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"So what do you think?"

Peter nervously eyed the receding shoreline "I’ht," Michael offered "For the first time in your life, you’re in a place where a viral can’t kill you"

"I hadn’t considered that"

"For the next couple of hours, you, my friend, are out of a job"

They tacked across the bay As they reen to a rich blue-black, the sunlight ricocheting off the irregularities of its surface Under the tightness of the sail, the boat possessed a h not co, but the ocean was still the ocean

"How far out have you taken this thing?"

Michael looked ahead, squinting into the light "Hard to say Five enerally held that in the early days of the epideether to enforce a quarantine of the North A the coastlines and bo any vessels that attempted to leave shore

"If it’s out there, I haven’t found it yet" Michael shrugged "Part of me thinks it’s all bullshit, you want to know the truth"

Peter eyed his friend cautiously "You’re not looking for it, are you?"

Michael didn’t answer, his face telling Peter that he had hit thewhat you do And even if the barrier exists, howaround out there? A hundred years in the ocean would eat just about anything And all the debris would have set them off by now, anyway"

"It’s still reckless You could blow yourself to bits"

"Maybe Andtoill launch me into outer space The standards for personal safety around these parts are pretty low" He shrugged "But that’s beside the point I don’t think the dain with The whole coast? If you include Mexico and Canada, that’s almost two hundred and fifty thousand ?"

"Then someday I may, as you say, blow ed, but Michael was still Michael, a h the inlet into open water; the breeze had picked up, casting jeweled waves over the bow So in his sto of the boat So much water, everywhere

"Maybe just this once you could keep us close to land"

Michael adjusted the sail, stiffening his grip on the tiller "I’ you, it’s a whole other deal out there, Peter I can’t even explain it It’s like all the bad stuff just drops away You really should see it for yourself"

"I should be getting back Let’s save it for another tihed "Sure," he said "Another time"

Chapter 32

Alicia made her way northward, into the wide-open countryside The Texas Panhandle: a landscape of li over the tips of the prairie grasses, the sky i horizon broken only by the occasional creekside stand of cottonwoods or pecans or long-ar in subht the te fuel fro her route, she’d complete the journey in four days

She arrived at the Kearney garrison on theof November 6 It was as Command had feared when the resupply convoy had failed to return: not a living soul rerave The echoes of the soldiers’ dying cries seemed to hover on the air, locked into the ept stillness Alicia spent two days loading the desiccated re the on the banks of the Platte There she lay theether, doused thejust beyond the barricades A blue-roan stallion, his long, e of the parade ground-his presence unaccountable, like a single house left untouched by a tornado He stood eighteen hands at least Cautiously Alicia approached him, palms upturned The ani, ears pinned back, one great eye roving toward her Who is this strange being, it was saying, what does she intend? Alicia advanced another step; still he did not move She could feel the wildness that coursed in his blood, his explosive animal power

"Good boy," she murmured "See? I’m not so bad Let’s be friends, the two of us, what do you say?"

When an arth separated them, she eased her open pal the yelloall of his teeth His eye was like a great black ht of her A moment of decision, his body tense and alert; then he lowered his head, filling her open hand with the warm moistness of his breath

"Well, I think I just foundhis head Flecks of foalossy, sweat-da chiseled, hard and pure, yet it was his eyes that radiated the full th "You need a name," Alicia said "What shall I call you?"

She na up onto his back, they belonged to each other It was as if they were old friends, long separated, who had found each other again; lifelong companions who could tell each other the truest stories of the at all In the e stock, planning the journey ahead She sharpened her blades to their finest point Her orders were in her pouch To: Alicia Donadio, Captain of the Expeditionary Signed: Victoria Sanchez, President, Texas Republic

On the e over the Missouri still stood, fifty miles north of Omaha, at the town of Decatur They reached it on the sixth day The lazed with frost, winter in the air The trees had given up their bashfulness, showing their bare limbs As they ait a notch of hesitation: The river, really? They came to the bluffs; below them, the water churned in its broad course Eddies swirled upon its face, dark as stone A quarter e traversed its width on iant legs Yes, Alicia said Really

There were moments when it seemed that this decision had been hasty In places the concrete surface had fallen away, revealing the churning waters below She disly, every step fraught with the possibility that the bridge would collapse under them, they threaded their way across Whose stupid idea was this? Soldier seemed to ask Oh, yours

On the far side they halted It was just evening; the sun had begun its descent behind the bluffs Alicia’s rhythms had reversed: on foot, she would have been free to sleep during the day and travel at night, her habit But not on horseback Alicia lit a fire on the bank of the river, filled her pan, and set it to boil She took the last of her stores fro: a fistful of dried beans, paste in a can, a wedge of hardtack dense as a rock She was in the mood to hunt but did not want to leave Soldier alone She ate her er supper, washed her pot in the river, and lay down on her bedroll to watch the sky She had discovered that if she looked long enough, she would see a shooting star As if responding to her thoughts, a bright streak blazed across the heavens, then two more in quick succession Michael had told her once, o, that some were leftover creations of mankind from the Time Before, called satellites He had atte to do with the weather-but Alicia had either forgotten what he’d said or else tuned it out as yet another instance of know-it-all Michael lording his intelligence over other people What had stuck in her ht and force: unaccountable objects of unknowable purpose that swung around the earth like stones in a sling, locked in their trajectories by counterbalancing influences of will and gravity until they gave up their trials and plunged to earth in a blaze of glory More stars fell; Alicia began to count The more she looked, thewhen she fell asleep

The day broke fresh and clear Alicia slipped on her glasses and stretched, the pleasurable energy of a night’s rest flowing through her li air She had saved some hardtack for breakfast She polished off half and fed the rest to Soldier and rode on

They were in Io; their journey was halfway done The landscape changed, rising and falling in loamy hills with a slumped appearance and, between them, flat-bottomed valleys of rich black soil Low clouds had ht It was late afternoon when Alicia detected eline On the wind, a scent of ani herself into stillness, Alicia waited for the source to reveal itself