RIGO! The city teemed with people, more than either Michael or Rachel had ever seen in one place before. The streets were crowded: almost blocked with people walking, horses, carts—and the shops! The restaurants! The strange, exotic foods and other produce on sale. Peter guided them round: introduced them to something called ‘chocolate’—they recognised that it had a family resemblance to the cocoa they were accustomed to drinking, but this was a novelty. A delectable sweetmeat with a taste all of its own. Also a fragrant drink called ‘tea’. This was a strange taste to them at first, entirely new to both Michael and Rachel. But they soon became addicted to it and its reviving qualities. Peter told them that there could also be found in Rigo another exotic drink called ‘coffee’—but he’d break them into that gently. It took some getting used to, he said.

Rachel asked, what were these drinks made from? Peter explained that the raw materials grew in much warmer places, further south, and were brought to Rigo by sea. Perhaps, in their travels, they might visit such places…

But the strangest thing of all, to Michael and Rachel, was the diversity in the people they saw thronging the streets. Several had eyes unlike any they had seen in Labrador before: narrower than the eyes of all the people he had known—and they also had high cheek-bones. Michael asked, were these mutants? Peter replied, no, they were descendants of the Inuit, an authentic pre-Tribulation race of people—as he had already explained to them before—who had lived in the far north of Labrador and beyond.

Michael muttered, half jokingly, “They’d certainly be classed as Mutants if they strayed as far as Waknuk. Though perhaps, with Strorm gone, the treatment wouldn’t be so harsh…”

“Don’t ever call them Mutants, even in jest, if you come to meet any Inuit,” retorted Peter, somewhat angrily. “The same goes for some others you’re about to meet. None of the people living in Rigo are Mutants in the true sense of the word. And don’t you forget it! You’ll be learning a lot about human diversity while you’re here—and on your travels.

“But come now. I have to find Samuel, and I’d like to introduce you to him. He’ll be interested.”

Peter led them through the bewildering maze of streets. Michael remembered how familiar he had been with the streets of Kentak, but this place was ten times bigger. Without Peter they’d have been lost in a few minutes. Peter explained that Samuel was probably staying at one of the many inns in Rigo: he wasn’t quite sure which. He might be in his room, he might be having a meal or drinking at a bar, or he might be at the printer’s. They couldn’t be sure.

They tried several inns until they struck lucky. At the fourth inn they enquired at, the landlord told them: yes, Samuel was staying there, and he believed he was in his room at the time. So they quickly arranged stabling for their horses, went up to Samuel’s room, and knocked on the door; a voice called “Who is it?” and Peter announced himself, then they heard a cheerful “Come in!”

Samuel came forward to greet them, and he and Peter enthusiastic­ally embraced one another: they were clearly old friends of long standing. But Michael and Rachel could only gape. Peter had told them about the many different types of people to be found in Rigo, but this man, Samuel, was in a class of his own. Skin dark, in fact almost completely black, short greying hair, tightly curled, unlike any hair they had seen before. The shape of the nose and lips also seemed alien to them…

After Peter had introduced his companions, and he and Samuel had exchanged a few words in conversation, Peter explaining their mission, Samuel caught Michael and Rachel staring. He chuckled. “New to you, am I? Don’t worry, I’m cool. And I don’t live in Rigo, I live out west in a village called Palukaat.” Michael and Rachel nodded. “Folks out there find me strange, too. Some of them call me a ‘Mutant’—which I don’t particularly care for—but I’m used to it. I’ve never been further west than Peter’s house in Ragnarok. I’m told folks get more and more suspicious and intolerant the further west you go.”

Michael nodded again. He was remembering something David had told him, years ago. Something he had learned from his much-travelled Uncle Axel:

‘…there are even said to be some islands where both the men and the women would be passed as true images if it weren’t that some strange Deviation has turned them all completely black…’

Michael tried a long shot. “Mr… er… Mr…”

“Oh, call me Samuel, please. Everyone else does.”

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Michael continued “Er… Samuel, do you come from an island down South?”

“No, I don’t: I was born here in Rigo—but others have asked me that same question. And my parents sailed north to Rigo before I was born, from an island called Barbados, many thousands of miles to the south. I have a brother and two sisters living here in Rigo. Yes, they look like me. And there are several others. My late wife was one. She too was born in Rigo, of parents who sailed from the South.”

“Thousands of miles?” put in Rachel.

“Yes, thousands. Perhaps you folk don’t realise how big the world is. Of course, you guys from out west, with your rather blinkered view of the world—” Michael scowled, but said nothing “—probably think the world is flat, or something.”

“I have had some schooling,” retorted Michael, not a little annoyed. “But they never taught me about your folk. So your ancestors, from before Tribulation, really looked like you?”

“Yes. And a hard time my folk had, back then. You wouldn’t have been taught that, either. You’d have been told how wonderful and civilised and well-behaved the Old People were, the white Old People that is (we call folks with your skin colour ‘white’). Well, they weren’t! Some of them treated us black folk abominably. Kept us as slaves for hundreds of years, according to some accounts. And even after the laws changed, and white folks weren’t allowed to keep slaves any more, we were still cruelly mistreated in some parts of the world. That’s what some of your Old People were like. And all this happened long before Tribulation…”

Michael and Rachel both kept silent. Both of them were shocked: they had much to think about.

“But anyway,” continued Samuel, “I have work to do: much business to discuss with Peter about his new book: we have to go over all the text and see if it’s fit for publishing. Never been to Rigo before, have you? I tell you what, why don’t you call on my son Benjamin and his wife? Peter will show you where he lives, won’t you Peter? It’s not far from here. When I come to Rigo I stop here at the inn, instead of at their house, because the grandchildren would pester me all the time and interfere with my work.”

Peter at once agreed to show them to Benjamin’s house. He left his completed manuscript with Samuel: then the three of them went down to the street again and threaded their way on foot through yet more intricate corners and turnings. As soon as they were a little way away from the inn, Michael asked the question which had been nagging at him ever since they’d met Samuel.

“Is Samuel—can he do—thought-shapes? Does he know about them—about you?

“No,” replied Peter. “He isn’t a telepath, nor is his son. And no—I haven’t told them. Samuel’s a very good friend of mine, and I’m sure he’s trustworthy—as, certainly, is Benjamin—but it doesn’t do to burden them with secrets which are dangerous to possess, does it? So no talk of thought-shapes, and certainly no using thought-shapes, while we’re at Benjamin’s! If the subject of your wishing to flee Labrador altogether crops up, and we need a cover-story, we’ll think of something. We could explain just how bigoted folk are, back at Waknuk and Kentak. You could have been guilty of aiding and abetting, or sheltering, Mutants, without being Mutants your­selves…”

“Yes, that makes sense. And something I’ve noticed about Norms (no!—why do I call non-thought-shapers ‘Norms’? We’re just as much Norms as they are: they’re simply in a different world to ours). Anyway, some non-thought-shapers appear to be able to sense when we’re using thought-shapes. Rachel’s Mum had known for a long time—but then she’d raised two thought-shapers in the form of her own children: she was bound to discover. And there was Sophie—Stephanie. She wasn’t a thought-shaper at first: still a very weak one—but she sensed pretty quickly when David was talking in thought-shapes. She sensed me too—when I got back in touch with Rachel. And David told us about Sophie’s mum. Maybe it’s the ones who have this power—telepathy—in them already, very weakly…

“And…I’m remembering something else. Rosalind was telling us, hastily, in thought-shapes, just as she, David and Petra were fleeing from Waknuk. About her mother, who’d helped her to pack. Who knew she had to fly for her life. ‘She’s sort of half-known, guessed something, for some time now. I don’t know how much she’s guessed—she never spoke about it at all. I think she felt that as long as she didn’t have to admit it in words, it might be all right.’ Do you think it runs in families, weak in some generations, strong in others—or is it just random?”

“Who knows? If it’s random, then anyone in Rigo might be able to detect thought-shapes. So you’re heeding my warning, yes?” put in Peter. “It’s dangerous to use thought-shapes in the presence of strangers. Why do you think I’ve avoided using them, unless absolutely necessary, all these years?”

The evening was drawing in when, after about twenty minutes, they stopped at the door of a house in a rather dingy street. Peter knocked and a young man and woman came to open the door.

“Hi, Benjamin, hi, Laura, remember me?” announced Peter. They both replied, “Of course!” “I’ve just been to see your Dad, Benjamin. New book I’m hoping he’ll publish. And I’ve brought some friends here to meet you, Rachel and Michael, here.”

“Good to meet you,” said Benjamin, with a smile. They noticed that, while his skin was as dark as his father’s, Laura’s skin was the same colour as theirs. So marriages between these very different-looking people did happen—in Rigo at least!