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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

Me and Trueheart gripped tightly onto one another’s hands.

And then suddenly a voice spoke. It wasn’t an ordinary human voice – it was so big and strong and metal-like that it felt like the veekle itself was talking to us – but all the same I could tell it was a woman’s voice and not a man’s. And, though the words sounded strange strange, I found I could understand them.

‘Hello there,’ the voice said. ‘Don’t be afraid! We’re your cousins. We come from Earth!’

Then the lights became a little less fierce, still bright bright, still picking out every detail and filling forest with black black shadows, still so bright that the lanterns on the trees didn’t seem to be shining at all, but not so bright any more as to hurt our eyes.

‘I can’t believe it!’ the voice said, but much more quietly this time, like it was talking to itself. ‘Still people here! Still—’ It broke off, but after a few heartbeats, it spoke out loud again, talking to us once more. ‘Hello there! Don’t worry. There’s only three of us in here! We’re going to come out and meet you in a moment!’

The light had changed in that glass thing on the top, so we could see not just the shapes of their heads but their actual faces looking out. There was a woman, and two others that looked like men except that they were completely beardless like women or kids. All three were staring straight out at me and Trueheart. Trueheart lifted her hand and waved.

I waved too. ‘Hello,’ I called out. I didn’t feel scared any more. Why would I? Hard as it was to believe it was really happening, this was the moment we’d been waiting for these four hundred years. ‘Hello, I’m Angie Redlantern.’

Who cared about Johnfolk from across the Pool when there was this?

GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.
MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.

Far out beyond the orbit of the moon, basking in perpetual noon, we’d turned on the great engine.

Like some kind of prodigious sea-creature, our ship began to heave and strain against the boundaries of space, pushing neither up nor down, neither forwards nor backwards, neither left nor right, but in another direction perpendicular to all of them.