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Then, of course, Gretchen began nodding. Nodding. Nodding and nodding. Nodding and nodding and nodding and now she was beginning to tremble and then the tears began to flow and then she was clutching Jeff so tightly he thought for a moment his ribs might crack. It didn't matter. He couldn't have breathed anyway, he was so relieved.

The nodding meant nothing to him. It would later, but not now. That first little headshake gave him the world. He had been prepared to live without it, but his heart was singing knowing that he had it.

Her first reaction, when she understood, was the key. That instant denial, that unthinking shake of the head. You don't have to do this!

"Yes, I do," he whispered into her hair, cradling her. "Ja, ich muss." He could feel, now, the years of terror which caused the strong body in his arms to tremble like a leaf. Terror held under such tight control for so long that now, when it was finally breaking loose, the one who held it had no idea how to let it go. For all the tenderness of the moment, some part of Jeff wanted to shake her more violently still, just to hasten its departure. It's over. It's over. I promise.

An uncalculating denial, a little shake of the head. That was all he would need to keep him steady, in the hard years to come. It would not be easy for them. He was old enough to understand that much. But at least he could face those years without suspicion. A woman who had lived with no choices at all had still had the courage, at the end, to hold out one for him.

He had been trapped, snared, caught. But not tricked. The lamb was fair and truly slaughtered. But he could never claim, thereafter, that his executioner had not shown him the blade before he came, willingly, to the altar.

Chapter 25

Ed Piazza underlined the last word on the blackboard, with all the flourish of a former teacher, and marched back to the table. "That's it," he said. "That's the bottom line. Ten thousand people. Able-bodied and able to work. Over and above, you understand, the folks we've already got."

He clasped his hands on the table. "Some of them can include healthy old people and big enough kids. There's a few thousand jobs that don't require any kind of heavy labor. But most of it does. Especially the farming and construction work."

Mike leaned back in his chair and clasped his own hands behind his head. He studied the figures on the blackboard for a few seconds before speaking. "And if we don't get them?"

Quentin Underwood shrugged. The mine manager had been part of the team which, led by Piazza, had developed the production plan. "Then we have to change the equation the other way, Mike. Subtraction."

"Driving people off, in other words," said Mike. "Push the extra mouths back into the furnace." There was no heat in the words, just clarification.

Quentin and Ed both looked uncomfortable. So did Willie Ray Hudson and Nat Davis, the other two members of the planning team.

Nat cleared his throat. "Well, I don't know as I'd put it that way."

"Cut it out, Nat," growled Quentin. "Mike's putting it bluntly, but that's exactly what we're talking about."

He sat up straight, half glaring. "I don't like it any better than you do, Mike. But that's the way it is. It's just an estimate, of course, but I think it's pretty damn close. We need ten thousand workers in order to build the infrastructure that'll keep everybody in this area alive through the winter. Food production and shelter are the big jobs. Even if we meet this schedule, winter is going to be a pure bitch. Pardon my language."

Mike lifted his hands off his head and made a little waving motion. "I'm not criticizing anybody," he said mildly. "I just want to make sure we're all on the same wavelength." He pursed his lips. "Does this include the labor force in Badenburg?"

Piazza shook his head. "Badenburg's not included on either side of the equation, Mike. We're just figuring the people already in town and our best estimate of all the refugees camped out in the area. A fair number of them are drifting in, now. All the churches are already packed to the gills. So's the community center next to the fairgrounds."

Dreeson, the town's mayor, looked alarmed. "That fast? What's that doing to our sanitation program?"

"Straining the hell of it," replied Ferrara bluntly. The science teacher leaned forward. "And that was true even before we got all these newcomers. The prisoners and the people from the soldiers' camp."

Dreeson was looking very alarmed, now. Bill Porter interrupted before the explosion came. "Relax, Henry! The refugee center by the power plant will be operational in eighteen hours. We've got a sanitation system up there that has way more capacity than anything in the town itself. We can cycle hundreds of people an hour through it, easily."