ben says there used to be other settlements scattered around new world , that all the ships landed about the same time , ten years or so before i was born , but that when the war started with the spacks , when the spacks released the germs and all the other settlements were wiped out , that prentisstown was nearly wiped out , too , that it only survived cuz of mayor prentiss 's army skills and that even tho mayor prentiss is a nightmare coming and going , we at least owe him that , that cuz of him we survive alone on a whole big empty womanless world that ai n't got nothing good to say for itself , in a town of 146 men that dies a little more with every day that passes .