Frey returned to the spring with an empty cloth sling over one shoulder.
Adam was standing beside the two soil sacks when he saw him.
People had been arguing near the hollow for most of the afternoon.
Frey had listened, sent Sam back to his rafts for the sling, and come back with four of his people.
The sling hung empty from Frey’s shoulder while he spoke to the people who had gathered between the trees.
Adam left Harlan with the rafts and went closer.
Chloe came with him, keeping the wrapped fruit seeds in her pocket.
“There’s one core,” Frey said.
“If we leave it, the next raft takes it.
At least my people can keep it safe until we know what it does.”
“The label says the island will collapse,” a woman from the water line said.
She had a cooking pot in each hand.
“I’m still filling these.”
“Then finish,” Frey told her.
“I’m giving everyone time.”
The spring ran past his feet.
Its pool was low where the waiting people had dipped their containers, but water was still entering from the stone hollow.
Others were digging under the trees or cutting branches.
Children were carrying fruit toward the beach.
Most of the thirty rafts would need hours to finish loading.
Adam stood where Frey could see him.
“My jerrycan took ten litres from that spring.
Everyone in the queue has had water.
We can come back while the island is here.
Nobody knows what the core is worth.”
“It’ll be worth something,” Frey said.
“Maybe.
We know the water is worth something now.
The fruit will grow back.
We can leave the soil where people can use it.”
“And who decides which people?
You?” Frey nodded toward Adam’s bags.
“You’ve already taken yours.”
“Two sacks.
Ten kilos.
The island still has soil.”
“I have eight rafts to feed.
The people who found the place deserve a share.”
Adam had not seen which raft first found the island.
Frey’s group had brought others safely through the rocks and had kept the spring line moving.
Both mattered.
Neither told them whether removing the core would leave enough time to get everyone away.
“You saw the warning,” Adam said.
“There are still people in the trees.
You can’t give them a time until you know how fast it collapses.”
Sam had been holding the empty sling.
He looked toward the beach, where two of Frey’s men were dragging the last of a thin palm through the sand.
Another man stood beside Frey, waiting to take the core.
He kept looking at the people filling water.
The woman with the pots stepped out of the spring line.
“Leave it until we’re all off,” she said.
“Then take it if you have to.”
Several people agreed.
One man wanted to know whether the core could be traded.
Someone else asked whether the island would sink at once.
Frey had no answer from the System, and neither did Adam.
The label had given a warning, not a countdown.
Harlan called from the beach.
The old man had stacked the last six pieces of wood on his raft.
Fourteen pieces altogether, with his net, fish box, oars and water.
The raft sat lower than Adam liked.
Harlan could stand on it, but the water reached the lower edge of the boards when he shifted his weight.
Adam went back.
The eight remaining pieces of green wood still lay above the tide line.
He could take them on his larger raft, though the two soil sacks and full jerrycan already occupied the clear space.
He moved eight pieces from Harlan’s stack onto his own boards first.
Harlan’s raft rose a little.
The wood on the beach could wait until the arguments at the spring ended.
Chloe watched him count the wood.
“He’s going to take it.”
“He might wait for the beach to clear.”
“Sam brought a sling.”
The line of people at the spring had grown shorter, but three rafts had just landed.
One family was still bringing bottles up the sand.
Adam checked the rope joining the three rafts.
If people rushed the shallows, those ropes would keep Chloe and Harlan close while they pushed out, but the three rafts would turn slowly together.
Behind the trees, Frey raised his voice.
“Move back.
I’m carrying it myself.”
Adam looked up.
Frey bent into the hollow and lifted the stone.
It came free without dirt clinging to it.
He put it into the sling before anyone reached him.
For a moment the spring kept running at the same pace.
Then a panel opened across Adam’s view.
[Formation destabilised.
Estimated collapse: 3 hours.]
The same line appeared in front of Chloe.
She read it aloud.
Harlan saw it from the beach, with the ropes in his hands.
Around them people stopped digging and cutting.
The woman with the pots dropped one; it rolled into the stream.
She picked up the other and ran for the trees, calling for whoever was still there.
Frey came out with the sling closed over the core.
“Three hours,” he said.
“That’s time enough.
Get your people aboard.”
It was enough for the three of them.
The soil sacks were tied down, the jerrycan was full, and the fruit and seeds were in the crate.
It was less time for the people at the far end of the island who had not brought their rafts onto this beach.
The warning did not say whether the ground would sink evenly or break apart first.
Harlan put his oars in the water.
Adam loosened the beach rope and pushed from the sand while Chloe guided her raft past the rocks.
The eight pieces of wood they had left above the tide line were close enough to see.
A pair of survivors were carrying a cooking pot between them in the other direction.
Adam let the wood lie and got onto his raft.
The southern shallows filled with rafts.
A family carrying three sacks tried to load them all on a narrow four-tile platform.
Its far edge dipped under the water, so they threw one sack back onto the sand.
Two men fought over a long fallen trunk that had floated into the gap between their rafts.
One struck the other with a paddle.
The man dropped it, and the trunk moved away with the current while they shouted.
Adam’s three rafts cleared the rocks.
Harlan rowed them far enough out to avoid the other groups, then stopped to rest his knee.
The island was still green.
Its trees did not shake, and the spring could still be seen as a dark cut above the beach.
The countdown showed two hours and fourteen minutes.
A smaller raft came through the gap behind them too fast.
The man on it could not stop with his hands and struck Chloe’s side.
His raft turned across hers.
Chloe jumped the narrow gap onto Adam’s raft and pushed the other raft away with her foot.
Her left hand struck the edge of Adam’s boards as she landed.
She cried out and pulled it against her chest.
The man apologised while he paddled clear.
Harlan kept their joined rafts from turning into the rocks.
Adam helped Chloe sit beside the storage crate.
Her wrist had begun to swell, but her fingers moved.
She could hold the bottle he gave her with her right hand.
When she tried to grip with the left, she stopped and set it down.
[Condition: Sprain (wrist).
Stamina penalty: 4 days.]
“I can still use it,” she said.
“Not for a rope,” Adam said.
“Keep it still.”
She looked back at her own raft.
The bottle plants had fallen against the shade post but were upright.
He brought the bottle across so she could hold it on her lap.
Harlan found a strip of cloth and wrapped her wrist loosely.
He had done enough for his knee over the years to know that a tight wrap would make her fingers numb.
Adam asked her to say if it did.
They drifted beyond the worst of the crowd.
Frey’s eight rafts were farther north, several of his people still on the beach hauling cut wood.
People shouted names toward the trees.
The island had not visibly changed.
Every few minutes Adam checked the countdown, then looked at the shore instead.
Harlan needed a rest before he rowed three joined rafts through another crowded gap.
When the timer reached forty minutes, Adam could still see their eight pieces of wood above the tide line.
They were on a strip of beach now almost empty.
The third soil patch lay under the nearest trees, close enough that he could make one more trip with the two Cloth Scraps they had not used yesterday.
He had expected the wood to be his next load.
The soil could go into a planter; he had no way to make it on the raft.
“Take us back to the south end,” he said.
Harlan turned on his seat.
“For those planks?”
“For another soil sack.
We have cloth for it.”
“The island goes in forty minutes.”
“The patch is close.
I’ll leave if I can’t fill it quickly.”
Harlan looked at Chloe’s wrist.
She held the seedling bottle against her body with her good arm.
“I’ll keep the rafts clear,” he said.
“You go alone.”
He rowed them back along the quiet side.
Adam stepped into water below his knees, cut the two scraps into the sack shape the System offered and confirmed it.
Chloe took the bottle from him before he went ashore.
The raft edged away as Harlan backed the oars.
Adam knew where the dark soil began; he had marked it with a palm leaf that morning.
He filled the sack by hand.
Small roots and grit went in with the soil.
The System showed five kilograms when he lifted it.
He left the eight pieces of wood where they lay.
Carrying both would slow him on the way back, and Harlan’s raft was already low.
The timer showed twenty-seven minutes.
Adam returned at a walk through the shallow water, keeping the sack above it.
Harlan held his raft steady with one oar while Adam climbed aboard.
The extra five kilos went beside the other sacks.
Chloe tried to reach for the tying rope with her injured hand, winced, and passed it to Adam with the other.
Harlan rowed away from the beach.
The eight pieces of wood remained above the tide line.
On the northern side, two of Frey’s men were still carrying a tree toward their rafts.
Adam watched the timer drop below twenty minutes while the three joined rafts moved clear of the rocks.