They went after her.
Aryan had made the decision before the echo of the cut-off voice had finished bouncing off the walls. He went into the tight section and found the fissure in the left wall, which was wider than it appeared from the channel — a metre gap that became nearly two metres at the point where it bent, a natural passage through the rock that the daylight had made look like shadow from the channel side.
Inside: a secondary ravine, smaller than the main system, running roughly east-west. The floor was softer here — more sand, less shale — and softer floors showed things. Boot prints going east, two sets of them — one that matched the pattern of Tanya's shoes, which he had catalogued with the automatic observation of a producer who noted details, and one other.
The other was barefoot. The impression of toes and the ball of the foot, no heel, the walking pattern of someone who had been barefoot on rock for so long that they moved on the fore-foot by default — like a dancer, or someone who had grown up in country that required grip rather than heel-strike.
"There," he said.
