The stillness in Riverside was different now. It was not the quiet of a town healing, but a heavy, watching hush. The air, full before with thanksgiving, now vibrated with unanswered questions. Reuben sensed it the moment he stepped out of the clinic the following morning. It was in the style of old man Hemlock, who would usually wave from his front porch, instead turning and vanishing inside. It was in the style of a coven of mothers near the well being silent as he passed, their grins stiff and short.
He returned to the village to check on the few measles patients in recovery and to begin planning the next phase of development—a complete sanitation system subsidized by the DP created from the containment. But lists of materials and blueprint maps appeared as quaint relics of an earlier
