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"Flyers, Peter" Alicia drew her bloodied hand away Now she was laughing, too "Lucius, can you believe he fking shot me?"

Chapter 62

At the base of the ladder, Aht instantly, snatched away in a flash of blue flame She doused the torch in the trickle of water at her feet, ascended the ladder, and shoved the manhole cover aside

She was in the alley behind the apothecary shop She sealed the plate and peeked around the corner of the building; above the heart of the city, the Doht She dren her veil and walked briskly fro the barricades She strode up to the guardhouse, where twoon their hands, and displayed her pass

"This doesn’t look right" He showed it to the second lanced at it quickly, then looked at Amy "Lift your veil"

She did as he asked "Is there so?"

He studied her face a et it It’s fine"

Amy threaded past them and headed up the stairs None of the other ate had verified her presence as warranted Inside, she lanced at her, crossed the lobby to the elevator, and rode it to the sixth floor

The elevator opened on a circular balcony circu’s atrium Four corridors led away, like spokes on a wheel Amy made her way around the balcony to the third corridor and down its length to the last door, where the guard, a droopy-facedes of a hundred-year-old e bikini, her hands pushed upward through her hair

"The Director asked to seeup her veil

His eyes broke fro Amy’s, and that was all it took She eased hiainst the wall, and took the key from his belt His chin was rocked forward onto his chest She put her lips close to his ear

"I’o inside noant you to count to sixty-can you do that?"

His eyes were closed He nodded slightly,a et there, throw yourself off the balcony"

She unlocked the door and stepped inside There was soback chairs faced an enor faintly The floor was covered in thick carpet,One whole as books; another displayed a large painting, lit by a tiny spotlight, of three figures sitting at a long counter and a fourth h aon a darkened street Amy paused to read the shthawks, 1942

To her right was a pair of parlor doors s of leaded glass A on top of the blankets in his underwear A pile of cardboard folders floated in the sea of bedding beside hi from his nose Where should she stand? She chose the foot of the bed

"Director Guilder"

He jerked violently awake, darting a hand beneath his pillow He pushed hi away from her; with both hands he leveled the pistol at her and cocked the haht shoot her by accident

"How did you get in here?"

She sensed his uncertainty The robe of an attendant, but the face was none he knew "The guard was very acco Why don’t you put that down?"

"Goddamnit, who are you?"

She heard voices froio," she said "I’ve come here to surrender"

Chapter 63

Events had followed just as Amy had foreseen The time and place of her execution were set; only the method had yet to be revealed-the final detail on which their plan depended Would Guilder sier display was all he intended, why had he ordered the entire population, all seventy thousand souls in the Homeland, to observe? Amy had baited the hook; would Guilder take it?

Peter passed the next four days lurching between e states of worry and astonish of deja vu Everything possessed a striking familiarity, as if no time had passed since they’d faced Babcock on the ether once ravitational force Peter, Alicia, Michael, Hollis, Greer: they had converged upon this place by different routes, for different reasons Yet it was Aain, who had led them

Greer had related the story of her transformation: Houston, Carter, the Chevron Mariner; Amy’s journey into the bowels of the ship and then her return The full measure of what had passed between Amy and Carter, Greer couldn’t tell them; all he kneas that Carter had directed them here Beyond that, Aht at the orphanage, the two of the in space: had she knoas happening to her? And had he? Peter had felt in A away The girl you knoill not be here when next we one away In her place was nooroup clothed their anxieties in unnecessary repetitions of their various preparations The cleaning of weapons The exa over of checklists and the assorted mental inventories they would carry into war Hollis and Michael became, in the last days, a kind of closed loop; their purpose had narrowed to Sara and Kate Alicia dealt with the anxiety the way she dealt with everything-by pretending it wasn’t important The bullet from Peter’s pistol had , but even so She would be healed in a day or two, but in theon her arm was a constant re her When she wasn’t barking orders, she retreated into unreachable silence, letting Peter knoithout saying so, that she had entered the zone of battle Greer inti had happened to her in the cell, that she’d been beaten badly, but any attempt to ask her more about this, to offer coht," Alicia said with a peremptory tone that could only mean she wasn’t "Don’t worry about me I can take care ofhi stretches; if he didn’t know better, he would have said she was angry with hi of horse sweat, but when Peter asked her where she’d gone, all she would say was that she’d been scouting the perimeter He had no reason to doubt this, yet the explanation felt thin, a cover for sonificant change His reunion with Greer had meant more than Peter had expected They had served in the Expeditionary together, an inarguable bond, but Peter had not anticipated the depth of their friendship A genuine warmth flowed between them Peter puzzled over this at first, but the reason was obvious: Greer and Tifty had been here before, with Crukshank, all those years ago The story of the field, and Dee, and the two little girls: of any , Greer best knew the heart of Tifty Lamont

In thistwo questions hovered: Would the plan work? And if it did, could they get to Aht, when Peter couldn’t stand the waiting for one more second, he left the base, ascended the stairs, and stepped outside The front of the building was protected by a broad overhang that kept the area clear of snow Alicia was sitting with her back against the wall and her knees pulled to her chest The sling had co bayonet, serrated near the base; in the other was a sharpening stone With cal the stone, first one side and then the other, pausing at the conclusion of each pass to examine her work She seemed not to notice Peter at first, so intent was her focus; then, sensing his presence, she lifted her eyes toward him It see; her face bore no expression at all, beyond a kind of vague distraction

"Mind some company?" he asked

"Sit if you want"

He took a place beside her on the ground Now he could feel it The air around her seee It flowed off her like an electric current

"That’s so "Eustace gave it to h?"