Page 135 of Legacy Elite

Renzo already has the map out. Declan gets the stretcher end down on a rock.

Freya walks to the edge and crouches.

"How long's that been like that?" I ask.

"It wasn't like that on Tuesday," Declan says. "Second cohort came through here."

"Then it went in the last three days."

"There was weather on Wednesday," Renzo says, without looking up. "Alternate for this crossing is the Elmscar track. Two point one north, then east on the fire road. Adds about forty minutes."

"How do you know that?"

"That's in the pack. It's in the laminated thing."

"Nobody reads the laminated thing."

"I read the laminated thing."

Freya hasn't moved.

She's got her hand an inch above the broken end of a plank, and she's looking along it the way she looked at the boundary stone.

"Freya."

"Mm."

"What?"

She stands up.

"Nothing," she says. "Let's go north."

We're forty meters up the track when Corvin says, "Abe. Where's the spare?"

Abe stops. Checks the side pocket of the pack. Checks the other one.

"It was in there at the crossing."

"Was it in there when we left the crossing?"

"I didn't check when we left the crossing."

Corvin swears, once, quietly.

"What's the problem?" Declan says.

"The problem is I've only got one radio." Corvin's already unslinging the pack.

"It'll be at the bridge," Abe says. "It'll have come out when we put the packs down."

"Then go and get it."

Abe goes.

"Six minutes," Corvin calls after him. "Straight back."

Then he gets on his own handset and calls the desk, and I stand there holding a stretcher and listen to him do it.