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Peter wasn’t quite sure as going to happen next For several seconds, Michael looked hih, he rose froht, you let lanced at Peter, eyebrows raised

"It’s all right," said Peter "Somebody needs to look after him"

The two men departed Peter cleared his throat and continued: "The iht I expect every able-bodied person to man those walls, but we’ll need shelters for the rest Ford?"

Chase rose, crossed to Peter’s desk, and returned with a rolled tube of paper, which he unfurled on the table and weighed down at the corners

"This is one of the builders’ original schematics Hardboxes were constructed here"--he pointed--"here, and here All three date to the early days of the city, and none has been used in decades, not since the Easter Incursion I don’t iood shape, but with some reinforcement, we can use them in a pinch"

"How many people can we fit?" Peter asked

"Not many, at ot the hospital, which can fit, oh, maybe another hundred Another, s, the old bank vault Full of files and other junk, but basically in good shape"

"What about basements?"

"There aren’t a lot A few beneath cos, some of the old apartment complexes, and we can safely assume there are a few in private hands But the way the city was built, al is on slab or pier The soil by the river is mostly clay, so no basements at all That extends froood, Peter thought So far, they had accounted for fewer than a thousand people

"Now, here’s the granddaddy" Chase directed everyone’s attention to the orphanage, which was overnment from Austin, one of the reasons they chose Kerrville is because of this While the walls were being constructed, they needed a safe place to overnight the workers and the rest of the governe forest one is underneath the orphanage, and it’s deep, at least thirty feet below the surface According to the old records, it was originally used by the sisters as part of the Underground Railroad, a place to hide runaway slaves before the Civil War"

"Hoe get down there?" Apgar asked

"I went and looked thisarea There’s a flight of wooden stairs, pretty rickety but usable, that leads down to the cave Dank as a to If we pack folks in, it can hold another five hundred at least" Chase looked up "Now, before anybody asks, I went through the census data last night It’s just an estis break down Inside the walls, we have about eleven hundred children under the age of thirteen Not counting military, the reender, but the population skews old We’ve got a lot of people over sixty Soht, but I don’t see that they’ll be much help, frankly"