Then one of them addressed Allison. She told me, “We’re ordered below, no exceptions this time. The city’s being sealed.”

Before we turned away I took a last look at the open land beyond the walls. The corpses of Farmers lay motionless in charred meadowland, bathed in sour green daylight. A few survivors moved among them, but even from this height they looked shocked and aimless. I asked Allison whether at least some of them could be brought inside as prisoners.

“No,” she said.

“But if the air’s poisonous—”

“Just be grateful we were rescued.”

“There might be hundreds of people out there. You’re talking about abandoning them to die.” She nodded blankly. I said, “Whoever’s in charge here, do they really want that on their conscience?”

She gave me a peculiar look. “Vox is a limbic democracy,” she said. “There’s only one conscience. It’s called the Coryphaeus. And it doesn’t give a shit how many Farmers die.”

Chapter Eight. Allison’s Story

CHAPTER SEVEN

SANDRA AND BOSE

“This is Sandra Cole,” Bose said, “Orrin’s doctor over at State Care.”

“Well, I’m not his doctor exactly,” Sandra began, feeling more than a little ambushed. Ariel Mather gave her a look so steely and unwavering that her voice dried up in midsentence. Ariel was skinny but she was tall; even though she was sitting down her head was almost level with Sandra’s. She would have towered over Orrin. She had Orrin’s bony facial structure and similarly lustrous brown eyes. But there was nothing of Orrin’s baleful tentativeness about her. Her glare could have blinded a cat.

“You got my brother locked up?”

“No, not exactly … he’s being evaluated for admission to the Texas State Care Adult Custodial Program.”

“What’s that mean? Is he free to go or isn’t he?”

Clearly, the woman wanted a blunt answer. Sandra sat down and gave her one. “No, he’s not free to go. Not yet, anyway.”

“Take it easy, Ariel,” Bose said. “Sandra’s on our side.”

Were there sides? Apparently there were, and apparently Sandra had been recruited to one.

An intimidated waiter dropped off a basket of rolls and scurried away.

“All’s I know,” Ariel said, “is that I got a call from this man telling me Orrin was in jail for getting beat up, which I guess is a crime in Texas—”

“He was taken into custody,” Bose said, “for his own protection.”

“Custody, then, and would I come and get him. Well, he’s my little brother. I took care of him all his life and half mine. Course I’ll come get him. Now I find out Orrin’s not in jail anymore, he’s in something called State Care. That’s your business, you said, Dr. Cole?”