Females, Peter thought again. As if Olson were speaking of livestock. He had the disquieting sense of having told too much, of having been maneuvered into surrendering some crucial bit of information. Mira, standing beside her father, was facing the crowd, which was moving away; Peter realized she hadn’t said a word.

Everyone had begun to gather around the tables. The volume of conversation settled to a murmur as food was passed out—bowls of stew ladled from giant vats, platters of bread, pots of butter and pitchers of milk. As Peter scanned the scene, everyone talking and helping themselves, some assisting with children, women with babies bouncing on their laps or suckling at an exposed breast, he realized that what he was seeing was more than a group of survivors; it was a family. For the first time since they had left the Colony, he felt a pang of longing for home, and wondered if he had been wrong to be so suspicious. Perhaps they really were safe here.

And yet something wasn’t right; he felt that, too. The crowd was incomplete; something was missing. He couldn’t say what this missing thing was, only that its absence, nibbling at the edge of his consciousness, seemed more profound the longer he looked. Alicia and Amy, he saw, were with Jude now, who was showing them where to sit. Standing tall in his leather boots—nearly everyone else was barefoot—the man seemed to tower over them. While Peter watched, Jude leaned close to Alicia, touching her on the arm, and spoke quickly into her ear; she responded with a laugh.

These thoughts were interrupted when Olson rested his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I do hope you choose to remain with us,” he said. “We all do. There’s strength in numbers.”

“We’ll have to talk about it,” Peter managed.

“Of course,” said Olson, leaving his hand where it was. “There’s no hurry. Take all the time you need.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

FORTY-NINE

It was simple. There were no boys.

Or almost no boys. Alicia and Hollis claimed they’d seen a couple. But when Peter questioned them more closely, they were both forced to confess that they couldn’t say for sure if they’d seen any or not. With those short haircuts all the Littles wore, it was difficult to tell, and they’d seen no older children at all.