The first shelter Iven entered smelled of fresh timber and old sailcloth.
A woman on a step stool was fixing a partition cord to a beam. Below her, two workers unrolled bedding at the marked intervals, then walked between the rolls carrying full water containers. The passage remained wide enough for a stretcher to turn. One blanket hung crookedly from its clip, giving a household behind it a little privacy from the next.
Elian waited until Iven had walked the length before showing him the capacity sheet.
“You’ve learned that trick from Thessa,” Iven said.
“It works.”
The shelter held one hundred and eighty people at the planned emergency spacing. Iven looked back along it. Sixty paces of roof, broad enough to divide sleeping areas from a clear central passage. At four square meters a person, it was close living. Families could stay together, keep a bedding roll and small bag beside them, and reach the door without stepping over the next household.
A city could survive a beginning like this. It would still need a future.
“How many?” he asked.
