Location:Seven Peaks — Residential Quarter, Command Center
Date/Time:TC1856.12.28 – TC1857.01.03
Elian was allowed out of bed on the twenty-fourth and was in the corridor on the twenty-fifth, which was three days earlier than Mira had written down and four days later than he had intended.
He could not stand for an hour any more. He managed about a quarter of one, and the corridor gave back every sound he made while he did it — the drag of a heel, the small wet click of a swallow, the long breath he took before he stopped pretending. Then he sat down against the wall with his legs out, which Mei permitted on the grounds that nobody had specified a posture, and which Aldis Stell reported without comment.
The stone was cold through his trousers. He did not mention that either.
What he told his mother, on the twenty-eighth, was that it had not got any bigger while he was in bed.
"You're sure?"
