Fish came back when Jiang stopped moving.
One silver flank appeared beneath the green ice. Another joined it. Beyond the open lead, the school circled warily around the black light that had driven it away.
Jiang's empty belly cramped hard enough to lift his tail.
Aylin saw him looking.
"No. Stay on the ice."
He tested his left flipper against the ice.
Pain caught beneath the shoulder, but the limb moved.
"That was a test," Aylin said. "It failed."
Jiang looked back at the distant huddle. White-Nape had returned empty. Pale-Cheek had eaten once while other chicks wandered after parents who might never come back.
A silver flash passed beneath his breast. Jiang struck the ice once and held his beak there: one attempt.
Aylin's bruised throat worked before her answer emerged. "You promised silence, not stupidity. I should have been more precise."
Black-Crown walked past her.
Black-Crown stopped at the lead and watched the water. Wind flattened its breast feathers against a body built for cold that Jiang could barely endure. It gave Jiang one sideways look, then launched.
Water closed over Black-Crown's back.
Underwater, the awkward walking body vanished. Black-Crown became speed.
Its flippers drove in deep, even strokes. Its feet tucked behind the tail until a turn needed them. Black-Crown slipped beneath the ice roof and rose under the school without wasting a movement.
Fish broke around its beak.
Jiang leaned so far over the lead that the sling scraped forward.
Aylin caught the rear loop. "It can hunt. You can barely scratch your own tail."
Jiang looked back at her.
"That was unkind," she admitted. "It was also accurate."
He tapped once and repeated the bargain.
Aylin stared at the fish, then at the colony. Hunger made its own argument. She knelt and pulled the long rear strap free from the sling.
"One failed stroke," she said. "You feel it fail, I pull. You do not bargain with me from under the ice."
She passed the strap around Jiang behind his flippers and tied it into the broad sling webbing beneath his belly. Her knot left his chest clear. Around her waist, the other end circled and returned to her good wrist.
Her injured forearm trembled while she tested it.
Jiang touched his beak to her boot.
"That is not an apology."
It was the closest thing he had.
He slid into the lead.
Cold took his open shoulder first. Icy water drove through broken feather lines and bit down to skin. His body wanted to float breast-up, but his right flipper pulled him level and his feet pushed his tail into line.
He stroked with both flippers.
His left side lagged. It still gave him part of the movement.
One fish flashed below his beak.
Jiang drove after it.
His rigid body held the descent while the right flipper supplied most of the force. Each shortened left stroke turned a straight pursuit into a slow curve. He corrected with his feet and spent more air than Black-Crown had used reaching the school.
His quarry turned toward the ice roof.
Jiang followed its pale tail through green shadow.
For two strokes, hunger reduced the world to distance. His beak drew close enough to feel the water kicked from the fish's body.
Then Pale-Cheek called beneath the ice.
Pale-Cheek's high note entered through Jiang's beak and rang behind his eyes. Black-green light opened along a crack overhead, carrying the chick's identity away from the colony.
Bent-Toe answered from deeper water.
Silver bodies scattered in every direction.
Black-Crown abandoned its pursuit.
Black-Crown wheeled toward the paired calls. Its clean turn became a hard rush beneath the pressure ice, following the line back toward the rookery side.
Pale-Cheek stood beside White-Nape in Jiang's last view. Wind had swallowed that view from Black-Crown, along with the position of every chick.
Black-Crown had heard danger in a family it had defended.
Gredudande pulled the two recordings through a low pocket where old ice had folded over new. Ice sloped downward overhead. Ahead, the dark route narrowed until a penguin could enter at speed and find no room to roll upward.
Black-Crown kept going.
Jiang turned after it.
His lost fish passed close to his chest. He could have snapped sideways and taken the chance.
Pale-Cheek called again from the narrowing dark.
Jiang let the fish go.
Both feet kicked as his right flipper drove down. A matching effort shivered through the injured left, which folded against his side.
Pain opened from shoulder to breast. His body rolled, white belly flashing toward the roof.
A hard pull crossed his belly as Aylin hauled from above. Jiang struck both feet against the water, giving their old signal: wait.
Aylin stopped drawing him backward.
He rolled with his right flipper, caught the ice ceiling against his back, and shoved himself across Black-Crown's path.
Black-Crown hit him breast to breast.
Its beak raked the feathers beside his eye. Jiang held the collision with his rigid body while the current pushed both birds toward the pocket.
Black-Crown struck again.
Jiang twisted his head and drove his beak toward open water. His feet kicked the same direction. Open water was the only meaning his body could offer.
Black-Crown tried to pass beneath him.
Jiang dropped his belly into the gap.
Black-Crown's flipper hammered his injured side. Jiang lost the last of his breath in a burst that silvered the ice above them.
Black-Crown turned away from his body.
It chose the lower channel beside the pressure ridge, cut through the black-green line, and disappeared toward the open lead under its own power.
Jiang tried to follow, pulling with the right flipper while his feet beat against empty water. Useless and blazing, the left stayed pinned to his side.
Aylin's tether snapped tight again.
Jiang surrendered his weight to Aylin's pull.
Strap pressure dragged him backward. Ice scraped his back, then released him into the open lead. She hauled until his beak broke the surface.
Jiang coughed water over her sleeve.
"Breathe before I kill you," she said.
He found the ice edge with his beak. His feet slipped under it.
Aylin lay flat and pulled the broad sling webbing while Jiang shoved with his right flipper. His belly cleared the lip. His bad flipper caught beneath him and sent a white flash through his chest.
He collapsed on the ice.
Black-Crown surfaced farther along the lead.
Black-Crown climbed out without help. Water streamed from smooth feathers while its chest worked through three heavy breaths.
Its beak was empty.
Jiang's was empty too.
Black-Crown walked straight to him.
Aylin raised one hand. Green heat stirred along her fingers, weak and angry.
"He went back for you."
Black-Crown struck Jiang above the beak.
Black-Crown's blow pressed Jiang's face into the ice. It stood over him, called once toward the sea, and received Jiang's stolen voice from beneath the pressure ridge.
Black-Crown hit him again, lower and harder.
Jiang understood: he had brought the false rhythm into the hunt, and one rescue left that danger intact.
Aylin pushed between them with her shoulder. Black-Crown let her move Jiang, then took its place between the rookery and the lead.
It had caught nothing.
Jiang had caught nothing.
Beyond the pressure ice, fish gathered untouched and unreachable.
Aylin rolled Jiang onto his belly. "Move the flipper."
He tried to obey her.
Nothing happened below the shoulder.
Cold text opened across his sight.
`[LEFT FLIPPER: LOAD FAILURE]`
`[REST CONDITION: WARMTH / STILLNESS / FOOD]`
Jiang closed the notice.
Aylin had watched his eyes. "What did it say?"
He laid his beak flat, tucked the failed flipper close, and pointed once toward the fish.
"Food," she guessed. Her laugh came out scraped raw. "Excellent. I will ask the sea to reconsider."
Wind struck them from a new direction.
Black-Crown turned first.
Across the white distance, the dark colony shifted. Its exposed edge tried to fold inward, but the gust caught a loose cluster of older chicks before the adults could close around them.
Grey bodies spilled from the huddle.
One rolled into the open. Two more followed, flippers spread against the snow as the wind pushed them away from every warm body.
Jiang planted his right flipper and tried to rise.
His left side gave him nothing.