They set the children down at the neighboring world’s north dock in the late evening and lifted again an hour after midnight, with the hold empty and the benches folded and Nemi standing on the dock in the floodlights with her list board, not waving, watching the Tern until it was out of sight.
Mara had stood on the dock beside Nemi for the last few minutes, while Sera finished the pre-flight. Neither of them said much. Nemi had the list board under her arm and the twenty children were inside the old grammar school behind them, being given soup by people who had come down to the dock in the floodlights with pots and blankets, because the council had promised and the town had kept the promise.
“You’ll write,” Nemi said. It was not a question.
“I’ll write.”
“Write the figures,” Nemi said. “Hearth’s. Every day. The way you sent me Lorn’s. I want to put them on the board here so the children can see their teacher’s friend’s sun.” She paused. “If it’s going to go out, I want them to know the number before it does. Not after.”
“I’ll send the figures.”
Nemi nodded once and turned back toward the grammar school’s lit door, and then stopped, and said, without turning around: “Tell Sera she said I’ll try like she meant it. Tell her I noticed.”
