“We’ll have to move,” Michael said. “Or else find another power source.”

Theo was looking away, toward the field. “And just how do you suggest we do that?”

“I don’t. I’m just stating it as a fact. When the batteries drop below twenty percent—”

“I know, I know, that’s it, no lights,” Theo said. “You’ve made that clear.”

“What should we do?”

Theo gave a hopeless laugh. “How in hell should I know?”

“I mean, should we tell people?” Michael paused, searching his friend’s face. “So they can, you know, prepare themselves.”

Theo thought a moment. Then he shook his head. “No.”

And that was all. They’d never spoken of it again. When had that been? Over a year ago, along about the time Maus and Galen had gotten married—the first wedding in a long, long time. It felt strange, everyone so happy, and Michael knowing what he did. People were surprised that it was Galen up there with Mausami, instead of Theo; only Michael knew the reason, or could guess at it. He’d seen the look in Theo’s eyes that afternoon on the porch. Something had gone out of him, and it didn’t seem to Michael like the kind of thing a person could get back.

There was nothing to do now but wait. Wait, and listen.

Because that was the thing: the radio was forbidden. The problem, as Michael understood it, had boiled down to too many people. It was the radio that had led the Walkers to the Colony in the early days, nothing the Builders had ever planned on, since the Colony wasn’t supposed to last as long as it had. So the decision had been made that right then, in the year 17—seventy-five years ago—the radio should be destroyed, the antenna taken down from the mountain, its parts chopped up and scattered in the dump.

At the time, it might have made sense. Michael could see how that was possible. The Army knew where to find them, and there was only so much food and fuel to go around, so much room under the lights. But not now. Not with the batteries the way they were, the lights about to fail. Blackness and screaming and dying, et cetera.