The supply van stood outside the clinic with its rear doors open and nobody in the driver’s seat.
Eli saw the empty place before he noticed the woman counting blankets beside it. He had been thinking of the vehicle as something already on its way to the river. In the yard it was still a collection of people who had agreed to do things at particular times.
Kellan met them at the gate. He did not ask whether they had saved Nara. Tessa had called him from the transfer vehicle, and the question had already been answered. He looked at Eli’s hands, clean now but rubbed raw where he had washed them, then took Juno’s equipment bag so she could get through the doorway.
“River desk wants an update,” he said. “They’ve had two different versions.”
“Of what?” Eli asked.
“Whether we’re asking for an inspection or telling them to evacuate.”
Tessa stopped beside the van. The woman with the blankets looked up.
“That’s what I wanted to ask,” she said. “I’m supposed to drive the first load.”
