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“Yes,” Prax said “That’s it”

The boy nodded and hunched back over his console

“I need it before the attack Before theTod á fra happens, que si?”

“Fine That’s fine”

Praxto look over the boy’s shoulder The i except the puddle, slowly getting sh the days and weeks Toward the moment when it had all fallen apart

Medics appeared in the screen, appearing to walk backward in the inverted world as they brought a dead body to lay beside the door Then another draped over it The two corpses lay ently at the wall, then ered to his feet and was gone

“There should be a girl I’irl”

“Sa day care, no? Should be a thousand of them”

“I only care about the one”

The second corpse sat up and then stood, clutching her belly Aher by sucking the bullet frorew cal it all in reverse, but his sleep-and calorie-starved brain kept trying to roup of soldiers crawled backward out of the ruined door, like a breech birth, then huddled, backed away in a rush A flash of light, and the door hadto it like fruit until a soldier in a Martian uniforical harvest co a scooter behind theainst the wall

And then the door slid open, and Prax saw hier He beat on the door, hands popping off the surface in staccato bursts, then leapt aardly onto the scooter and vanished backward

The door went quiet Motionless He held his breath Walking backward, a wo a five-year-old boy on her hip went to the door, vanished within, and then reappeared Prax had to re her son off, but retrieving hiures backed down the corridor

No Three

“Stop That’s it,” Prax said, his heart banging against his ribs “That’s her”

The boy waited until all three figures were caught in the ca out into the corridor Mei’s face was petulant; even in the low resolution of the security ca her …

Relief warred with outrage in his chest, and relief won It was Dr Strickland She’d gone with Dr Strickland, who knew about her condition, about the s that needed to be done to keep Mei alive He sank to his knees, his eyes closed and weeping If he’d taken her, she wasn’t dead His daughter wasn’t dead

Unless, a thin deht whispered in his brain, Strickland was too

The woer Dark-haired with features that reminded Prax of the Russian botanists he’d worked with She was holding a roll of paper in her hand Her sht have been one of amusement or impatience He didn’t know