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certainly seemed to have had the right effect. The EM team looked energized. Even Dr. Hayman looked more relaxed. After what they’d all been through, that was some impressive inspiration in action.
    No, you’re not just any old bureaucrat, are you, sir?
    “Okay.” Prescott was partway through some agenda item. “So we’ll leave people on board ships for the time being, except for those in open vessels who need immediate shelter. Can the larger vessels take any of them?”
    “Stuffed to the gunwales already, sir.” Royston Sharle had drawn the shortest straw of all as the EM chief. He’d served in the COG navy, and it showed to Anya in all the right ways. “Disease is going to be an issue if we push that. You know—confined spaces, overloaded waste discharge. We’ve rigged tents with heaters for the time being, and for tonight, we just have to get as many under cover as we can. Those in vehicles—they’re better off staying put until we can move into the buildings. Latrines and water in place, and soup wagons will be operational within the hour.”
    “Good job, Sharle.” Prescott rubbed his forehead, looking down at a sheaf of notes in his hand. If it was an act, it was beautifully performed. “Thank you. Fuel?”
    “Sovereign sent a marine recon team into Merrenat and there’s still imulsion in at least half the tanks that Stranded couldn’t get at. And there’s no telling what else is still stored in that complex—it was built to withstand a full Indie attack in the last war.”
    Anya listened, the landscape of crisis shifting before her eyes. From a single city under siege, held together by necessity, defined by a physical defensive line, humankind was now in free fall. The biggest threat was itself. The word secure brought that home to her. Citizens had probably stolen, feuded, and connived throughout the war, but the Locust threat was right on their doorstep—easy to focus upon, familiar, oddly unifying. Now the Locust were gone. Simply staying alive was suddenly even harder. Anya could sense a communal fear of the truly unknown. Prescott glanced up at her and looked relieved; he even managed a quick smile. Maybe that was his political psyops at work again. The sobering thing was that she felt herself respond to it like everyone else did. She was willing to work until she dropped.
    “How many people did we lose?” Prescott asked quietly. “Do we have any idea yet?”
    There was a brief silence. Hayman looked at Sharle for a moment.
    “I can only tell you how many haven’t made it out of the treatment station alive so far,” she said. Hayman had to be at least seventy years old; she was in the vulnerable elderly category herself, even if her don’t-mess-withme attitude disguised that. “And that includes trauma and those who’ve died of heart attacks in transit. But if you’re asking for an estimate overall—we’re thinking in terms of thirty percent losses.”
    But we said we’d evacuated most of the city . I said it . Anya tried to come to terms with what most meant. Is that the best we could do?
    Yes, 70 percent was a good majority, achieved under attack and with the city literally vanishing under them. It still didn’t make 30 percent acceptable. And it didn’t include any Stranded, because the COG had no real idea of how many people lived in wretched shantytowns outside the protection of Jacinto. There could have been more than a million dead now. A drop in the ocean after so many over the years, but—
    No, Anya couldn’t take it in. She just let it register on her brain as a statistic, allowing the shock do what it was designed to do—to numb the pain temporarily so that you could concentrate on surviving. Prescott chewed over the news for a few moments, then slipped off the table to stand upright, fully in command. It was perfect use of body language; he probably did it automatically, a habit learned at his father’s knee. This was simply how statesmen behaved.
    “I’m not