Only the desperate and the starving roam the streets. There have been attacks – the healthy assaulting those they believe to be sick, the hungry stealing food, the incurably deranged attacking whatever their inner demons prompt them to. And yet the straining strands of the community have not quite parted, the trickling exodus has not become a flood – due in no small part to Portia and her peers. They are working on a cure. They can save Great Nest and, by extension, civilization itself. Portia has enlisted not only Bianca but every scientist – Temple and otherwise – that she has faith in. This is no time for reserving the glory to her peer group, after all. And, in contacting them all, she has made sure that they all know who she is, and that she, as instigator, is their leader. Her dictates twang out across Great Nest on taut wires, received and relayed by diligent male attendants. Normally cooperation between peer houses does not work smoothly at this level: too many egos, too many females vying for dominance.
