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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

‘So what’s going to happen then, Headmanson Luke?’ Starlight asked. ‘Let’s think about it, shall we? You can’t get a message to your men, whether you’re alive or dead, and they’re divided into three separate parts, spread out along poolside, that can’t speak to one another. I guess they’ll wait where they are, as you’ve told them to do, until they start to get seriously hungry, and then they’ll have to make up their own minds what to do. But it won’t be like when they first grounded. This time they’ll have guards all round them who are good and ready for them. You might have done for Leader Harry, but his big brother Mehmet is over there now to organize things, along with Leader Hunter. And they’re not boys like you, Headmanson Luke, they’re grown men with grandchildren. And they’ve got all of Wide Forest back again to feed their men, and all the Davidfolk to support them. Your men might have been stronger when they were all working together, but things are different now.’

She’d always worried that by going over to New Earth and stirring things up, she’d brought forward the waking that the ringmen would come across the water, but she’d more than made up for that now. ‘Of course now I’ve got to worry about the power of the Davidfolk,’ she told me later, ‘and the threat they pose to Half Sky.’ But that was a problem for another waking. Stories do not end, this is what we’ve learned. There’s always another bit to come.

Luke glanced guiltily at his two ringmen, and then turned back to Newjohn.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I’ll send a message to my men by the Pool.’

He had a long time ahead of him in Circle Valley. A long time not to hear all the stories about the Earth people, and the pictures of Earth, and the voice of Gela, and the veekle that was alive. A long time not to think about the ring that Strongheart now wore on his little finger. Some stories are hard hard work to keep on believing in, but he worked away at it anyway.

And eventually, over beside Worldpool, in Veeklehouse and Nob Head and David Water, the ringmen piled their spears and masks in great heaps, pushed their boats out and began the hard hard work of paddling back out against the wind into the bright water where my Candy had first seen them coming with her sharp sharp eyes.

And finally Luke was allowed to follow them, out into the bright water and on into Deep Darkness where the great waves rise and fall unseen, as they’ve done since long before any human being ever heard of Eden.

Fifty-eight