“No, I wouldn’t. Harry, I’m begging you, I don’t have noplace to go, and I don’t have anyone waiting for me, or looking out for me. I need for you to teach me.” Nervously, his eyes skittered across the apparatuses and gloves, the tables, the charts, and the supply boxes. Something jumped out at him—something he should’ve noticed sooner, but hadn’t. “You’re expanding shop here, aren’t you? This is more sap than I’ve ever seen you work.”

Harry’s eyes darkened. Rector couldn’t imagine what he’d said to make things worse than they already were.

“Yes, I’ve been busy. There’s a war going on, remember? It’s all I can do to keep up with demand back East.”

“And that’s all the more reason you need a … an apprentice. Or a helper, or something. Harry, please.”

“If I liked you any less or trusted you any better, I might consider it. But neither of them things are true, so I’ve got to tell you no. You don’t want to be part of this right now, Wreck. Things are getting hot back East, and…” He faltered and stopped, like there was something else he meant to say, but he couldn’t figure out how to add it.

“That stupid war’s been happening longer than I been alive. It’ll peter out one of these days, don’t you think?”

Harry shook his head. “It might. But right now, let’s pray it’s not replaced with something even worse.”

“What’s worse than war? And why would we have a war out here, on this coast? That don’t make any sense.”

With a grim chuckle, the older man stood up straighter, and quickly checked a simmering beaker. “It’s a shame you have to ask. Maybe you’ll go inside the wall sometime, and you won’t wonder anymore.”

He stepped away from the cluttered table, revealing a still much larger than his old system. A vast network of tubes, tubs, and valves stretched almost to the ceiling. Another foot, and it’d jut up through the tinplate roof.

“Maybe I’ll do that. Maybe I’ll go inside the wall,” Rector said as if he hadn’t been planning it anyway. “But it looks to me like you need help. That’s a mighty big kit you’ve got there.”

“I don’t need help, and you don’t know what you’re asking. You want to stay here with me, maybe sleep out in one of the side houses? You want to take up a place in the war that’s coming? I don’t think you do, boy.”

“What are you talking about? The war stops at the river, don’t it?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Harry said. “Things are getting uncomfortable for fellows like me, you understand?”

“No, I don’t.”