‘There are thousands just like it on Earth,’ Gaia said. ‘Back when Angela was growing up, it was a common thing for people to give their sons and daughters a coming-of-age ring when they were eighteen. It was a sort of . . . tradition – I guess you know that word? – but it was a tradition that grew up in one generation and then died out again in the next. Things got hard, I guess, and an awful lot of people were too worried about getting enough to eat and staying alive to bother with stuff like rings.’ She slipped it back onto her finger. ‘There were fancier ones than this, rings with . . . with shiny stones . . . but these two-metal ones were one of the commonest kinds. They were . . .’ She paused, as the Earth people did when they came to a word or an idea they thought we wouldn’t understand. ‘They were quite easy to make, so ordinary people could get them. Lots of families still have them back home, tucked away somewhere.’

‘Well, we’ve only got one here,’ Starlight said, with a slight edge in her voice. ‘There were . . . well, you’d call them wars about it. People were done for with spears, and tied to trees, and—’

‘How strange. Wars over one cheep ring.’

Cheep meant easy to get, I found out, like a thing that you could have from a trader for only a stick or two.

‘I guess in that first generation the only people on Eden were just a bunch of kids and two adults,’ said Deep, without looking up from what he was doing inside the Screen. ‘Imagine how they must have admired that ring on their mum’s finger, when it was the only metal they’d ever seen. I can see how it became important to them.’

‘I guess,’ said Gaia, and then she smiled. ‘You know what! I’ve just figured out something! One or two of the things you Eden guys say sound like how little kids speak on Earth. Like you say “big big” when we’d say very big. I guess that must have started at that same time.’

Of course we’d all noticed that new word very that the Earth people used, and many Eden people were already starting to copy it. Of course they were. Earth speech sounded so smart and powerful – even high people’s speech seemed dumb beside it – and it made Eden folk feel a bit smarter and more powerful themselves when they spoke in the same way.

‘I reckon that might be how that double word thing started,’ Gaia said. ‘Tommy and Gela spoke babytalk to their kids, like all mums and dads do, even to one another, but in their case there were no grownups round them to bring them back to talking like adults.’

Deep glanced uncomfortably at me and Clare. ‘Not that you’re saying that these guys talk like babies, of course, Gaia!’