Canticle Blue

17. Shil

That night Havilan slept well and deep, with Elyse now more of a resident in his dreams than a visitor. It was often as if she were very convincingly there and, even in the context of his dreams, he painfully wished it so. But, real or not, with her ordered presence, the typical futility of those dreams became less futile, and their questionable logic was at least more hopefully so. And it was her voice outside of his tent that awakened him the next morning.

She had volunteered to wake up anyone who wanted to get an early start. The only requests had been from Cian and Os, because they were going to work together in the water tunnel that day. So, as soon she saw them talking on the fourth terrace, she had returned to Havilan's tent, hoping to recruit him for a sunrise walk on the beach. When she heard him stirring inside, she whispered loudly, "I promise, you won't have to go barefoot this time."

Then, with a clumsiness seemingly inherent to sleeping in a tent, he put on his slippers instead of his shoes and emerged as if shedding a cocoon.

The walk was more like a ritual observance. The sky over the sea was deep gray with pink highlights, except at the southeastern horizon where sunlight found a corridor. From there its first rays ignited trailing wisps of clouds and proceeded out to sea, striking the icebergs in the bay with such brilliance that they immediately reminded Havilan of a massive fleet of square-sailed ships fleeing an inferno. Then, just as quickly, the corridor closed, returning everything to pastels and glacial blues.

From the outer reaches of some timeless interlude, Havilan felt Elyse stir beside him. She walked to the high-tide line of the shore, stooped down, and wrote on the wet surface:

every morning
new light
and washed sand

At that, he made a slight bowing gesture, gave her a one-arm hug, and said, "Very, nice!" Then, as they turned to walk back to the city, he emptied the sand from his slippers and made a mental note to find some socks.

They ate with Geddes and Syl, away from the tents. During their conversation, the surprisingly welcome sound of the waterfall returned. Os and Cian had already climbed to that level, installed silt barriers, and removed the central gate. As they continued into the tunnel, Cian keyed her radio, trying to keep her voice down as much as possible.

"Geddes, there's less steam in the tunnel this morning, and we can see the top of the lift mechanism. It looks like some kind of waterwheel from here. I think we'll be able to reach that area eventually.

Geddes responded enthusiastically, his voice barely above a whisper, Great news, Cian! So, am I to understand that we will have water in all three channels today?"

"Yes, I hope so, especially with you guys clearing the south channel. It looks like
there's quite a lot of sediment under the next few tiles, so we should be seeing another flow increase too. We'll be sure to clean the silt catchers before we come back. That will have to be a regular chore for awhile.

Geddes reminded her of their plans for the morning. "Stay tuned Cian. We will be trying to open the big doors up here in a few hours. Tell Os that, if you two need to clean up first, there will be two first-rate pools waiting for you."

Cian handed Os the radio. He said, "That sounds tempting already, Geddes, especially if I can dispense with the field garments somehow. But, if it's all the same to you and Syl, we would like to stay up here and make some headway, if you don't need us.

"Well, we're moving into the steam at the moment, and Cian says we will need to protect the radio. I'm sure we'll hear if you call—that waterwheel is a bit noisy, even from here—so there might be a slight delay."