ALL the time since Michael had sent out that thought, Rachel (his Rachel) had been staring at him, seemingly lost for words. Finally she found her voice. In words, “You utter bloody fool!”

Michael was completely taken aback. He had naturally assumed that Rachel would be as eager as he was, to make contact with other groups who could send thought-shapes. “But—” he began.

“Don’t you understand?” continued Rachel, interrupting him. “Whoever those people are, they’re not going to find it easy, making contact with a group like us. Certainly not with us being refugees from the west! Maybe they’re happy as they are—whoever they are. Maybe they don’t want to join in any madcap adventures like we’re forced into. If they’re not under threat themselves, why expose them to it? And there you go and blow it all with your impetuous message! If you ask me, they’ll maintain silence now until they’re convinced we’re out of range…”

“I still think we should go and seek them out,” said Michael. “The first thought-shapers we’ve made contact with, outside of our own community and the Zealand woman! Surely that’s got to be a ‘must’!”

“I would have half agreed with you, at least until you burst out with that message. Now I doubt if we’ll find them. Thanks to you! We could waste days—weeks even—looking for them. I vote we go on. There may be others…”

“Or there may not,” insisted Michael. “Who can tell? How can we possibly pass this group up?”

“Give me one good reason why we should hunt down this group,” said Rachel, stubbornly.

“OK. I’ll give you two. Firstly, our money isn’t going to last out. I should have told you before, but I thought I’d spare you this further anxiety. Any help we can get, on that front, would be most welcome. Secondly, what do we do once we get to Rigo? Commandeer a ship, with just the two of us to sail it? Wait against all hope for Mark and Stephanie to show up—and remember Stephanie doesn’t actually want to leave Labrador! Take passage on a ship? Remember what Uncle Axel told David: all the shipping now goes South, which isn’t the direction we want to take. We want to go East, and according to Uncle Axel again, no-one knows what happens if you go East: either the sea goes on for ever, or you fall off the edge!

“Well, we know that neither of those things are true, but sailors are jolly superstitious chaps. Do you imagine we’ll easily persuade them to sail East, when even we don’t know what lies on the other side? All we have are the names ‘Europe’ and ‘Africa’—and that’s not much to go on. They could be all Badlands…”

Michael fell silent. He could see that Rachel was weighing up the options. After a long time, she said: “All right then. If you think you can find these people, I’ll give you three days. But no more. Every day we waste is making it more and more dangerous. Have you any idea which way to go?”

Michael was relieved to be ‘back in charge’, so to speak. He said, “North, to start with. That’s definitely where the messages were coming from. We need to find a trail heading north. My guess is, they were about fifteen miles away: assuming their strength of pro­jection is similar to ours. After that, we’ll have to seek out someone called ‘Peter’ or someone called ‘Rachel’—probably in the same village. And we know Rachel can send thought-shapes: presumably this ‘Peter’ can too. Not much to go on, I’m afraid.”

“Is there a trail leading north?” asked Rachel.

“Not that I’ve seen, but there is one marked on the map: look! Lucky that we haven’t gone off the edge of it yet. Let’s go on slowly, looking for it: it’ll be a path of some sort—probably a fairly small one.”

They continued slowly for about three miles, without seeing any path. They saw a village ahead: Michael decided to ride on ahead and ask its name—then he could get their bearings.

When he returned he was not encouraging. “It’s not on our map, so I think we must be off the edge. But there’s definitely a path to the north somewhere, if you’ve copied the map right! Shall we go back a few miles, see if we missed it?”

Rachel was less than enthusiastic about this, but she agreed that they ought to go back—at least three or four miles before the spot where they’d first heard the thought-shapes. They cantered quickly back to the spot where they had camped and first heard the messages. Picking their way slowly back from there on, they continued another two miles, then Michael gave a shout of joy.

“Here it is! Look, just beside this stream there’s a faint trail. Not surprising we missed it—but then we weren’t looking for a turning north at the time. So—do we go on it?”

Rachel nodded. They picked their way carefully along the trail for about a hundred yards: then it suddenly left the stream at a bend and rose to more level ground further on, becoming a much wider and more negotiable trail, still heading north as far as Michael could make out. He had the compass out for the first time since they left Curkajak. He found—as Peter the storekeeper had warned him—that it didn’t perform very well: it seemed to work better if he tilted it towards the north. He tried to remember some of what he’d learnt at school: something about ‘Angle of Dip’. He guessed that Labrador was rather close to the North Magnetic Pole. Whatever—the compass would serve.

“This path still heads north, and still on the map, thank goodness! You’ve marked two villages on it at about the fifteen-mile mark. Could be either of those, maybe? Any ideas?”

Rachel had no ideas. But she said, she was fairly certain there hadn’t been any others she’d missed out.

“Then we’ll try the one to the West first. Called Liapik, so it seems.”

They put their horses into a fast trot—to their relief the horses seemed to be keen on it. It took less than two hours before they came to a fork in the road: they guessed that the left-hand fork did indeed lead to Liapik. Sure enough, a mile or two further on they reached a small village.

Michael dismounted and made his way to the village store. Quickly, he asked the question “is there anyone called Peter here?”

“Peter, eh? Let me think. Sure you don’t mean Peter who runs one of the stores, back at Curkajak?”

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“No, not that one. We’ve just come from him, as it happens. No, I mean a different Peter: in this village or close by?”

“Hmmm…yes, now I remember: there’s an old chap called Peter, lives in a small cottage about a mile beyond the village. White-painted cottage, on the right…”

Thanking the shopkeeper, he re-joined Rachel and they rode on, quickly finding the cottage in question. Michael knocked at the door, and a young woman answered. “Is this Peter’s house?” he asked.

“Yes it is. Do you want him? I should warn you, he’s not very well today. Dad!” she called up the stairs.

“Wait a minute. Do you know someone called Rachel?”

“Can’t say as I do. Never heard the name, not here. Do you still want Dad?”

“No, don’t bother. I think we’ve gone the wrong way. Sorry to trouble you.” And with that he re-joined Rachel and they turned back towards the village.

“Must be the other village then. Called Ragnarok, of all names. Let’s try that one, at least.”

They rode back through the village and came back to the fork. Taking the other branch, they followed it for a while. Clearly Ragnarok was further along the way, because they rode at least five or six miles before they came to a collection of houses. In the middle of the village, they stopped.

“If it’s not this one, I’m turning round. Going to try the shop again?” asked Rachel.

“No,” said Mike. “If they’re not here, I’ll do as you say. But let’s at least try it this way.” And with that he put out a firm but medium-strength thought-shape: “Are you there Peter?”

There was a slight pause. Then a man’s voice answered “thought you’d find us out. Oh well, seeing as you’re here, you’d better come in. Fourth house on the left, green door. Just knock.”

They went up to the door and knocked. A tall man, slightly built and with greying hair, answered the door. He beckoned them in and shut the door. Inside were two other men and a woman. They introduced themselves:

“I’m Rachel,” began the woman, who was tall, dark-haired and slightly plump, apparently in her mid-40s. “I understand you’re also called Rachel. Oh dear! That’s awkward. Tell you what—since I’m quite a lot taller than you, I don’t mind being called ‘Big Rachel’. Do you want to be called ‘Little Rachel’?”

“I think I’d rather be just ‘Rachel’, if you don’t mind.”

“So be it. Anyway, this is my husband Tim,” indicating the man standing next to her. He was slightly shorter, also with dark hair, slightly less plump, and also apparently in his mid-40s. He ack­nowledged their greeting. “Peter you’ve already met,” continued Big Rachel, “and this is Peter’s son Justin,” pointing to a young, fairly muscular man in his late 20s.

“Is this all of you?” asked Michael, looking around, after Peter and Justin had each acknowledged their presence.

“Yes,” put in Peter, in words. “No: in words please, now we’ve got over the introductions, if you don’t mind. Were you expecting more?”

“No. Well, yes really. I don’t know. Whatever—it’s good to meet up with more of ‘us’. I was beginning to think that we two—well we three, actually, or so we hope, there’s another one of us somewhere out there—were the only ones left in Labrador.”

“Well, we’re happy to prove you wrong. Though it took a lot of soul-searching before we decided to let you in on us,” continued Peter. “But in the end, we decided to trust you. As you can see, we’re all quite a bit older than you—but it’s good to know there is young blood around to carry on the strain.”

While Peter was speaking, Rachel couldn’t help glancing at Big Rachel’s clothing. She was wearing a loose blouse, slacks reaching to halfway down her calves, and stout leather shoes—and there was no Cross on her blouse. This was the first time Rachel had seen a grown woman not wearing the Cross: Stephanie had been properly ‘adorned’ when she arrived at Rachel’s farm. Even the women she had seen at Kipalup and Curkajak had all been wearing the Cross.

Big Rachel caught Rachel’s glance and sensed her curiosity. She laughed. “You’ve been noticing I don’t wear the Cross, I think? It’s a far less common practice in these parts, and entirely optional. Different from your folk, who make it an obligation, I guess: a token of Woman’s subservience to Man, some say! Here, some women do; some women don’t. Both Tim and I agree that I’m not the sort of person who needs to wear one. But it’s entirely up to you, whether you continue wearing the Cross or not.”

Rachel said nothing. These remarks about ‘subservience’ were troubling her, and new thoughts were coming into her mind. She looked down at her own bust, with its Cross, but remained silent and passive. Something that needed to be discussed with Michael…

Michael broke in. “Tell us a bit more about yourselves,” he asked.

“Before we do that, you, as the guests, ought to give us your story. I’m sure there’s lots you can tell us. Begin at the beginning—I might even be able to help out a bit on that front. Starts at Waknuk, doesn’t it—?”

“How the hell did you know that?” put in Michael and Rachel simultaneously, involuntarily bursting into thought-shapes.

“Aha. I thought as much. It’s a long story, and it begins with a little girl—”

“Petra!” Rachel suddenly exclaimed.

“Ah yes. We never actually caught her name, but we learned a lot about her—and about your community. I reckon she must be around eight years old…”

“Nearly,” corrected Michael.

“Oh well, seven then. Anyway, we remember when she first burst forth upon us—and presumably the whole of Labrador and beyond—about a year and a half ago. We couldn’t make out much of it, but she seemed to have fallen into a lake or something, and was calling for help…”

“That’s right. David and Rosalind rescued her. From the river. That was the first time we discovered her extraordinary powers.”

“David and Rosalind, eh? Two more of your group, I reckon,” went on Peter. “But never mind them for now, I’ll continue. There was nothing for about a year, and then all of a sudden another distress call of some sort. Something about a dead pony? Went on for most of the day.”

Michael and Rachel both nodded. They had both been present at the scene.

“And after that, there were more messages of some sort. Didn’t make too much sense—as you might expect from a girl of just eight—seven. We heard the name LABRADOR being spelled out, also some references to Waknuk, which we gathered was where she came from—and a mysterious place called ‘Sealand’ which was apparently a long way away…”

“ ‘Zealand’,” corrected Rachel.

“All right, Zealand then—which we guessed was some way outside Labrador. And to the West. And we got the impression that all you Waknuk community of thought-shapers were fleeing en masse for this Zealand place. Anyway, the messages from Petra stopped some months ago, so we assumed you were indeed on your way. Until you two hailed us, that is. Apparently fleeing East. And in some sort of a hurry.

“So I think you’d better tell us your story now. From the beginning.”