The three-o'clock rain had washed away the blood and the stink of gunpowder. The bodies were gone, and the sky was clear and blue. Business as usual was resumed but without about four hundred and fifty men and women. Half of these were in the rendering factory; the rest, in the hospital. Those who wanted to be put out of their misery were given their wish. Time had been when an ax was the only euthanasiast but now, thanks to Parolando's technology, the work was done with a potassium cyanide pill. Some decided to stick it out. In time their limbs or eyes would grow back in. Those who could not take the pain boarded The Suicide Express, and the bodies they left behind went to the rendering factory. Sam's secretary had been killed. Sam asked Gwenafra if she would like to take Millie's place. Gwenafra seemed very pleased. The new position gave her a high status, and she had made no secret of the fact that she liked to be near Sam. Lothar von Richthofen, however, did not seem pleased.
