The ravine split two kilometres from the rest stop.
Not dramatically — not the fork in the road of fables, where two clear paths offered a choice. The split was the kind that the beehad specialised in: a widening of the channel into what appeared to be open ground, and then the realisation that the ground was not open but divided, a shelf of rock running through the middle and creating two channels that looked, from the approach, like a continuation of the same path but were not.
Kabir's map — the 2008 survey image — was not detailed enough to show this split. On the image it looked like one continuous channel. In person it was two, and they had to decide which one continued south toward the exit.
"Left channel curves right, which would be south," Priya said, looking at the orientation of the walls.
"Right channel is wider, which usually means it's the main route," Kabir said.
"Usually," Aryan said.
While they were debating, Tanya said: "I'll go check the right channel, just to the first curve, see if I can tell—"
"No," Aryan said immediately.
She stopped. They looked at each other.
"Phase three," he said. "Separation. Every time we've been hesitant or uncertain since we entered these ravines, the geometry has been designed to make one of us want to go somewhere alone."
Tanya looked at the right channel entrance. Then she looked back at Aryan. "You think that split is deliberate? Someone made that—"
