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Tendor III is a rust-red frontier world where no two clocks agree and the town of Cinder Wells lives by the boom of the ice-cracking plant. Lawrence Vega, nineteen, fixes ships for a living and has never really expected to leave.

Then comes Census Day, when the United Systems tests the frontier’s young people, and Lawrence’s results break the machine. Somewhere very far away, something very old and very patient begins to tick a little louder.