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Chapters (68)
  1. Title page
  2. Dedication
  3. Part I
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.
  30. Part II
  31. Twenty-six
  32. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Thirty-five
  41. Thirty-six
  42. Thirty-seven
  43. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-one
  48. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 25. 15:30 MT.
  49. Forty-two
  50. Forty-three
  51. Forty-four
  52. Forty-five
  53. Forty-six
  54. Forty-seven
  55. Forty-eight
  56. Forty-nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-one
  59. Fifty-two
  60. Fifty-three
  61. Fifty-four
  62. Part III
  63. Fifty-five
  64. Fifty-six
  65. Fifty-seven
  66. Fifty-eight
  67. Also by Chris Beckett
  68. Copyright page

She pulled off a strand of the tough green meat and began to chew on it.

‘We’ll go to the Circle as soon as we’ve finished eating,’ she said. ‘And let’s see if this time you can get the hang of it.’

Twenty-three

Circle Valley might be small compared with Wide Forest, but it was still big. The Michael’s Place people took another two long wakings to get down into the Valley and across forest to the big Old Family cluster that sprawled round the Circle itself. When we did finally reach it, the place was strangely quiet.

‘The Virsry has not long finished,’ explained an old guard who was keeping lookout by the gate in the leopard-fence. ‘Everyone’s been keeping the same wakings and the same sleeps, and now they’re all resting.’

I’d heard about this before. During a Virsry, when whole Valley came together to hear the Laws and watch the Show, everyone in the Valley had to keep the same wakings, just like people did in small clusters like Knee Tree Grounds or Michael’s Place. That continued for some while afterwards, because everyone felt tired about the same time. But, little by little, different families and groups would begin to follow different rhythms until things went back to how they were in other big places like Veeklehouse or Davidstand where, at any moment, there were always some people sleeping and some waking, some getting up while others were lying down. And then the time would come round again when the three oldest people in the Valley – the ones they just call Oldest – decided that three hundred and sixty-five wakings had gone by (or days as some call them in the Valley) and there’d be another Virsry and the whole thing would start over once more.

When the old guy and his friends had satisfied himself we were proper Davidfolk, we passed through the gate and found ourselves a place to rest inside the fence in the pink light of a group of redlantern trees. We were tired tired, but for all our worry and grief about what we’d left behind, it was good to be back in treelight, with starflowers shimmering round us, and the hum of life, and warm trunks to rest our backs against. We lit a small cooking fire with the embers we’d brought with us, and heated some of the few flowercakes we hadn’t yet eaten. Flame and Clare bent worriedly over little Suzie. Her whole shoulder was swollen up to double its proper size, and she was still crying weakly all the time.