Fog floated over the marsh like the breath of something vast and still. Clumps of sedges abandoned by winter swayed in the shallows, and further away, where the water was black, the darkness had a sheen of its own. On the horizon stood like question marks the braided crowns of alders. Cranes cried out against the sky, their voices cutting the night into long ribbons of sound. Maja stopped at the edge of the causeway, with the receiver to her ear. On the phone's screen, the point that marked the collar of Blur's wolfhound shuddered and skipped, as if fed up with the geometry of the map. Different than usual: not the soft swirls of the route, but straight, nervous lines. As if someone was running a stylus across the paper - across the reeds, across the water. - Can you see it? - spoke up Staszek, slipping her the thermos. - After all, she's not running in a straight line. And certainly not across flowing water. - Or not her - replied Maja quietly. - Or someone is helping her. In the headphones, the beeps of the radio telemetry had arranged themselves into a melody familiar from weeks of observation, but today there was something alien about it. One of the tones, too high, too clear, like laughter not fitting into the conversation. There was damp sand under her boots, where fresh human footprints blended with bird claw prints. Someone had walked this way no more than an hour ago. Maybe a photographer. Maybe someone who wanted to have a wolf at the lens' reach. On the other side of the reeds - close, though invisible - a sense of smell guided Blur through the night like a thin, sure cord. She was born in the swamp, with fur the colour of shadow and light, and could glide between the twigs, no more moving them than the wind. She knew the bog: it smelled of wet bark, fish, fox, lapwing's nest, the bitter shell of old beaver sticks. It also smelled of something new. Something that had no flesh or fur, yet left a trace in the air that annoyed the nose - warm plastic, sweet grease, metal after the touch of a human hand. Behind Blur, a few tail lengths behind, held a youngster from her last year's litter, lean and ambitious, ready to test everything and learn everything. They walked in silence. The night did not like the crackling. They jumped over a narrow, dark ditch; they felt that the beavers had built a new dam somewhere off to the side. They also heard something they didn't know from the moonlit nights. A high, steady buzz, like a mosquito that never tires. - We didn't order a drone, did we? - Staszek squinted his eyes. There was a red dot hovering over the reeds, moving slowly, as if surveying the surface of the water. - 'Not ours,' Maja pushed the thermos away and tucked it into her rucksack. - 'Someone's out here hunting for pictures. Or for an answer. A frog's shadow slipped from a leaning log into the water. The smell of wet fur and smoke from the distant village was in the air, so thin she could barely smell it. Maja lowered her gaze to the path. From the dark patches in the mud to the reeds stretched a zigzag of fresh footprints - not just shoes. Someone was lugging something heavier that furrowed the ground. At her knees, Maja spotted a discarded scrap of plastic wrap, greasy from the fishy smell. - Bait - she said to herself, not to Staszek. - For a fox? For a marten? Or maybe she was hoping the wolf wouldn't pass by indifferently. The beeps in the headphones sped up like a heart just before a run. The red dot hovered motionless, the light reflected in the thin strip of water between the reeds. At the same instant, the Blur stopped. She laid back her ears, pulled her lips together. Her young man, accustomed to the fake smells from strangers' rubbish bins and places where people put their waste out, tilted his head and drew the air in even deeper, as if to untangle every hair of it. Something that should have been a howl played from the thicket. It was similar, but too even, like a recording let loose from a metal can. A smudge stiffened his shoulder blades. Familiar-unfamiliar. Like an echo that doesn't come back from the mountains, but from a device. - Someone professionally stupid or professionally clever - hissed Staszek. - 'Maja, if it's people with a drone, we shouldn't follow them. We don't know if they don't have a net.... - I know - she interrupted him, although she was already setting foot on the first stone of the causeway. - 'But if that's where the Blur is, I'm not going to leave her in this situation without a witness. We won't get any closer than we need to. The air was heavy with water and the will to survive lingered in everything around them - in the reeds, in the soft earth, in the small, quiet movements of insects too brave for this time. Maja and Staszek leaned over, hidden by juniper poles and brown sedge spikes. The red point of the drone twitched, changed height and then dropped lower, as if seeking clearance between the stalks. The beeps of the collar changed rhythm from a modulated wave to a continuous, almost steady tone that was more like a held bell than an attempt to locate a live animal. Smudge took a step, placing her paw where the light shrouded the water, as if each bubble had an eye in it. She could now clearly smell not only the hard, alien scent of the device, but also the shadow of people - shallow breathing, impatience, the kind of warmth that does not belong at night. The young man raised his head and stared at the red light, not quite understanding whether it was a hostile fire or an insect to be gnawed. - 'Don't move,' whispered Maja, though none of the two on the other side of the swamp could hear her. In the reeds, to the left, a shadow larger than a fox trembled. For a moment it seemed to be just the wind, which had decided to pin down several stalks at once. Then, almost silently, a patch of moonless sky moved. Maja noticed the angle of the glass; after a moment, a microscopic reflection dawned - a lens. - It's there - muttered Staszek. - It has a camera. And a loudspeaker. Maybe he thinks it's a miraculous way to get the wolf in front of him. - 'Maybe he thinks the wolf has the same kind of curiosity as him,' replied Maja, feeling her skin tighten in her fingers. - Or maybe... - she broke off. She didn't want to say out loud that the collar was behaving as if someone was testing it, and the Blur was just an addition to the experiment. Somewhere behind their backs a twig snapped quietly. Not loudly, not warningly, but so that they both turned around immediately. They saw nothing - just darker layers of darkness. Maja took a breath that refused to be full. The blur heard it too. Her body softened and hardened at once, ready to turn around and attack in one reflex. The young man lashed out, disappearing almost entirely into the grass, as if he suddenly remembered the lesson this place had hammered into him: to survive is above all not to be noticed. The drone let itself be pulled by the wind just enough for its red dot to disappear for a second, and then blossomed again, this time lower down, with a noise that smoothed the surface of the water like a hand. On the surface of the lake, to the right, something flashed blue - a mechanical, alien light, barely longer than a blink, as if a second, smaller toy hovered near the very surface. Or as if someone on the other shore, completely silent, had raised a torch with a cool LED. - Can you see it? - Staszek pressed his hand to the ground as if to reassure her. - There are more of them there. - 'I see,' replied Maja, and the word came out of her the way one goes out on the water: cautiously and without being sure that the bottom is in the same place as it was a moment ago. Smudge raised her muzzle and looked straight into the furrow of reeds under which the men were kneeling. She shouldn't have been able to see the eyes. And yet, for a fraction of a moment, Maja had the impression that the she-wolf was looking right at her, at her hand, at the receiver, at the nervously twitching cable of the headphones. At that moment, the red dot of the drone moved more violently, slid even lower, so that Maja felt a gentle, artificial gust of propellers on her cheek - an alien wind among so many winds. To her left, something wavered. A shape too tall for a hunched man, too angular for an animal, emerged from the thicket. Metal rattled lightly against metal. Someone was changing position. A circle appeared on the water, between two mountains of reeds, as if something - or someone - had touched the mirror with a finger and moved it without noise. The beeps in the headphones merged into a single, clear, vibrating sound, and the young Blur committed himself forward an inch, enchanted by all that was new. Maya wanted to raise her hand - she didn't know whether to signal the man in the reeds to lower the drone or to give the wolf some sort of non-human gesture, reassuring, non-threatening. Her mouth was dry. Somewhere in the distance, a lone snipe rang out, as if to remind us that the world is also made up of ordinary things. And then the water at the edge of the beaver dam murmured differently than before. Not louder - more emphatic. The blur took half a step, the drone dropped another inch, and from behind the reeds on the opposite side, where the cool light had flashed a second ago, something emerged that had not been there in any of their nights so far.