Mara Wrench's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

Mara pushed through the snow with the drone case at her hip. The wind shifted, and a thin cry rode in on it. She froze. It could be a hiker. It could be a fox. Guessing wrong meant hours lost in the wrong direction. She climbed to a small listening tower set on the ridge, its horns angled into the wind. Searchers used it to sort signal from noise. Mara stepped inside and powered up the small screen at its base. A needle on the display swung, waiting for a sound to read. The cry came again. Mara pulled out her worn sound chart, the little sign that listed calls by shape and pitch. She matched the waveform on the screen to the marks on her chart. Fox bark held a sharp double snap. Human cry held a long open vowel. The screen showed a long, ragged line. The chart agreed. Human. West, down the slope past the split waypost. Mara stepped back into the cold and turned west, sure now. She did not run. She moved steady, counting paces, marking her path. The cry came once more, weaker, but in the same place the screen had pointed. She was not there yet. The hiker was still lost, and the light was thinning. But for the first time today, Mara knew which way to walk. She kept walking.