The Voice of the Dinosaur Valley

Herds of callers have closed the only pass home, and the one thing that can lead a person through them is a call the silent Tair refuses to teach. While Alice fumes at the master she thinks useless, time runs out — and the learning will have to be done by watching the very man dismissed as a nuisance.

The valley of the callers hums with the answering cries of long-necked giants, and Alice is stuck on the wrong side of the pass: while the migration lasts, the road home is closed, and home is waiting. Only the caller Tair can lead a person through a herd — and he refuses to teach: "The call is not taught. The call is listened to." Alice fumes: a silent man who sits on a rock all day seems nothing but a nuisance. Her own shout only frightens the young ones, and a whistle scatters the whole watering place. So Alice stops demanding and starts watching: how Tair breathes before the call, how he lays a palm on his throat, how he waits for the answer. The call comes on its own — quiet, on an out-breath. Then a storm breaks, the herd bolts, and from a rock outcrop Alice turns an avalanche of giants into a dry riverbed, pulling Tair out from under their feet. By morning the pass is open. Alice goes home, Tair stays in the valley — and they say goodbye with a call across the gorge.