Caleb was eating as he spoke, gnawing off bites of hardtack and washing them down with gulps of water. Well, everything had been normal, Caleb explained, until about six days ago, when Zander had begun to act … odd. Very odd. Even for Zander, which was saying something. He didn’t want to go outside the fence, and he wasn’t sleeping at all. All night long he’d be up pacing the control room, muttering to himself. Caleb thought it was just too much time at the station, that when the relief crew showed, Zander would snap out of it.

“So then one day he announces we’re going out to the field, and tells me to get the cart packed and ready. I was sitting here eating my lunch, and he just marches in and announces this. He wants to swap out one of the governors in the west section. Okay, I say, but what’s the big emergency? Isn’t it a little late in the day to be going to the field? He’s got this crazy look in his eyes, and he smelled bad. I mean, he stank. You feeling okay, I ask him, and he says, Just get your gear, we’re going.”

“When was this?”

Caleb swallowed. “Three days ago.”

Theo leaned forward in his chair. “You’ve been outside three days?”

Caleb nodded. He’d finished off the last of the hardtack and started on a dish of soybean paste, scooping it out with his fingers. “So we ride out with the jenny, but here’s the thing. We don’t go to the west field. We go to the east field. Nothing’s worked over there for years; they’re all dead sticks. And it takes forever to get there, two hours with the cart at least. It’s past half-day, we’re cutting it close as it is. I’m like, Zander, west is that way, buddy, what the hell are we doing out here? Are you trying to get us killed? So we get to the tower he says he wants to fix, and the thing’s a rust bucket. Completely backblown. I can see that from the ground. No chance swapping the governor’s going to do anything. But that’s what he wants to do, so I haul my ass up the ladder and set the winch and start stripping out the old housing, working as fast as I can. I’m thinking, Okay, this doesn’t make a lot of sense, as far as I can tell we’re risking our necks for nothing, but maybe he knows something I don’t. Anyway, that was when I heard the scream.”

“Zander screamed?”