heard the notes too. His expression changed so completely that Iria understood how much of his composure since Glass Well had been effort.

"There," he said. "Can you get it?"

She ran back for the recorder. By the time she returned, the wind had shifted. The notes were gone. She stood at the edge of the slabs, waiting with the microphone in her hand, while Tavi and Eren carried a box toward the support vehicle.

Then Nera tried to stand.

Ada had asked her to wait, but Nera had seen the men approach the wrong box. She rose quickly enough to send a loose stone sliding beneath her good foot. Ada caught her shoulder. The shade sheet pulled free from its pole and blew against Iria's arm.

Iria put the microphone down and caught the sheet before it reached the unstable wheel.

For a brief moment the fabric filled her view. Behind it, Nera swore, Ada spoke sharply, and something metal struck stone. Iria folded the sheet against herself and moved back to the blanket. Nera was seated again, pale with pain and angry at herself.

"The red box," she said. "The other one has broken parts. They're not worth carrying."

Eren put his load down. Tavi looked inside, made a small expression which was neither amusement nor reproach, and went to fetch the red box.

The microphone lay where Iria had set it, except that the shade pole had fallen across its lead. The connector was bent. She knew before she picked it up that she would not be making a clean recording through it that afternoon.

The three notes returned while she was examining the damage.

Eren looked from the stone opening to the microphone. "The recorder has its own microphones."

"Yes."

"Then perhaps—"

"There are four people carrying things and one person who needs to get into a vehicle before the light goes. I can be the fifth person carrying things."

She heard the anger in her own voice and disliked the part of it which belonged to the broken connector. Eren's mouth tightened. Then he nodded and lifted the correct box.

They made the transfer slowly. Nera decided what she could leave, Ada helped her move without making a performance of rescuing her, and Laila made sure the additional load was secured. Iria carried the tools. They were heavier than their size suggested. Halfway to the support vehicle, she had to stop and set them down.

Nera watched from the passenger seat. "You can carry fewer at a time."

Iria laughed, breathlessly. It was not particularly funny, except that she had been behaving as if the weight was an examination whose rules forbade sensible alternatives.

She carried fewer at a time.

By the time they were ready, the light had almost left the channel. They would not safely reach Kesh before dark, and Laila would not use an unfamiliar stretch of damaged track merely to preserve their original arrival time. Kesh confirmed the changed plan over the radio. They would camp on firm ground beside the service track, use their own supplies and arrive in the morning.

Nera asked to speak to Hessa herself. The connection was rough, but she heard enough to stop gripping the door handle. Her voice changed when she asked for Sef. She did not tell him about the wheel or her foot. She asked whether he had finished the job Hessa had given him and listened to an answer which made her smile in spite of herself.

Later, Iria sat beside the camp lamp with the damaged connector on her knee. Tavi examined it without promising a repair before morning. The recorder's own microphones had captured part of the three-note pattern from where it lay beside the stones, crowded by voices, fabric and the work of helping somebody leave.

Iria played a short section. Nera turned her head from the place Ada had made comfortable for her.

"You think that's the desert being silent?"

"I think it's something people built."

"They built a lot of things."

Across the small circle of light, Eren looked up.

Nera saw him notice. She looked away from him and back at Iria.

"If you're going to ask me about it," she said, "ask me after breakfast. Tonight I would like to be a person whose van broke down."

Iria stopped the playback. She put the recorder in its case, leaving the unanswered question outside it with the cooling air.