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"Okay," Peter uess I will"

"I really liked your brother," Ji his presence warranted so that a lot"

The reretted it i the look on Jimmy’s hawk-nosed face Jimmy had been Theo’s friend, too-a Second Captain, just as Theo was-and knehat it meant to lose a brother Connor Molyneau had been killed five years ago on a smokehunt to clear out a pod in Upper Field After Soo, Jimmy was the oldest of the officers, in his irls; he could have stood down years ago without an ill thought from anyone but had chosen to stay on So hiesture that embarrassed him and earned him no end of jokes from the Watch, even as everyone could tell he liked it

"Sorry, Jiet it I’ve been there, believeit because it’s true, Peter Your brother was someone very important to all of us" With this final declaration, Sanjay lifted his chin officiously in Soo’s direction "Captain, if you have a minute?"

Soo nodded, her eyes still fixed on Peter’s face "Ihis arm just above the elbow "Take whatever time you need"

Peter waited a few minutes to put some distance between hiitated, alert but without focus What had transpired was only talk, nothing, in the end, that should have surprised him all that much: the expected, aard condolences he kneell, and then the news that he wouldn’t have to be Household after all-a fact he should have welco whatsoever to do with the daily duties of running things in the first place And yet Peter had felt a deeper current running under the surface of the conversation He had the distinct i he didn’t

Hoisting his pack over one shoulder-the thing was practically eo to the barracks straight off and instead ht Stone sat at the far end of the plaza: a pear-shaped granite boulder twice the height of a rayish white with jewel-like flecks of pink quartzite, in the surface of which were engraved the na and the dead This hy he had come One hundred and sixty-two names: it had taken months to etch them all Thole families of Levines and Darrells The entire Boyes clan, nine all told A host of Greenbergs and Patals and Chous and Molyneaus and Strausses and Fishers and two Donadios-Lish’s parents, John and Angel The first Jaxons to be narandparents, who’d died in the rubble of their house under the north wall It was easy for Peter to think of them as old since they’d been dead for fifteen years, the entirety of their lives consigned to a tiion of existence that Peter sio" But, in fact, Taylor hadn’t been much older than forty, and Darla, Taylor’s second wife, just thirty-six at the tiinally been ht, but since then it had seemed only natural to keep with this custom, to record the dead and lost Zander’s name, Peter saw, had already been inscribed It did not stand alone: it came below his father and his sister and the woo It seemed so out of character for Zander to even speak to anyone, let alone be otten all about her The woman, whose name was Janelle, had died in childbirth with their baby, just a few ht The child hadn’t been na to write, and his brief stay on earth had gone unrecorded

"If you want, I can do the engraving for Theo"

Peter swiveled to find Caleb standing behind hie on hi webbed, like the paddled feet of a duck Looking at thee, ridiculous sneakers: they were evidence-the only evidence, really-of the whole otten episode at the mall But somehow Peter also knew that Theo would have taken one look at Caleb’s sneakers and laughed He would have gotten the joke before Peter had even realized it was a joke

"Did you do Zander’s naood with the chisel Nobody else around to take care of it, I guess He should have tried topast Peter’s shoulder For a second, his eyes see you shot hiht the worst thing in the world would be to be taken up I’"

Peter decided it then He wouldn’t write Theo’s name in the Stone, and no one else would either Not until he was sure

"Where are you bunking these days?" he asked Caleb

"The barracks Where else?"

Peter lifted one shoulder to indicate the knapsack "Mind if I join you?"

"It’s your appetite"

It was only later, after Peter had unpacked his belongings and lain down at last on the caved-in, too soft ht out, past Peter’s shoulder, on the Stone Not Zander’s naroup of three: Richard and Marilyn Jones, and, beneath that, Nancy Jones, Caleb’s older sister His father, a wrench, had been killed in a fall froht; his mother and sister had died in the Sanctuary, crushed by the collapsing roof Caleb had been just a feeeks old

That hen he realized why Alicia had taken hi to do with the stars Caleb Jones was an orphan of Dark Night, as she was No one to stand for him but her

She’d taken Peter to the roof to wait for Caleb Jones

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

Michael Fisher, First Engineer of Light and Poas sitting in the Lighthouse, listening to a ghost

That’s what Michael was calling it, the ghost signal Peeking from the haze of noise at the top of the audible spectrument, there and not there The radio operator’s e shed listed the frequency as unassigned

"I could have told you that," said Elton

They’d heard it the third day after the supply party’s return Michael still couldn’t believe Theo was gone Alicia had assured hi to do with Theo’s death, but still Michael felt responsible, part of a chain of events that had led to the loss of his friend And the otten all about it The day after Theo and the others had departed for the station, Michael had successfully cannibalized an old battery flow control for what he needed Not a Pion, but enough extra processing power to squeeze out any signal at the top end of the spectrum

And even if he hadn’t, as one nal: 1,432It nagged at hi to dart away froital, a repeating string, and it came and went mysteriously, or so it had appeared, until he’d realized-okay, Elton had realized-that it was co every ninety minutes, whereupon it would transain

He should have figured that out on his own There really was no excuse

And it was growing stronger Hour by hour, with each cycle, though ht up theelse; he just sat at the panel and counted off the nal to return

It wasn’t anything natural, not at ninety-minute cycles It wasn’t a satellite It wasn’t anything fros Michael didn’t knohat it was

Elton was in a reat-to-be-blind Elton that Michael had gotten accustohthouse-that Elton was nowhere to be found In his place sat this dandruffy grump who barely uttered hello He’d clanal when it ca or two about needingHe could barely be bothered to power up the lights at Second Bell; Michael could have let enough gas build up to blast the that Elton wouldn’t have said word one about it