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Sara stopped in her tracks "What did you say?"
For aoff the branches
"I’m tired, Dani," Kate said "Can you pickin her ar part of her, co from the , but Sara didn’t care Kate wrapped her arhtly around her, and in this hter out of the snow and back to the apartes; every day she looked for the inverted spoon, the note tucked under the plate, finding none Jenny ca her trays of bread and corn virtually never left the apartlimpsed Vale only once, when Lila had sent her to look for athe tub’s drain He alking down the corridor in the co the jowly one who had met theht by her As ever, his disguise-which was really just a way of carrying himself, the confident saunter of his rank-was absolutely seanition occurred between then
She wasn’t supposed to send a ency, but the lack of contact left her anxious Finally she decided to risk it There was no loose paper in the apartht after Lila had gone to bed, Sara tore a ser proble to write with; there were no pens or pencils in the apart table she found a sewing kit with a cushion of needles Sara selected the one that looked the sharpest, jabbed it into the tip of her index finger, and squeezed, su the needle as a e onto the paper
Needday, when Jenny ca Rather than allow the girl to simply whisk it away as usual, Sara lifted the tray fro eye contact and then darting her glance doard, lest the point be missed
"Thank you, Jenny"
Two days later came the reply Sara secreted the note into the folds of her robe, waiting for a private moment This didn’t happen until later in the day, when Lila napped She was close to the end of her cycle now, parched and infir with the blood In the bathroom Sara unfolded the slip of paper, on which ritten a tile sentence of instruction Sara’s heart sank; she hadn’t realized she’d have to leave the Dome She would need to secure Lila’s peret it, she had no idea what she’d do With Lila in her impaired state, Sara wondered if the woman would even comprehend the request
She broached the subject the next day while she ashing Lila’s hair A few hours off, was how she put it An outing to the ood to see a fe faces, and while she was there she could look for some special oils or soaps The request aroused in Lila a palpable anxiety; she’d becoht But in the end she yielded to the gentle force of Sara’s argu, said Lila I never knohat to do without you, Dani
Vale had paved the way; at the front desk, the col handed her the pass with a perfunctory warning that it was only for two hours Sara stepped into the wind and headed toward the market Only cols and redeyes were allowed to barter there; currency took the form of small plastic chips in three colors, red, blue, and white In the pocket of Sara’s robe were five of each, part of the compensation that Lila doled out to her every seven days, furthering the fiction that Sara was a paid employee The snow had been pushed from the sidewalks in what had once been the town’s ss adjacent to the college Most of the city went unused and abandoned, fading into soft decay; nearly all of the redeyes, except for senior staff, lived in a mid-rise apartment complex at the south end of don The market was the heart of the city, with checkpoints at either end Soinal function: Iowa State Bank, Fort Powell Army-Navy, Wimpy’s Cafe, Prairie Books and Music There was even a small movie theater with a marquee; Sara had heard that cols were soo, to watch the handful of ain
She displayed her pass at the checkpoint The streets were vacant save for the patrols and a handful of redeyes, strolling in their luxuriously heavy coats and sunglasses Shielded by her veil, Sara h this sense of security was, she knew, a dangerous illusion She walked at a pace that was neither fast nor slow, her head down against the cold gusts that whipped up fros
She came to the apothecary Bells tinkled as she stepped inside The roorant ood sray hair and a puckered, toothlessoutthelass vials She lifted her eyes as Sara entered, then darted the by a display of scented oils Be careful I knoho you are Don’t approach until I get rid of hi in an elevated, helpful voice: "Sir, perhaps you were looking for so a bar of soap Mid-thirties, not unhandso an air of vanity He returned the soap to its place on the display "So for a headache"
"Ah" A smile of assurance; the solution was in hand "Just a moment"
The old woman selected a jar from the wall of herbals behind her, spooned the dry leaves into a paper package, and handed it to him over the counter "Dissolve this in ater Just a pinch should do it"
He surveyed the package uneasily "What’s in it? You’re not trying to poisonmore than common dillonweed I use it lad to"
"Forget it"
He paid her with a single blue chip; the woman followed him with her eyes as he departed to a chime of bells
"Coe room in the back with a table and chairs and a door to the alleyway The woman told Sara to wait and returned to the front of the store Several minutes passed; then the door opened: Nina, dressed in a flatlander’s tunic and dark jacket and a long scarf that wrapped the lower half of her face
"This is incredibly duerous this is?"
Sara stared into the woman’s steely eyes Until this ry she was
"You knewthe scarf "Of course we knew That’s e do, Sara: we know things, then we put the information to use I’d think you’d be happy about it"
"How long?"
"Does that ave her a hard look "All right, suppose we’ve known all along Supposing we’d told you What would you have done? Don’t bother to answer You would have gone off half-cocked and done so stupid You wouldn’t haveyour cover If it’s any consolation, there was a good deal of discussion about this Jackie thought you should know But the prevailing opinion was that the success of the operation came first"