From beneath the distant ice, the answer came again without shifting.
Two close knocks. A pause. Then the last one.
Black-Crown crossed the lead with its head low and stopped over the sound. The ice stayed smooth beneath its feet while the copied pattern traveled through a patch wider than the adult's breast.
From where Black-Crown had rolled him, Jiang watched the bird peck once at the surface.
Underneath came the fragment's answer. The rhythm matched Jiang's exactly, yet every blow rose through the same patch. A living beak would have shifted as its body breathed and balanced.
Jiang pulled his sling close.
His shoulder had soaked a dark crescent into the strap. The right foot could shove now, though every curl of his claws pinched the sole. His left foot remained useful mostly as a warning against optimism.
He knocked three uneven beats beside his breast.
Black-Crown turned toward Jiang's fresh dents. Its head followed the sound to the beak that had made it, then back toward the old pattern under distant ice.
Under the distant patch, Gredudande repeated the old pair and final knock.
White-Nape came off the lead's rim, wet feathers lifting in the wind. It looked toward the huddle when Pale-Cheek called, then back at the water. Split-Beak joined from the other side, its own attention cutting between Grey-Throat's voice and the fish below.
Both adults leaned toward the opening.
Black-Crown blocked them with its body.
White-Nape struck the defender's shoulder. Split-Beak tried to pass along the edge. Black-Crown drove both away from the water, then returned to Jiang's three uneven marks.
It pecked the nearest dent.
Jiang repeated the same three uneven knocks from where he lay.
Before the ache left his beak, the fragment copied them.
Still the same distant patch.
Black-Crown stared down at the echo, then at Jiang.
That was enough understanding to make the next part dangerous.
Jiang wanted proof that the bird understood. Seeing Black-Crown clear the lead turned that wish sour. His wounded crawl would now decide whether the adult found air again.
If Black-Crown entered, Jiang would become the only surface mark whose place could change. His body could not keep pace with a healthy swimmer for long, and the fixed echo would be waiting every time he failed.
White-Nape pushed toward the rim again. Black-Crown drove it back with one shoulder, preserving the untested route for itself.
Jiang hooked his sling around a rough spur and pulled himself away from the lead. The right flipper took most of his weight. His foot shoved only after his breast had moved, steering rather than lifting.
One crawl-length tugged the binding across his open shoulder. Another left blood on the cloth.
He stopped near a thin white ridge and knocked twice with a long space between the blows.
From the old location came the pattern Jiang had used before moving.
Black-Crown walked to the new dents.
Jiang almost mistook that for agreement. Then Black-Crown punched a fresh dent close to his eye and entered the water without waiting.
Apparently cooperation still came with the usual face inspection.
Black-Crown entered the lead.
Its body drove down at a shallow angle, dark back turning beneath the rim. Underwater, the adult's flippers opened into full strokes while its feet narrowed behind it. A shape awkward on land became the strongest moving thing Jiang could see.
Ice distorted the white belly whenever Black-Crown passed beneath a thicker patch. Jiang lost the bird's outline, found it again through a blue seam, and learned how quickly a surface guide could become a guess.
Beneath the distant roof, the fixed echo sounded.
Black-Crown turned toward it.
Jiang took the loose strap between his beak edges and hauled his belly over the surface. At a new patch, he knocked once, waited until Black-Crown's pale belly came under him, and knocked twice more.
Black-Crown corrected toward the moving source.
Below Jiang, the ice sloped into a pressure shelf. The water between roof and stone narrowed to a dark channel wide enough for one penguin to turn only by rolling its body.
Fish flashed beyond it.
Close to the underside, fish fed where bits of life had gathered against the roof, rising and scattering in silver folds. Reaching them required crossing sideways beneath solid ice with the return lead behind.
One fish broke from the school and followed a pale scar through the roof. Black-Crown could have caught it before the narrowing. The adult let it pass and kept its head angled toward Jiang's next position.
Black-Crown swam toward the narrowing.
Jiang crawled after it above.
His right foot folded on the next push. The sling slipped from his beak, and his breast hit the ridge hard enough to flatten feathers over the wound.
For several breaths, moving meant nothing more than keeping his face out of the snow.
Cold worked under his belly while his right foot searched for purchase. The huddle was close enough to hear and too far to help. Aylin's vanished tracks offered even less.
Under him, Black-Crown passed the last tap and continued.
Behind the adult, the fragment knocked.
Black-Crown slowed beneath the shelf.
Jiang caught the loose strap again. He could tap from where he lay, but that would turn his signal into another fixed point. He pulled until the ridge scraped under his belly and his right claws found a second patch of rough ice.
Only then did he change the interval.
Three knocks traveled down beneath his breast, the last weaker because his jaw had begun to shake.
Black-Crown turned under the new position.
From behind came the copied rhythm with all three beats equally hard.
Black-Crown ignored the cleaner answer.
Jiang felt something reckless and warm rise through the pain. Approval would have been easier. Approval could sit in a corner and look pleased. This choice put a living bird under a roof with no air because Jiang had asked it to trust the location of his beak.
Responsibility was heavier than praise and much less comfortable to lie on.
Black-Crown reached the black-green throat.
Across the underside ran the fragment's root, thin strands braided around a tongue of pressure ice. Each pulse darkened the water, and the fish pulled tighter beyond it.
Every pass through the throat demanded a fresh choice. One branch curved left around the root, another dropped beneath the pressure tongue, and both hid the open lead after a few strokes. A wrong family call could send each parent down a different branch.
Pale-Cheek called from the branch to Black-Crown's left.
Grey-Throat answered from the right.
Both calls carried the clean shape Jiang knew. Neither came from the huddle behind him.
On the surface, White-Nape shoved past Jiang toward the water. Split-Beak came from the other side. Their chicks' voices had been placed beneath separate branches, and hunger sharpened every step.
Both adults reached the rim beyond Jiang's grounded body. Black-Crown shot back through the lead, struck White-Nape breast-first, and climbed into Split-Beak's path. Wet and breathing hard, it held both away with beak and flank.
White-Nape fought for the opening until Pale-Cheek's real call changed inside the huddle. The parent turned to answer it.
Split-Beak stayed longer. Grey-Throat called again from warmth, rougher than the perfect sound under the ice. At last Split-Beak backed away from the lead.
No adult entered the split route.
Black-Crown faced Jiang across the wet rim.
Water ran from its breast onto the beak marks between them. The bird had followed the moving taps, found fish, seen the black-green throat, and returned with its beak empty.
Jiang had mapped a path that still required him to move above every diver.
A group hunt would rip his shoulder wider within another surface pass. His feet already shook after this one. Underwater, the failed flipper would turn every correction into lost breath.
Black-Crown stepped over the sling.
Close enough to Jiang's face, a tiny chip showed along Black-Crown's lower beak, earned somewhere beneath the pressure shelf. Without touching him or the ice, the adult turned and entered the lead again.
A final pull on the strap brought Jiang to the rim.
Through the black water, Black-Crown's white breast moved beneath him. The adult crossed the first bend, reached the black-green throat, and turned around.
It waited there, facing Jiang, while the fish flashed beyond its tail.