Page 34 (2/2)

Does she know soWhy would she? As she’s pointed out, she doesn’t know me and she can’t trust me yet "But no one ever came back," I say

"People like you see that as evidence that the Otherlands aren’t real," Leyna tells me "People like me see it is evidence that it’s a place so wonderful no one would ever want to come back"

CHAPTER 28

CASSIA

Where are you, Ky?

This is it, reatest fear What I’ve been afraid of ever since the Carving when I saw those people, dead, out under the sky So me

The lead sorter, Rebecca, is about e She has h ht away

"You’ll find that the ork here is different from what you’re used to," she says "In the Society, you sort alone Here, you will need to talk to Oker and the " She puts the datapod down on the table "If weout, miss some pattern, then it could be critical"

This will be different fro I’ve done before In the Society, ere not supposed to knohat the data was attached to, what it really looked like; everything remained encoded

"I’ve e and those fro who have lived outside of the Society their entire lives"

I want to tell her that I know so--I want to find out how Eli and Hunter are doing But right now I have to focus on the cure and on Ky and e, recreational habits, occupations, family histories," Rebecca says "Some of the data is corroborated by other sources, but most of it is self-reported"

"So it’s not the most reliable data set," I observe

"No," she says "But it’s all we have Commonalities are everywhere in the data, of course But we’ve been able to narrow certain things down by extrapolating from e have For example, our data indicates an environmental or dietary exposure"

"Do you wantthe elements for the cure now?" I ask hopefully

"I will," Rebecca says, "but I have another project for you first I need you to solve a constrained optimization problem"

I think I already knohat she means It’s the problem that’s been on my mind since I realized there was no cure for theit will be before the Rising starts unhooking people," I say "We need to kno much time we have"

"Yes," she says "The Pilot won’t fly us out if there’s no one left to save I want you to work on that while I continue sorting for the cure Then you can help me" She pushes a datapod across the table "Here are the notes fro rate of infection, rate at which the resources were being expended, and patient attributes We have additional data fros"

"I’ some information," I say "I don’t know the initial quantity of the resources or the population of the Society as a whole"

"You’ll have to extrapolate the initial quantity of resources from the rate of expenditure," she says "As for the population of the Provinces as a whole, the Pilot was able to give us an estimate of twenty-point-two ht the Society was er than that

"Yes," she says

The Rising will be trying to figure out how to best allocate resources and personnel People have to take care of the still, obviously Others have to work to keep food cos in the Cities and Boroughs have power and water And even if a s the initial Plague, there are only soto have to care for everyone else

I need to kno many of them are out there--how ure out how e of those sick the ime will decrease

"Oker’s estienerally iroup, as well as the very sroup of people like your friend Xander, ere initially iht tiroups into account"

"All right," I say And, as I have had to do so often before, when I sort the data I ile moment, I want to leave this iht, and walk over to the little rooether in the h the canyons

That can happen, I tell myself Only a little farther now Like the journey in the I did not reach Thee poem:

We step like plush, we stand like snow--

The waters murmur now,

Three rivers and the hill are passed,

Two deserts and the sea!

Now Death usurps ets the look at Thee

But I will rewrite the last two lines Death will not take the people I love Our journey will end differently

It takes ht

"Are you finished?" Rebecca asks quietly

For a , I wished for a time like this, a collaboration with people who have lived out on the edges Instead we found an ee in a beautiful place, peopled only by papers and pages left in a cave, things treasured up and left behind