All the shame and grief of the last few wakings came welling up inside him, and his own tears began to run down his face, only a matter of inches away from the old man’s but also from the two shelterwomen’s, who’d laid their own heads next to Strongheart’s. Jane, the younger of the two, caught Luke’s eye, and he wondered for a moment if she might help him reach out to the old man. But she gave Luke such a look of pure pure hate that he quickly looked away from her.

‘I’ve told all my men to stop fighting, Father,’ Luke said.

‘I told them to stop fighting and go back to the places they grounded on the poolside: Veeklehouse, Nob Head and David Water. I want to stop the killing.’

When Strongheart still didn’t respond, Luke lifted his head and looked round Strongheart’s shelter for someone else who might help him get through to the old Head Guard. Two of his ringmen had come in with him and now stood uncomfortably nearby, watched by twenty thirty guards, but they were no use to Luke now, and the only other face he found that wasn’t a stranger’s was the face of Newjohn, who’d once crossed the Pool to meet Luke’s dad Dixon, his fellow Headman. Dixon didn’t like Newjohn. ‘I don’t trust him one bit,’ he’d told Luke. ‘He’s one of the Davidfolk at heart. He pretends to be one of us when it suits him, but then he cosies up to Strongheart again as soon as our backs are turned. In fact I don’t trust any of those Brown River people. Even their stories are more like the Davidfolk’s than ours. The only true Johnfolk are the ones that followed John across the Pool.’

The fact that Newjohn had been here, deep inside the Davidfolk Ground, when Johnfolk and Davidfolk were fighting one another over in Wide Forest, seemed to back up what his father had said, but Luke wasn’t certain of anything any more. Maybe Newjohn had been right to try and heal that deep deep wound that divided the people of Eden?

‘Headman Newjohn . . .’ Luke began, climbing back to his feet and bowing. Then he broke off. Something was missing surely? He looked again round the wide space of the shelter. ‘But where is our Mother? Where are the people from Earth?’

‘They’ve gone,’ said Newjohn with a shrug.

Luke felt inside himself that same sudden emptiness that I’d felt myself only a waking before.

‘They’ve gone? Not far away, though, I guess?’

‘Yes. Back to Earth.’

‘But the message . . . The voice inside this . . . this . . .’ He took the black linkup out of a pocket in his wrap. ‘Gela’s voice, inside this . . . this thing here. She told me to come here and meet her.’