The first cord closed across Jiang's breast.
A second caught his bound flipper. Two more pulled past his feet and opened in the dark.
Above him, Torn-Bib kicked toward the breathing vent.
Its freed foot struck Jiang's head. The trapped leg followed as the outer loop slipped over its claws. For one hopeful instant, the adult floated clear.
Then the net pulled Jiang west and dragged Torn-Bib after him in the water rolling off his body.
Black-Crown struck the cord between them.
Its beak drove the line inward. Every section around Jiang tightened at once. The breast cord pressed air out of him, and the loop on his bound side ground sling cloth into his open shoulder.
Black-Crown saw the result.
It released the line and turned across Jiang's sinking path. White belly filled his view. A hard shoulder blow stopped him from being rolled deeper beneath the ridge, then Black-Crown let the current separate them before the net could take another body.
Torn-Bib reached the vent.
One foot broke the surface. Its body rose sideways, unable to bring the wet leg under it. Beaks appeared through the opening as the adults above seized whatever feathers they could reach.
Relief reached Jiang before the tide retreated beneath him.
Bone hoops spread along the wall, and the net hauled him away from the only air.
He kicked for the clasp. His reliable foot found cord instead of water. The failed flipper pushed against its binding and folded closer to his ribs. One good flipper left him turning while the net wanted a straight pull.
The white bead faced his breast.
Jiang rolled, hiding the black-gold mark beneath his body.
Hidden by Jiang's body, its light dimmed.
Cord loosened enough for water to enter his chest feathers. He kicked toward the vent.
The bead swung around the clasp, found the mark through his white underside, and went bright again. Net crossed his throat before he gained a body length.
So much for modesty.
Jiang stopped fighting forward.
The trap wanted whatever it saw beneath his feathers. Swimming harder only drew every loop into a cleaner grip.
Black-Crown passed above him. Torn-Bib had disappeared through the vent, but the other adult remained below. It attacked a bone hoop from the side, broke nothing, and moved away before tightening the cords around Jiang.
The water pressed inward.
Net tension eased. The clasp rotated until the white bead faced the western wall. One of its three cuts opened around the main cord.
Jiang lunged as water lifted him. Retreat caught his body first, turning the bead back toward his breast and closing the cut before his beak arrived. Bone struck the crack at its tip and sent pain through his jaw.
Letting the current carry him away, he counted one cycle and trusted none of it yet.
On the next inward press, Black-Crown crossed below his breast line and hid the mark with its white body. White drained from the bead, leaving the net slack around both birds long enough for a blow under Jiang's tail to drive him toward the clasp.
Around Black-Crown's flank, the bead found its target again. Light returned, the cut shut, and Jiang missed by the width of his bill.
Black-Crown peeled away before the lines closed on it.
Jiang's chest had begun making its own decision about air. He swallowed the urge, turned with the next inward pressure, and watched the clasp rather than the vent.
As water lifted, the bead rolled west and the first cut opened. Slack traveled down the main cord, reaching the loop around his breast last. Retreat reversed the whole sequence.
One more cycle did the same. Tide opened the clasp; his mark closed it.
Jiang called Tactical Strike.
`[OPENING MARKED: THREE-CUT CLASP]`
A thin certainty settled over the moving cut. It gave him no speed, no stronger beak, and no path through the cords. It only held the opening he had already earned in his attention.
The sea pressed inward again.
Jiang rolled belly-up before the slack reached him. His good flipper held one line away from his throat. Both feet caught the lower net and stopped his body from drifting past the clasp.
His failed side hung short of the clasp, so he bent until his cracked beak touched the sling crossing his shoulder. The same cloth ran beneath the tightening cord, dragged through the clasp, and disappeared into the folded net.
Aylin's support had become both trap tether and the only material Jiang could bite.
Frozen blood had softened the cloth in seawater. Jiang worked it between his beak edges, sawed once, shifted lower, and bit again while every pull tightened the wrap around his failed flipper.
Retreat caught him with the cloth still whole. His marked opening closed, and cord crushed the last useful air from his chest.
Black-Crown struck the clasp from behind, keeping its beak off the line. The blow held pale bone away from Jiang's face while the current pulled both birds west.
The opening remained closed.
Tactical Strike had marked opportunity, not created one.
Jiang's body reached for the adaptation that belonged here.
`[DEEP LUNG I | HUNGER COST ACTIVE | USE / REFUSE]`
His empty stomach cramped before he chose. One small fish scale waited frozen above them, evidence of a meal some luckier bird had eaten long ago.
Jiang chose `USE` before the next cramp folded him.
His lungs remained just as empty.
The panic to breathe moved farther away. His blood held what remained while his swimming muscles kept their answer. Hunger sharpened until pain seemed to bite him from inside.
Movement remained useful. The bill would come afterward.
He took the next tide inward with the sling between his beak edges.
The marked cut opened.
Black-Crown released the bone and crossed beneath Jiang, keeping its own body clear. Jiang kicked against the adult's shoulder, gained the missing reach, and drove his beak through wet cloth.
Old blood split first. Keeping the tear between his beak edges, Jiang worried it wider while threads packed his mouth and the tide slowed.
At last, one strip held both his failed flipper and the net. He bit through. The limb fell loose, and pain pulled it backward.
The clasp swallowed the severed sling. Tightening around cloth instead of Jiang, the net drew its loops away from his breast long enough for him to kick free.
Black-Crown met him under the vent.
Jiang's loose flipper ruined the turn. He struck the ice beside the opening and began sliding beneath it. Black-Crown hit him from below, once under the breast and again behind the good foot.
His head entered the vent.
Beaks caught his neck feathers. Four adults hauled while Black-Crown drove from the water. Jiang cleared the narrowing edges with his bad flipper trailing last.
He lay in the wet scoop and tried to breathe around Deep Lung's delayed recovery.
Torn-Bib stood over him on both feet.
The adult looked down at Jiang's loose flipper, pecked the ice beside his face, and turned toward the water. Gratitude continued to be a human hobby.
Below the vent, the three-cut clasp snapped shut on the severed sling.
The white bead cracked.
A line of cold fire shot through the ridge and broke above them as a white column taller than the blowing snow.
The four dry adults scattered from the scoop. Torn-Bib called downhill into a distance that kept its family's answer beyond hearing, then entered the next safe tide beside Black-Crown.
Jiang wanted to stop them.
The flare had announced the route to whoever built the net. Empty crops still waited downhill.
He remained on the ice because his chest had not finished paying for Deep Lung. Among the other adults, two entered together, one watched, and another turned east without touching water.
Black-Crown surfaced first and swallowed again beneath the lip. Torn-Bib followed with its neck stretched and crop working around something carried inside.
From the broken net, a small silver fish burst against Jiang's breast. His beak closed before thought arrived, and one buck was all the fish managed before he swallowed it whole.
Food hit his stomach like an accusation. The sharpest cramp eased, then Deep Lung's hunger closed around the small meal and left him empty in a different place.
Every wound kept its price. His flipper hung loose while cold water ran from each feather.
With some crops heavy and others empty, the west group turned back. Black-Crown took the first rise, and Torn-Bib followed after one last family call.
Jiang dragged the remains of his sling behind him until the broken end slipped from his beak. He left it frozen to the trap cord and climbed east without it.
Behind the ridge, white fire kept burning high enough to show the coast exactly where the marked penguin was going.