And yet something was off; Caleb sensed the presence of words unsaid. They were standing by the open hatch. One of the sisters, positioned on the platform below, reached up to assist the children, first Theo, then the girls. As Pim’s turn came, Caleb took her by the elbow.

What is it?

She hesitated. Yes, something was there.

Pim?

A flicker of uncertainty in her eyes; then she composed herself. I love you. Be careful.

Caleb let the matter rest. Now was not the time, the hatch standing open, everyone waiting. Sister Peg was observing from the side. Caleb had already broached the question of whether or not Sister Peg would be joining the children underground. “Lieutenant,” she’d said with a reproachful look, “I’m eighty-one years old.”

Caleb hugged his wife and helped her down. As her hands gripped the top rung, she raised her eyes, for a last look. A cold weight dropped inside him. She was his life.

Keep our babies safe, he signed.

More children came through; then, suddenly, the shelter was full. From outside the building a cry went up, followed by a voice from a megaphone, ordering the crowd to disperse.

Colonel Henneman strode into the hall. “Jaxon, I’m putting you in charge here.”

It was the last thing Caleb wanted. “I’d be more use on the wall, sir.”

“This isn’t a debate.”

Caleb felt the presence of an unseen hand. “Does my father have something to do with this?”

Henneman ignored the question. “We’ll need men on the roof and the perimeter and two squads inside. Are we clear? Nobody else gets inside. How you accomplish that is up to you.”

Dire words. Also inevitable. People would do anything to survive.

* * *

67

Michael and Greer picked up the first survivors north of Rosenberg, a group of three soldiers—stunned, starving, their carbines and pistols drained. The virals had attacked the barracks two nights ago, they said, tearing through the place like a tornado, destroying everything, vehicles and equipment, the generator and radio, ripping the roofs off the Quonsets like they were opening tins of meat.

There were others. A woman, one of Dunk’s girls, with black hair streaked white, walking barefoot along the roadway with her tippy shoes dangling from her fingertips and a story about hiding in a pump house. A pair of men from one of the telegraph crews. An oiler named Winch—Michael recalled him from the old days—sitting cross-legged by the side of the road, carving meaningless shapes in the ground with a six-inch knife and babbling incoherently. His face was chalky with dust, his coveralls black with dried blood, though it was not his own. All took their places in the back of the truck in stunned silence, not even asking where they were going.

“These are the luckiest people on the planet,” Michael said, “and they don’t even know it.”

Greer watched the landscape flow past, dry scrub yielding to the dense tangle of the coastal shelf. The intensity of the last twenty-four hours had kept the pain at bay, but now, in the unstructured silence of his thoughts, it roared back. An omnipresent, low-grade urge to vomit tossed his gut; his saliva was thick and brassy-tasting; his bladder pulsed with unexpressed fullness, febrile and enormous. When they’d stopped to pick up the woman, Greer had stepped into the scrub with the hope of passing water, but all he’d managed to produce was a pathetic crimson-tinted trickle.

South of Rosenberg, they swung east toward the ship channel. Muddy water sprayed up behind them; each bang of the truck’s carriage on the gullied roadway threw fresh punches of pain. Greer wanted a drink of water very badly, if only to clear the taste in his mouth, but when Michael drew his canteen from under his seat, took a long pull, and offered it to him, all the while staring out the windshield, Greer waved it off. From Michael, a sideways glance—You’re sure?—and for that moment the man seemed to know something, or at least suspect. But when Greer said nothing, Michael wedged the canteen between his knees and capped it with a shrug.

The air in the truck changed, and then the sky; they were approaching the channel.

“For fucksakes, I only just came from here,” said the woman.

Five more miles and the causeway appeared. Patch and his men were waiting at the bottleneck. Barriers of razor wire had been laid across it. As the truck drew to a halt, Patch stepped up to the driver’s window.

“Didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“What has Lore told you?” Michael asked.

“Just the bad parts. No sign of them here, though.” Then, glancing into the back of the vehicle, “I see you’ve brought some friends.”

“Where is she?”

“The ship, I guess. Rand says she’s driving everybody crazy down there.”

Michael turned toward their passengers. “You three,” he said to the soldiers, “get out.”

They were looking around with bewilderment. “What do you want us to do?” one asked—the highest-ranking among them, a corporal with eyes empty as a cow’s and the soft, baby-fatted face of a fifteen-year-old.

“I don’t know,” Michael said dryly, “be soldiers? Shoot at things?”

“I told you, we haven’t got any ammo.”

“Patch?”

The man nodded. “I’ll fix them up.”

“This is Patch,” Michael said to the three. “He’s your new CO.”

They looked blankly at one another. “Aren’t you guys, like, criminals?” the one said.