The 15,000 DP glowed in the back of Reuben's mind, a cold, alien sun in the firmament of his consciousness. It was a possibility so great it was strange, separate from the man who had juggled 400 DP to construct a village school. He was on an escarpment overlooking the now empty quarantine camp in the Stone Basin. The last decontamination teams were storing gear. The earth was pockmarked where tents and triage areas once existed, a permanent blemish on the earth, but the plague itself was past. The air no longer carried the scent of chlorine and death, but only the dry, clean sand of the desert.
He had done it. He had encloséd the unenclosable. He should have had a victory to compare with the behemoth payoff. He was not feeling victorious, though. He was feeling exhausted, like a venerabl
