DELIVERED0 / 3
ON THE SLED0
AXE PROBES3
FROST
The lake is a road today and a death sentence tomorrow. You cannot measure the ice, so you read it: the width of the cracks, water showing in them, and how far the surface drops under your own runner. Haul the quota across in four shifts, and remember that a route you have already walked is the only route you have already proved.
The lake waits.
Your sled, your note and the light are where you left them.
Five things the ice will tell you.
- WASD / ARROWS
- Haul the sled. A loaded sled is slower, and the ice answers to the weight, not to you.
- SPACE
- Drive the axe into the ice ahead. It rings, it sets, it springs, it weeps, or it goes straight through. Four readings a shift.
- E
- Lift a crate off the pile, pick one up off the ice, or set one down where you stand. A crate on the ice is weight on the ice.
- C / SHIFT
- Creep. Half the speed, a third of the strain, and the only honest way over ice you do not trust.
- R
- Lay the sounding chart over the ice. It knows how deep the water is. It knows nothing about the ice on it.
- M / ESC / H
- Mute, pause, these notes.
You have fished this lake for forty years. You know where the water is deep. You do not know what is frozen on top of it today.
Every reading in the notebook goes stale overnight. The current moves, the wind moves, and yesterday's safe line is a rumour.
Dark, and the wind gets up.
The light goes off the ridge at four.
THE WARM SPELL
South wind in the night.
Your notes are stale.
The lake kept it.
The water came up through the crack.