MICHAEL decided to pin his faith in their new friends. What else could they do? They desperately needed some help, and if there were any people in Labrador they could trust, it had to be these people. They sat down and began. He told their story at length, beginning from the time they had first become aware of their thought-shape abilities, as children. He didn’t make any mention of Sophie—at first. But he mentioned David and Rosalind, and David’s sister Petra, whom they already knew about of course. He mentioned Sally and Katherine, and how a surprise attack had been launched: an attack which had been intended to round up those two girls, plus David, Rosalind, and Petra, simultaneously. By sheer good fortune, helped no doubt by a bit of fumble by the authorities at the Waknuk end, David, Rosalind and Petra had got away—although the other two girls had been captured, tortured, and probably killed…

Upon hearing this, Peter and the others gave a deep sigh. “We knew awful things were happening in Waknuk; what you have told us simply confirms what we already guessed. But go on.”

Michael explained that he and Rachel, and another boy called Mark, had not yet fallen under suspicion. He decided to volunteer for one of the posses sent out to pursue the fugitives, straight away. David, Rosalind and Petra had indeed been able to elude capture—until they were caught by Fringes people. Then there had come the showdown in the Fringes clearing—brought to a sudden halt by the advent of the Zealand woman…

Michael stopped. He realised that the next part—what he had seen in the clearing—would be difficult. He had kept the truth even from Rachel: merely repeating to her the fiction about ‘giant spiders’—the story which she’d already heard: which she knew was a fiction.

“All right. This is what actually happened in the Fringe clearing. The raiding parties were over-running the Fringers—putting them to flight. They were the only ones who had guns; they were well-organised. The outcome seemed inevitable, and as far as I was concerned the game was up. Whatever tricks the Sealand—sorry, ‘Zealand’—people might come up with, I wasn’t expecting David’s group, or any of the Fringes folk, to come out of it alive. Indeed, I knew that if ever I got found out, I’d be a dead man too…

“Then the Zealand flying machine arrived. David thought it was topped by some sort of ‘conical spiral’, but either his imagination got the better of him, or he didn’t really have a chance to examine it closely. What I saw looked more like four shapes a bit like the spokes of a wheel without a rim. But only three spokes to each ‘wheel’. Sited above the main body of the machine, two of them were near the front, two near the back. And when they were spun very fast, much much faster than the wheels of a cart, they created an artificial wind—I felt it when the machine left. I think the wind served to propel the machine, forward or aft, like a ship.

“As the flying ‘ship’ came in to land, thousands of light sticky threads suddenly appeared in the air above us. I can only suppose these threads came from the machine itself—I don’t see where else they could have come from. These threads slowly descended onto the clearing, and wherever they touched anything, be it human or animal, plant or rock—it stuck fast. So fast that no human strength—not even a horse’s strength—could tear it loose. I couldn’t have believed any glue could be so powerful, if I hadn’t experienced it for myself.

“The Zealand woman simply said, without any emotion, that everyone in the clearing, apart from they, would die. And that’s exactly what happened…”

Michael broke off. He felt the nausea rising in him again, for the second time since he had witnessed these scenes. He noticed that Rachel—his Rachel—was weeping in the other Rachel’s arms. Excusing himself, he went out into the next room, the kitchen apparently, found a sink, and threw up once more. Time and time again. He sensed that others of the party were also being sick, but he could not take in any more for a long time.

Peter and Justin seemed to be least affected. They sat quietly in the room they had met in, waiting for the others to join them. Eventually, after a long time, Michael came out. He looked very pale – as if he had been through a wasting illness. Apparently Tim was still throwing up, while the two Rachels were comforting one another in a corner. Evening was rapidly drawing in.

Peter took charge of the situation. “No more to be said about any of this. Except—even before you came—when the only information we got was from the disjointed accounts of the Petra child—we suspected that all was not as it seemed with these Zealand people. Not to be entirely trusted. Now we know. And we urge you to steer well clear of them.

“No more story-telling from you tonight, Michael. Question now is, what do we do about you? Well, that’s the easy bit. You and Rachel (you are together aren’t you) take Justin’s room, Justin’ll come in with me. Tim and Big Rachel will return to their home—when they’re fit enough. No more arguments tonight! There’ll be plenty to discuss tomorrow.”

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Michael was mightily relieved at this suggestion. And he was relieved, in a way, that Rachel had expressed herself in tears. So much better than bottling up her emotions! He knew that, now there was a tacit understanding between them, the subject was closed.

For almost the first time since they left Waknuk, he set to wonder­ing about David and Rosalind. And Petra! There had been not a squeak out of her since just as they were approaching Zealand. Oh well, they would have to look after themselves, he supposed. Probably Petra had been taught to curb her over-reaching powers to some extent. Maybe her ‘training’ had started even during the long flight. Otherwise she could have easily deafened the entire population of Zealand.

And Zealand, for all the terrible things they had witnessed, still seemed to be the safest place for a thought-shaper to be.

But not for him, and not for Rachel. He had known that from the start. They would need to seek solace elsewhere. As he pondered these thoughts, he gradually nodded off to sleep.

It was broad daylight when he awoke. He was alone. He realised he must have been asleep for many hours. As he shook himself awake, a thought shape burst in upon him:

“If you’re awake, come and join us for breakfast. Rachel is already here.” He guessed it was Peter. Quickly dressing himself, he went into the kitchen and joined Peter, Justin and Rachel at the table.

“Now we’re all awake, it’s words only, here. Understand? Yes, I think you already understand that! Safer. You and your friends were rather reckless, using thought-shapes so often, especially in a frontier region like Waknuk. Not really surprising you got found out—it would have happened sooner or later.”

The word ‘frontier’ reminded Michael of something he’d been meaning to ask, ever since they arrived here. “Peter—Justin—what happens to Deviations here?”

“We were wondering when you’d come up with that. Well, there are far fewer Deviations here than there are in Waknuk or Kentak. That much should be evident to you. Maybe not so many as one per year, in any one village…”

“One per year!”

“More or less. Not what you were taught in Waknuk or Kentak, I reckon.”

“No—indeed! We learnt that Deviations were spread over the whole of Labrador. Even at school in Kentak, that’s what I was taught.”

“Yes—well I reckon that’s just what the people of Waknuk wanted you to believe, was it not?” continued Peter. “Last thing they’d want was lots of people drifting off to the ‘safer’ east—not when there were farms to work and Fringes people to fight off! So it’s hardly surprising that they put out the story that all of Labrador was the same.

“Truth is, this far east, hardly anyone here bothers much about Deviations. If they’re little things, we just let them go. Quite often the gene pool (don’t ask me to explain what those words mean – yet!) sorts them out: a parent with a minor mutation can give birth to a child without the mutation. Sometimes it takes two or three genera­tions to sort out. I don’t suppose you lot had the chance to test that out…”

Michael said nothing at first, but he suddenly thought of Stephanie—formerly Sophie. If only! He wondered if what they ‘did’ to her could in some way be reversed…

Then Michael cut in: “But the Law! Doesn’t the Law apply to the whole of Labrador? That Offences—animal Deviations—must be destroyed, that human Deviations (like us) must be sterilised? Isn’t that Law set down by the Government in Rigo?”

“Oh yes: the Law. The Government had to enact such a Law, to appease the hardliners out West. Otherwise they’d have been facing a widespread revolt—secession even. Fact is, the Law is very little carried out in Eastern parts, nor in Rigo itself. Your backwoods folk don’t know that. Of course, if a human Deviation has to be sent to Rigo itself, for the operation, they’ll do it, and send the person back west. Maintaining the fiction, so to speak.”

Michael thought about Sophie’s story, of how she’d been treated in Rigo. But Peter continued:

“So, you see, we’re all pretty well settled here. Very little threat. OK, Justin has several girlfriends—no-one he’s really serious about yet—and none of them is a thought-shaper.” Justin nodded at this; he had hardly spoken during the meal. “Well, we’ll address that prob­lem if and when we come to it” (Michael thought about Anne and Alan, and the disastrous end to their marriage…). “I’m a widower, and Tim and Rachel are already married—though without children, yet.”

“Your late wife? If I may ask?” said Michael.

“She just died. Fairly young, just after Justin was born. No, don’t worry, I’m used to that sort of questioning. It was quite some time ago…”

Peter paused, thinking about what he had to say next.

“As I said a moment ago, we’re well settled here. Why should any of us want to move, just to serve your ends?”