‘I would have done too,’ said Deep. ‘But anyway, just before the Defiant set out – in fact it was when the three astronauts were already inside it – lots of angry people, right across the Earth, started to demand that it shouldn’t go, that it should be broken up and brought back down to Earth so its parts could be used for things that would actually help people. It’s gen rater, for instance, was more powerful than any—’ He broke off, realizing that he’d lost us all.

‘Anyway,’ said Marius, ‘it was decided that the starship shouldn’t set out, and that the three astronauts should come back down to Earth. But—’

‘But they refused to stop,’ said Gaia. ‘And that’s why five people ended up coming here. Only three had set out, but when they refused to come back, two more were sent after them to—’

By now all the Eden folk round them were smiling and nodding.

Gaia laughed. ‘Oh I see you know that part already!’

Know about it? Tom’s dick, of course we did! Every single Virsry that old story was acted out in every single cluster in the Davidfolk Ground, beside every little circle of stones. Three men were carried about in the Big Sky-Boat, pretending to be Dixon, Mehmet and Tommy, the Three Disobedient Men, and a man and a woman were carried after them in the Small Sky-Boat, pretending to be Gela and Michael Namegiver in the Police Veekle. In the smallest clusters, people might not get round to building those boats, but even they would act it out with little toy ones.

‘And when the starship finally came back,’ said Deep, ‘new people were in charge in the biggest . . .’ He said another word that sounded like ‘come trees’ but also seemed to mean grounds. ‘They didn’t want people getting all excited about other homes across the stars, because obviously it wasn’t going to be possible to move large numbers of folk from Earth to here, and they thought the news would just distract people from what needed doing right there. So they kept it completely secret, so secret that it could have been forgotten if Gaia’s great-granny hadn’t—’

‘How is Suzie?’ interrupted Gaia. She’d noticed Flame nearby nursing her baby against her breast. ‘I must clean that cut again soon.’

‘She’s much better,’ Flame told her, and then she suddenly thrust the child into Clare’s arms and ran over to kiss Gaia’s hand. ‘Oh thankyou, Mother Gela! Thankyou! Thankyou! Thankyou!’

All this time the people crowded outside the fence had been silently watching us, keeping quiet quiet as they tried their best to make out at least a little bit what was being said. But now, at last, something had happened that they could all understand, for everyone knew by then about the baby and the red box and the metal thorn. They cheered and clapped and began to sing.