Caleb advanced a rook three spaces, taking Peter's other knight, which he had inadvertently left open. "Watch," he said.

A quick exchange of pieces and Peter's king was boxed in. "Checkmate," the boy declared.

Peter stared hopelessly at the board. "How did you do that so fast?"

Beside him, Amy laughed-a warm, infectious sound. "I told you."

Caleb's grin stretched a mile wide. Peter understood what had happened; first the swimming, now this. His nephew had effortlessly turned the tables on him, showing Peter what he was capable of.

"You just have to think ahead," Caleb said. "Try to see it like a story."

"Tell me the truth. How good are you at this?"

Caleb gave a modest shrug. "A few of the older kids used to beat me. But not anymore."

"Is that so? Well, set it up again, youngster. I want my revenge."

Caleb had racked up his third straight victory, each more mercilessly decisive than the last, when the bell sounded, summoning him to the dormitory. The time had passed too quickly. Amy departed for the girls' quarters, leaving Peter to escort the boy to bed. In the large room of cots, Caleb exchanged his clothing for a nightshirt, then knelt on the stone floor at the side of his bed, hands pressed together, to say his prayers, a long series of "God bless"es that began with "my parents in heaven" and concluded with Peter himself.

"I always save you for last," the boy said, "to keep you safe."

"Who's Mouser?"

Mouser was their cat. Peter had seen the poor creature lounging on a windowsill in the common room-a pitiful rag of a thing, flesh drooping over his brittle old bones like laundry on a line. Peter drew the blanket up to Caleb's chin and bent to kiss him on the forehead. Sisters were moving up and down the lines of cots, shushing the other children. The room's lights had already been extinguished.

"When are you coming back, Uncle Peter?"

"I'm not sure. Soon, I hope."

"Can we go swimming again?"

A warm feeling spread through his entire body. "Only if you promise we can play more chess. I don't think I have the hang of it yet. I could use a few pointers."

The boy beamed. "I promise."

Amy was waiting for him in the empty common room, the cat nosing around her feet. He had to report to the barracks at 2100; he and Amy would have only a few minutes together.

"That poor thing," Peter said. "Why doesn't anybody put him down? It seems cruel."

Amy ran a hand along the animal's spine. A faint purr trembled from him as he arched his back to receive her touch. "It's past time, I suppose. But the children adore him, and the sisters don't believe in it. Only God can take a life."

"They've obviously never been to New Mexico."

A joke, but not entirely. Amy regarded him with concern. "You look troubled, Peter."

"Things aren't going very well. Do you want to know about it?"

She considered the question. She seemed a little pale; Peter wondered if she was feeling all right.

"Maybe some other time." Her eyes searched his face. "He loves you, you know. He talks about you all the time."

"You're making me feel guilty. Probably I deserve it."

She lifted Mouser to settle him on her lap. "He understands. I'm only telling you so you know how important you are to him."

"What about you? Are you doing okay here?"

She nodded. "On the whole, it suits me. I like the company, the children, the sisters. And of course there's Caleb. Maybe for the first time in my life I actually feel ... I don't know. Useful. It's nice to be just an ordinary person."

Peter was struck by the frank, easy flow of the conversation. Some barrier between them had dropped. "Do the other sisters know? Besides Sister Peg, I mean."

"A few do, or maybe just suspect. I've been here for five years, and they'd have to notice I'm not aging. I think I'm a bit of a wrinkle to Sister Peg, something that doesn't really fit her view of things. But she doesn't say anything about it to me." Amy smiled. "After all, I make a mean barley soup."

Too quickly, the moment of his departure was at hand. Amy walked him to the entrance, where Peter pulled the wad of bills from his pocket and held it out to her.

"Give this to Sister Peg, all right?"

Amy nodded without comment and slid the scrip into the pocket of her skirt. Once again she pulled him into a hug, more forcefully this time. "I really have missed you." Her voice was soft against his chest. "Be safe, all right? Promise you'll do that."

There was something fraught in her insistence, a feeling, almost, of finality, a graver parting. What wasn't she saying? And something else: her body was giving off a feverish heat. He could actually feel it pulsing through the heavy fabric of his uniform.

"You don't have to worry about me. I'll be fine."

"I mean it, Peter. If anything happened, I couldn't ..." Her voice trailed away, as if pulled to the currents of a hidden wind. "I just couldn't is all."

Now he was certain: there was something Amy wasn't telling him. Peter searched her face for what it was. A faint glaze of perspiration shone on her brow.

"Are you okay?"

Taking his hand in her own, she lifted them in concert, pressing her palm against his so that the pads of their fingers were just touching. It seemed a gesture with equal measures of togetherness and parting, connection and separation.

"Do you remember when I kissed you?"

They had never spoken of this-her quick, birdlike peck at the mall, the virals streaming toward them. Much had happened, but Peter had not forgotten. How could he?

"I always wondered about that," he confessed.

Their raised hands seemed to hover in the darkened space between them. Amy studied them with her eyes. It was as if she were attempting to divine a meaning she herself had made. "I'd been alone so long. It's nothing I can even describe. But all of a sudden, there you were. I couldn't believe it." Then, as if jarred from a trance, she withdrew her hand, her face suddenly flustered. "That's all. You better go-you'll be late."

He didn't want to. Like the kiss, the feeling of her hand seemed to possess a unique power to linger in his senses, as if it had taken up a permanent residence in his fingertips. He wanted to say more but couldn't find the words, and the moment slipped away.

"You're sure you're all right?"

Her face assembled a smile. "Never better."

She really did look ill, he thought. "Well, I'll be back in ten days."

Amy said nothing.

"I'll see you then, right?" He wondered why he was asking this.

"Of course, Peter. Where would I go?"

After Peter had left, Amy made her way to the sisters' residence, a smaller version of the dormitories where the children slept. The other sisters were all asleep, a few of the older ones softly snoring. She stripped off her tunic and lowered herself onto her cot.

Sometime later she awoke with a start. A cold sweat glazed her body, drenching her nightshirt. The turbulence of uneasy dreams still roiled through her.

Amy, help him.

She froze.

He is waiting for you, Amy. In the ship.

-Father?

Go to him go to him go to him go to him ...

She rose, seized with a sudden purposefulness. The moment had come.

Yet one duty remained, one final task to be performed in these last days of a life she had loved, if briefly. Through the silent hallways she padded her way to the common room. She found Mouser just where she had left him, resting on the couch. Exhaustion radiated from his eyes; his limbs were limp, he could barely raise his head.

Please, his eyes said. I'm in pain. It's all gone on too long.

Gently she lifted him to her chest. Running a hand along his back, she turned so he could face the window, with its view of the starry night.

"See the pretty world, Mouser?" she murmured, close to his ear. "See the pretty stars?"

It's ... beautiful.

His neck broke with a snap, the body going limp in her arms. Amy stayed that way for a few minutes while his presence faded, stroking his fur, kissing his head and face. Goodbye, Mouser. Godspeed to you. The children love you; you will be with them again. Then she carried him outside to the garden shed to see about a shovel.

Chapter 31

"Will you look what the wind blew in."

A grease-stained man had directed Peter to the commissary, where he'd found Michael sitting with a group of a dozen men and women, using forks grasped in filthy hands to shovel plates of beans into their mouths. Michael leapt off the bench and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Peter Jaxon, as I live and breathe."

"Flyers, Michael. You're enormous."

His friend's chest seemed to have doubled in size, straining the fabric of his jumpsuit; his arms were roped with muscle. A robust growth of blond stubble roughened his cheeks.

"Tell you the truth, there's not much else to do around here besides cook oil and lift weights. And word to the wise, nobody uses that word around here. It's all 'f**k this' and 'f**k that.' " He gestured toward the table. "This here's my crew. Say hello to Peter, hombres."

Introductions all around. Peter did his best to record the names but knew they'd be gone within minutes.

"Hungry?" Michael asked. "The chow's not bad if you breathe through your mouth."

"I should report to the head of DS first."

"He can keep. Since it's past twelve hundred, odds are good Stark is pie-eyed anyway. It's Karlovic you really need to see, but he's gone up to the reserve. Let me get you a plate."

They shared their news over lunch, returned their trays to the kitchen, and stepped outside.

"Does it always smell this bad?" Peter inquired.

"Oh, this is a good day. When the wind switches around you'll be crying. Blows all the crap down from the channel. Come on, I'll give you the grand tour."

Their first stop was the barracks, a cinder-block box with a rusty tin roof. Curtained sleeping berths lined the walls. A huge, long-faced man was sitting at the table in the middle of the room, shuffling and reshuffling a deck of cards.

"This here is Juan Sweeting, my second," Michael said. "Goes by Ceps."

They shook, the man greeting him with a grunt.

"How'd you get the name Ceps?" Peter asked. "I haven't heard that before."

The man curled his arms, popping a pair of biceps like two large grapefruits.

"Ah," said Peter. "I see."

"Not to worry," Michael said, "his manners aren't the best and his lips move when he reads, but he pretty much behaves himself as long as you don't forget to feed him."

A woman had emerged from one of the berths, wearing only her underclothes. She yawned into her fist. "Jesus, Michael, I was trying to get some rack." To Peter's astonishment, she draped her arms around Michael's neck, her face lighting with a greedy smile. "Unless, of course ..."

"Not the time, mi amiga." Michael gently freed himself. "In case you didn't notice, we've got company. Lore, Peter. Peter, Lore."

Her body was lean and strong, her hair, bleached by the sun, cut short. Attractive but in an unconventional, slightly masculine way, radiating a frank, even carnivorous sensuality.

"You're the guy?"

"That's right."

She gave a knowing laugh. "Well, good luck to you, friend."

"Lore's fourth-generation oiler," Michael said. "She practically drinks the stuff."

"It's a living," Lore said. Then, to Peter: "So you guys go way back, I guess. Let a girl in on the secret. What was he like?"

"Pretty much the smartest guy around. Everybody called him the Circuit. It was sort of his nickname."

"And a stupid one, too. Thanks a bunch, Peter."

"The Circuit," Lore repeated, seeming to taste the word in her mouth. "You know, I think I kind of like that."

At the table, Ceps, who had said nothing, gave a feminine moan. "Oh Circuit, oh Circuit, make me feel like a woman ..."

"Shut up, the both of you." Michael was blushing to a degree at odds with his newfound muscularity, though Peter could also tell that part of him enjoyed the attention. "What are you, thirteen? Come on, Peter," he said, steering him toward the door, "let's leave these children."

"See you later, Lieutenant," Lore called merrily as they made their exit. "I'll want to hear stories."

In the intensifying heat of the afternoon, Michael gave Peter the lay of the land, taking him to one of the towers and explaining the refining process.

"It sounds pretty dangerous," Peter said.

"Things happen, it's true."

"Where's the reserve?" The oil, Peter knew, came from a holding tank deep underground.

"About five miles to the north of here. It's actually a natural salt dome, part of the old Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Oil floats, so we pump in seawater and out it comes."

His friend had acquired a bit of Texas in his voice, Peter noted. Not "oil" but "awhl."

"How much is left down there?"

"Well, a shitload, basically. By our estimates, enough to fill the cookers for another fifty years."

"And once it's gone?"

"We go looking for more. There are plenty of tanks spread along the Houston ship channel. It's a real toxic swamp up there, and the place is crawling with dopeys, but it could tide us over awhile. The next closest dome is Port Arthur. It wouldn't be easy to move the operation up there, but with enough time we could do it." He gave a fatalistic shrug. "Either way, I doubt I'll be around to worry about it."