Elian learned the first family’s name before he learned how many had crossed.
The woman carried a wrapped picture against her chest. Her son had the bedding. The little girl beside them looked at the receiving yard’s lamps and asked whether the ground was going to move later.
“No,” the local marshal said. “This part stays here.”
The child considered that with solemn suspicion.
Elian stood clear of the lane, watching the household take the marked turn toward its shelter. He had spent weeks putting paths onto paper. Now the paths had people on them, and a perfectly legible arrow could still be missed by someone holding the last objects she had chosen from home.
He moved the nearest direction board a little lower.
The marshal saw, nodded and kept the next family walking.
By twenty past four the first completed returns had gone to Mercy. Two hundred and sixty-eight residents received alive. The lane-equivalent count included the attendants moving back to help the next people. The medical lift’s residents entered the same population register once, with their separate service recorded beside it.
