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.”
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.
It was the afternoon of the fourth day, and Michael was finally awake. The five of them had gathered in the larger of the two huts; Mausami and Amy were next door. Peter and Hollis had just returned from their trip out to the fields with Olson. The real purpose of this trip had been to get a second look at the perimeter, because they had decided to leave as soon as Michael was able. There was no question of taking this up with Olson; though Peter had to admit he liked the man and could find no outward reason to distrust him, too much about the Haven simply failed to add up, and the events of the night before had left Peter more uncertain than ever of Olson’s intentions. Olson had given a short speech welcoming them all, but as the night had worn on, Peter had begun to find the crowd’s empty warmth oppressive, even disturbing. There was a fundamental sameness to everyone, and in the morning, Peter found he couldn’t recall anyone in particular; all the faces and voices seemed to blur together in his mind. Not one person, he realized, had asked a single question about the Colony or how they’d come to be there—a fact that, the longer he considered it, made no sense at all. Wouldn’t it be the most natural thing, to wonder about another settlement? To question them about their journey and what they had seen? But Peter and the others might just as well have materialized out of thin air. No one, he realized, had so much as told him their name.
They would have to steal a vehicle; on this point, everyone was agreed. Fuel was the next question. They could follow the train tracks south, looking for the fuel depot, or if they had enough, drive south to Las Vegas to the airport before heading north again on Highway 15. Probably they’d be followed; Peter doubted Olson would let go of one of the vans without a fight. To avoid this, they could head straight east instead, across the test range, but with no roads or towns, Peter doubted they could make it, and if the terrain was anything like it was around the Haven, it didn’t look like the kind of place where they wanted to get stranded.
This left the matter of weapons. Alicia believed there had to be an armory somewhere—from the beginning she’d maintained that the guns they’d seen were loaded, no matter what Olson said—and she’d done her best to feel out Jude on this question the night before. Jude had stayed close to her all evening—just as Olson had stayed close to Peter—and in the morning he had taken her out in a pickup to show her the rest of the compound. Peter didn’t like it, but any chance to glean more information, and to do so in a way that would go undetected, was one they had to take.
But if there was an armory, Jude had given no hint where it might be. Perhaps Olson was telling the truth, but