RACHEL pleaded with Mark and Stephanie to stay at their house as long as they liked: she could easily cope with the extended ‘family’ and, as the baby’s time drew nearer, Stephanie would be a great help with the housework. But Mark was despondent. He tested his leg daily and tried walking short distances without the stick, but he still limped rather heavily. He remembered what David had told them—so long ago it seemed!—about his friend Uncle Axel, who had been lamed for life after his leg was broken at sea. Would Mark ever be able to resume his farming and hunting activities?

Michael did his best to reassure him. First of all, he asked Mark how good his carpentry skills were (Michael himself had now become what could only be described as a ‘master craftsman’). Mark explained how he was used to doing odd repair jobs around the farm, mending fences and the like, and he also mentioned how he had repaired the shed at Martha’s house, to serve as a stable. So one Sunday, Michael tried him out on some simple work in the workshop.

Michael’s conclusion was that, while Mark was reasonably adept, he wasn’t really skilled enough to find work in the shipyard. “Even I got it badly wrong, in the first piece of work I did for them,” he remarked. But he was happy to engage Mark as a sort of apprentice in his workshop, which he was busy expanding as a sideline to his daytime work. “You can work on making pieces of furniture: also doors and window frames: there’s always a demand for that, and I can afford you some wages. When your leg is a bit better we can go out collecting timber from the forest.”

“If my leg ever gets better,” said Mark, wistfully.

“Oh it will, Mark. Really. But we’ll invite our friends Benjamin and Laura to come over and meet you, and Benjamin can take a look: he’s a doctor, and Laura’s a nurse.”

And so it turned out. Benjamin, when he came round, carefully examined Mark’s leg, and pronounced that it had been well set and would heal up completely.

“And if it hadn’t, we could have taken you into hospital and re-set it—though I’m glad you won’t be needing that option—painful! I’m surprised to see a job as good as this, having been done way out to the West: not far from Kentak, was it? From what I heard a lot of the doctors out there are little more than quacks. You were lucky to have been seen by a good one.”

He and Laura had brought along their three little girls, and un­surprisingly, Stephanie was at once won over to their charms. She had by now fully accepted that, while she’d never have a child of her own, there would always be children around whose company she could enjoy. Indeed she spent much of the afternoon on the floor playing with the girls.

On Stephanie explaining that they hadn’t actually got married yet, Michael explained that this could easily be sorted. There was a nearby church he knew of, where the priest was friendly and would ask no awkward questions. So they arranged a simple wedding. The only attendees were Michael and Rachel, and Benjamin and Laura with the children. Michael gave away the bride.

A few weeks passed. Mark was practising hard at his woodwork, taking heed of the advice ‘measure twice, cut once’ which had averted many disasters! His leg continued to improve. He and Michael went out on horseback to the nearby forest a few times, and took note of the locations of several trees that would yield useful timber. The forest belonged to a local farmer, but he was happy to let them fell trees—for a consideration.

One evening there was a knock on the door and they opened it to see ‘their’ attorney, the same one who had conducted the prosecution at Simon Skinner’s trial.

“Glad to see you both, and your friends,” he began, nodding at Mark and Stephanie. “Well, I’ve some news for you, which you may have been expecting. The Governor has commuted young Skinner’s sentence to twenty years’ imprisonment.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” cried Rachel.

“I thought you would welcome that. The execution had been scheduled to take place tomorrow at dawn, in the Central Square, but now it won’t happen. Some of the good folk of Rigo may be disappointed at that: there hasn’t been a hanging in Rigo for several years, and there are plenty of ghoulish people who enjoy congregating to watch the macabre spectacle. I believe this sort of thing used to happen amongst the Old People, if you’ll believe me.

“But there are others out there who may be celebrating, I should warn you, and not for the same reasons as you. There are plenty of people around, although not so many as out West, who believe firmly in the ‘Purity of the Norm’ and insist that Skinner was only ‘doing the right thing, exterminating non-humans’.

“And we’re now fairly certain that young Luke—Skinner’s brother, you know what happened to him of course—that he was murdered by persons unknown. Possibly to stop him testifying in Court. The police still haven’t got any leads, so there are still desperate killers at large.

“So I’d strongly advise you to be careful—in particular if you go out into the forest. Especially you, Michael: you may be recognised.”

After the attorney had left, Michael digested this piece of news glumly. And he and Mark had visited the forest several times already! For all he knew it might be the same forest where Luke’s body had been discovered. They decided that it might be best to engage a local woodcutter to bring them timber, despite the extra expense.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Summer drew on and turned into autumn. Michael had bought some felled timber which he was allowing to season, and Mark continued to toil steadily in the workshop. One or two pieces of furniture hadn’t come out quite right, but they had managed to sell a few things, and Michael and Mark shared the proceeds. This extra income was welcome, since the trade in the shipyard had slackened off; the repairs to Voyager were complete and a smaller boat requiring only minor repairs was now in the yard. Michael and his co-workers had been laid off for part of the week and had to take a small wage cut.

Election fever was now very much in the air: a novel experience to all the newcomers, none of whom had ever come across such a thing before. Rachel had discovered that a nearby shop sold a news-sheet every few days, and she took to buying it up regularly and studying it avidly.

“Things aren’t going well for us,” she announced one evening over dinner. “This ‘election’, I mean. You remember what Hilary—the Governor—told us, Michael? Seems that the Church Party have been busy. Sending groups of young horsemen all over Labrador—even as far West as Kentak. Distributing leaflets to every household they come across. There’s a copy of the text of the leaflet in this news-sheet. Demagogic stuff indeed! It goes on about ‘keeping the stock pure’ and ‘stamp out the Mutant’—all the sort of stuff that was rammed down our throats back in Waknuk. We can only hope they don’t win the election! But is that a forlorn hope?”

For a while after she had made this speech, they fell silent, digest­ing this information. Michael thought he had already encountered some of these horsemen: all wearing the same ‘uniform’ of light blue jacket, black neckerchief, and black peaked cap. They had acted aggressively, occupying the whole width of the road and roughly ordering him to move his horse to one side. But he had not known what was their purpose.

As October approached, Rachel produced another news-sheet, a rather more bulky one this time. She read out from it:

> “Distribution of ballot papers is well under way. The Blue­blacks are busy assisting the Government in this huge task, never before carried out to this extent: riding far and wide across Labrador with the aim of ensuring that every eligible adult Norm aged twenty-one or over receives a paper. Voting will commence in two weeks’ time and then will come the equally huge task of collecting the completed ballot papers…”

There was a lot more in the article explaining how people were supposed to vote, although that information had already been contained in the already-distributed leaflets. And there was also a mention of the campaigning that Hilary Bligh’s Centrist Party had undertaken, although their resources were far less than the Church Party’s and they had only been able to reach within a few tens of miles of Rigo.

It seemed that the election was already lost.

Mark, alone in the workshop, idly wondered how Adrian and Jack, back in Kentak, would react on receiving their ballot papers—and how they had reacted to the earlier leaflet. Probably tossed it in the fire, so he hoped. From there, his thoughts drifted on to his mother back at home, and then to Martha: all alone in the house in Kamach. They had exchanged several letters; Martha was happy at having resumed her needlework—but she was an ex-convict, on the record for harbouring a Mutant child.

How would all these people fare if Ruffer carried out his threat?

He put his anxieties to the others at the dinner-table, but none of them could come up with anything encouraging.

So the days passed until the voting actually began. Michael had received his ballot-paper and duly voted, but none of the others did: Rachel and Stephanie were too young, and Mark, although he was of age, had not registered his present address with the authorities. He presumed that a ballot-paper had been dropped off with his mother back at the farm—much use it would be to him!

Then there was a long wait—at least another two weeks—while the ballot papers were collected and brought to the Government building for counting. All this time the blue-shirted horsemen—the hideously-named ‘Blueblacks’—were roaming the streets, knocking on doors and reminding those who had not yet voted to hurry up. And urging them to vote ‘Church’, naturally. Michael and others like him could have protested the unfairness of this, but what use was that?

At last another, equally bulky news-sheet appeared in the shop, and the four of them perused it eagerly. The voting had been remarkably close: almost equal numbers, it seemed, had cast their votes for the Church Party and the Centrist Party. But after a recount, the Church Party had secured a majority, by just a few hundred votes.

It was announced that the new Chamber would assemble in January and the Governor would then, as was her duty, ask the majority party—that now being the Church Party—to assume the duty of Govern­ment. It was widely expected that one of their first acts would be to elect Malcolm Ruffer as the new Governor, ousting Hilary Bligh.

Michael and the others digested this piece of depressing news in silence. Surely Ruffer wouldn’t carry out his threat to ‘exterminate’ human mutants! If so, would all four of them be under threat? Stephanie’s mutation was obvious, and both Michael and Rachel were publicly on record as being telepaths. If only Michael hadn’t revealed that detail about them in Court! Only Mark could safely pass as a Norm: his telepathic powers were much diminished and not made public. Unless people started to investigate his past…

The Blueblacks were still very much in evidence, molesting people in the streets at random, asking to see their identity tags. Ordinary folk soon discovered the wisdom in complying: those who refused were beaten up. Black people, and those of Inuit descent (who were also of distinctive appearance) attracted especial attention—and were often attacked without warning. The police didn’t seem to be around much, now—and when they did appear, they mostly turned a blind eye to all this going-on.

But Michael and Rachel had other things to think about. It was already well into December when Rachel nudged Michael, lying beside her in bed. He woke up instantly.

“Michael, I think it’s starting. The contractions: I’ve been having them for over an hour now. Junior is on the way, I think.”

Michael was alert in an instant. He got up and dressed, lit a lantern, went out and quickly harnessed the horse to the small cart which he now kept: then he carefully lifted Rachel into it, whipped up the horse, and in half an hour they were at the hospital.