Aravena (Human, Fliade surface party)

Aravena picked the stone at the junction. Not the first one. A good one, the size of two hands, rough, the kind that would not roll, and heavier than it looked, and Aravena carried it to the front the way you carry a thing you do not want to scrape, and went down the third passage with the light held low.

The squeeze was worse with the stone. Everything is worse with a stone. Aravena went in sideways with it held to the chest and got stuck and came out and went in again with the stone turned lengthwise and the whole side scraping, one hand-width at a time, breath held, and thought, in the middle of it, in the narrowest part, with nothing to be done but go on: this is what it was like for him. Except his was heavier, and it woke up.

Then out, onto the silt, on the far side, into the fungus-dark, with the light low.

And there was someone standing on the line.

Aravena stopped so completely that the stone nearly went.

In the open. Right there. At arm's length of the place where the party's own feet had stopped, where the unit had stood on its base with its face toward them, where nobody had ever stood. Large. Larger than the shapes at the bottom of the margin had ever looked, because those had been far away and this was not. Grey, against the stone. Upright. Still — not the stillness of a thing that has not noticed you, but the other kind, the kind that has, and is waiting to see what you do. The low light lay across the silt and found its feet, and Aravena's hand, without being told, lifted the light a little, slowly, and it went up, and up, and there was a face, and the face was looking at Aravena.

It did not withdraw.

Every part of Aravena that was not the eyes wanted to go back through the crack. Aravena knew this about themselves, standing there, the way you know a thing plainly for the first time. The wanting was very large and it was very simple and Aravena did not do it. Aravena stood on the silt with the stone held to the front and looked at the one on the line, and the one on the line looked back, for as long as it took to get the breath back from the squeeze, which was a while.