HE WALKED FOR HOURS, memories of life aboard ship and of Dr. Crowley and Lauren crowding his mind. So much had happened after their deaths—the Natural Movement bombings, the division between the Gens and the Woken—he hadn’t had much time to think about either of them or to go over the happy times they’d had and what both of them had meant to him.
As he went along, he became aware of a rushing sound. It was like the sound of waves on a shore, but it didn’t rise and diminish, it grew louder. The sound seemed to be coming from behind him, but the night was so dark, he couldn’t see much more than the faintly glimmering band of the river, surrounded by shadowy vegetation.
The noise increased as Ethan watched, and then he saw it: a line of gleaming foam. A high wave was running up the river, a
