With the arrival of the Iowans, the whole concept had gone out the window. There had been food shortages, runs on fuel and medicine, sanitation problems—all the ills that went with too many people wedged into too little space, with more than enough resentment on both sides to go around. A hastily erected tent city had absorbed the first few waves, but as more arrived, this temporary encampment had quickly descended into squalor. While many of the Iowans, after a lifetime of enforced labor, had struggled to adjust to a life in which not every decision was made for them—a common expression was “lazy as a Homelander”—others had gone in the opposite direction: violating curfew, filling Dunk’s whorehouses and gambling halls, drinking and stealing and fighting and generally running amok. The only part of the population that seemed happy was the trade, which was making money hand over fist, operating a black market in everything from food to bandages to hammers.

People had begun to openly talk about moving outside the wall. Peter supposed this to be just a matter of time; without a single viral sighting in three years, drac or dopey, the pressure was mounting on the Civilian Authority to open the gate. Among the populace, the events in the stadium had become a thousand different legends, no two exactly the same, but even the most hard-core doubters had begun to accept the idea that the threat was really over. Peter, of all people, should have been the first to agree.

He turned to look out over the city. Nearly a hundred thousand souls: there was a time when this number would have knocked him flat. He had grown up in a town—a world—of fewer than a hundred people. At the gate, the transports had gathered to take workers down to the agricultural complex, chuffing diesel smoke into the morning air; from everywhere came the sounds and smells of life, the city rising, stretching its limbs. The problems were real but small when compared to the promise of the scene. The age of the viral was over; humankind was finally on the upswing. A continent stood for the taking, and Kerrville was the place where this new age would begin. So why did it seem so meager to him, so frail? Why, standing on the dam on an otherwise encouraging summer morning, did he feel this inward shiver of misgiving?

Well, thought Peter, so be it. If being a parent taught you one thing, it was that you could worry all you wanted, but it wouldn’t change a thing. He had a lunch to pack and “be good”s to say and a day of honest, simple work to wrestle to the ground, and twenty-four hours from now, he’d start it all over again. Thirty, he mused. Today, I turn thirty years old. If anyone had asked him a decade ago if he’d live to see it, let alone be raising a son, he would have thought they were crazy. So maybe that was all that really mattered. Maybe just being alive, and having someone to love who loved you back, was enough.

—

He had told Sara that he didn’t want a party, but of course the woman would do something. After all we’ve been through, thirty means something. Come by the house after work. It’ll just be the five of us. I promise it won’t be any big deal. He picked up Caleb at school and went home to wash, and a little after 1800 they arrived at Sara and Hollis’s apartment and stepped through the door and into the party that Peter had refused. Dozens of people were there, crammed into two tiny, airless rooms—neighbors and co-workers, parents of Caleb’s friends, men he had served with in the Army, even Sister Peg, who, in her dour gray frock, was laughing and chatting away like everybody else. At the door Sara hugged him and wished him happy birthday, while Hollis put a drink in his hand and clapped him on the back. Caleb and Kate were giggling so fiercely they could barely contain themselves. “Did you know about this?” Peter asked Caleb. “And what about you, Kate?” “Of course we knew!” the boy exclaimed. “You should see your face, Dad!” “Well, you’re in big trouble,” Peter said, using his cross-dad voice, though he was laughing, too.

There was food, drink, cake, even some presents, things people could make or scrounge, some of them jokes: socks, soap, a pocketknife, a deck of cards, a huge straw hat, which Peter put on so everybody could enjoy a laugh. From Sara and Hollis, a pocket compass, a reminder of their journeys together, though Hollis also slipped him a small steel flask. “Dunk’s latest, something special,” he said with a wink, “and don’t ask me how I got it. I still have friends in low places.”

When the last presents had been opened, Sister Peg presented him with a large piece of paper rolled into a tube. Happy Birthday to Our Hero, it read, with the signatures—some legible, some not—of all the children in the orphanage. A lump rising in his throat, Peter put his arms around the old woman, surprising them both. “Thank you, everyone,” he said. “Thank you one and all.”

It was close to midnight when the party broke up. Caleb and Kate had fallen asleep on Sara and Hollis’s bed, the two of them piled together like a couple of puppies. Peter and Sara sat at the table while Hollis cleaned up.

“Any word from Michael?” Peter asked her.

“Not a peep.”

“Are you worried?”

She frowned sharply, then shrugged. “Michael’s Michael. I don’t get this thing with the boat, but he’s going to do what he wants to do. I sort of thought Lore might settle him down, but I guess that’s done.”

Peter felt a stab of guilt; twelve hours ago he’d been in bed with the woman. “How are things at the hospital?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.

“It’s a madhouse. They’ve got me delivering babies. Lots and lots of babies. Jenny’s my assistant.”