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"It would have been better if you could have sent word Things here run a certain way"

Caleb’s body was jangling with energy "Please, Sister!"

Her i accounts Delta-like fans of wrinkles deepened at the corners of her mouth as she sucked in her cheeks "I suppose under the circuht An exception, you understand, and keep an ear to the horn, Lieutenant I know you Expeditionary feel yourselves to be above the rules, but I can’t allow it"

Peter let the barb pass; it did, after all, possess an element of truth "I’ll have hiaze, he found hi to sound curiously offhanded "Is Ao"

"She’s gone to the market You’ve just h "I suppose you’ll want to stay for dinner"

"Thank you, Sister That’s kind of you"

Caleb, bored by these for at his hand "Please, Uncle Peter, I want to go"

For a breadth of tier than half a second, the woman’s stern countenance appeared to crack A look of almost maternal tenderness flickered in her eyes But it just as quickly vanished, leaving Peter to wonder if he’d iined it

"Mind the clock, Lieutenant I’ll be watching"

The dam was, inwith the oil that powered the generators, Kerrville’s mastery of the Guadalupe River, which provided both water for irrigation and a barrier to the north and west-nobody had ever seen a viral even attempt to swim; it idely believed that they either had a phobia of water or sievity The river itself had been a feature of scant di to barely a trickle in suer of a ical shift that would raise the river per It had been, by all accounts, athe temporary diversion of the river’s currents and thethe bowl-like depression that would form the impoundment, followed by the erection of the da on a scale Peter had always associated with the Time Before, not the world he knew The day of the water’s first release was regarded as a foundational occurrence in the history of the Republic;of natural forces had impressed upon him how flimsy the Colony had been in co as they had

Grated steel stairs ascended to the top Caleb took them at a dash over Peter’s shouted protests to slon By the ti over the water, toward the undulating ridge of hills at the horizon Thirty feet below, the face of the i transparency Peter could even see fish down there, white shapes piloting lazily in the glassy waters

"What’s out there?" the boy asked

"Well,at is only a few miles away"

"Where’s New Mexico?"

Peter pointed due west "But it’s really, really far Three days on a transport, and that’s without stopping"

The boy chewed on his lower lip "I want to see it"

"Maybe so top to the spillway A series of vents released water at regular intervals into a wide pool, froricultural coularly spaced towersthe view Peter was once again struck by the elaborateness of it all It was as if in this one place, human history still flowed in an uninterrupted continuum, undisturbed by the stark separation of eras that the virals had brought down upon the world

"You look like hi at him "Who do you ht him short; how could the boy possibly knohat Theo had looked like? Of course he couldn’t, but that wasn’t the point Caleb’s assertion was a kind of wish, a way to keep his father alive

"That’s what everyone said I can see a lot of him in you, you know"

"Do you miss him?"

"Every day" A somber silence passed; then Peter said, "I’ll tell you so as we rehts, their feelings, their memories, they become a part of us And even if you think you don’t remember your parents, you do They’re inside you, the same way they’re inside me"

"But I was just a baby"

"Babies ht occurred to him "Do you know about the Farht There was so special about it It was like ould always be safe there, like soarded the boy for a host, you know"

The boy’s eyes widened "Do you?"

"I don’t know I’ve thought a lot about it over the years Maybe it was Or at least a kind of ghost Maybe places have memories, too" He rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder "All I know is that the world wanted you to be born, Caleb"

The boy fell silent Then, his face bloorin of a plan unveiled: "You knohat I want to do next?"

"Na"

It was a little after four by the tie of the pool, they stripped to their shorts As Peter stepped out onto the rocks, he turned to find Caleb frozen at the edge

"What’s the matter?"

"I don’t kno"

Somehow Peter had failed to foresee this He offered the boy his hand "Coly cold, with a distinct mineral taste Caleb was fearful at first, but after thirty rew Another ten and he wasacross the surface

"Look at me! Look at me!"