SEVERAL years had passed. Mark’s farm on the outskirts of Gand had prospered excellently. He was now concentrating on beef and dairy, with some fields of wheat and alfalfa, for fodder. He now employed eight farm-hands and two dairymaids, one of whom was married to one of the men. She had two children, both girls; the elder now just beginning at school; Stephanie was helping look after the younger girl while her mother was at work.

Laura and Benjamin’s three girls, now in their teens, also came to visit the farm at weekends, as well as Rachel and Michael’s boys who were slightly younger. So there was often quite a crowd of children and young people in the house. Stephanie took delight in their company—even the boys who tended to be a bit naughty at times: she tolerated their mischievous behaviour with good grace. She could almost forget, at times, that she had no children of her own.

Laura and Benjamin were both kept busy in the main hospital in Gand. Although minor human Deviations which could be corrected by surgery were not all that common, the increasing population across Newf did mean there were more accidents and more illnesses. People were living longer, too, and care of the elderly was an important task, especially for Laura.

As for Michael, he had expanded his carpentry and workshop considerably and now had two men and a woman working under him. Yes! his woman employee was as skilled with the hammer, saw, chisel, and plane, as any man could be, and was turning out excellent and highly accurate work. Although the two young men were also perfectly adept at their carpentry, they had a little way to go to match their colleague. Michael was watching carefully in case any jealously arose, but the atmosphere in the workshop seemed to be perfectly convivial.

Michael, Rachel and the boys were now living in the house which he had built on the edge of the city. The boys, William (usually called ‘Billy’) and Luke, loved to race each other around the garden or play hide-and-seek, in and out among the maples and hickory trees. Michael had constructed two special toys for the children: devices called ‘velocipedes’, following plans which had been sent to him by an engineer in Lark. The engineer told him that adult-sized versions were also feasible and might one day revolutionise transport. The end of horse-riding possibly? Michael and Rachel both still loved riding, and were teaching their sons to ride too. Michael was sure the horse would always have a place in human society. But after the ‘velocipede’, what might come after?

In the second year of their stay in Newf, the three mothers, Amelia, Margaret, and Martha, had all come together to visit. Amelia was thrilled to meet her grandsons for the first time, and spent most of the visit playing with them. The mothers had reported that things were still difficult on the mainland: although the thuggery had died down, there were food shortages; livestock unfed and crops untilled. But they, at least, were reasonably comfortably off. Martha had reported that her work had been cut out, sewing crosses onto all the dresses that were brought to her!

Several letters had come from Michael’s parents. The old differ­ence of opinion regarding Rachel’s and Michael’s marriage was long buried, and his parents had promised to visit some time. But they had yet to make the trip. On the other hand, Michael had discovered a ‘photographer’s studio in Lark, and, at some expense, he, Rachel and the boys had had several new-fangled ‘photographs’ taken of them­selves. Michael’s parents, as well as Amelia, were delighted to receive lifelike images of their grandchildren.

Michael and Rachel had also written to Peter and Justin, who had replied that they were still all right, although keeping a low profile and still fearful of a possible attack. Peter was getting a bit too old for the farm work, but he was still busy writing. Justin had met a young lady and was thinking of getting married. Of Tim and Big Rachel there had been no word: they just had to hope all was well: their house had been sold and was re-occupied. Nor was there any news of Adrian and Jack, back in Kentak: Michael had sent a letter but it was unanswered. He could only hope they were all right.

Sadly, early in their third year, a letter came from the Sheriff at Kamach informing them that Martha had passed away. She had been taken ill a month or two after returning from her trip to Newf, and the end had come peacefully. Stephanie received the news of her mother stoically. “Well, she was happy in her final years. She’d met up with me, and with you, Mark: she’d come to see us here, she quite accept­ed there wouldn’t be any grandchildren. I think she’d fulfilled what she wanted out of her life. Don’t you, Mark?” Mark nodded.

So it happened that, on a fine warm summer’s evening, about eight years after they’d moved to Newf, Michael and Rachel were relaxing in their front garden, while the boys were playing as usual, riding their velocipedes around the garden. A cab drew up just in front of their gate and a young couple climbed down, and hesitantly gazed into the garden. At last, the young woman took the lead, opened the gate and strode towards Michael and Rachel, who stood up to greet her and the young man, who had trailed behind, carrying two large bags.

The young woman seemed to be about seventeen or eighteen years old, with clusters of golden curls around a small, slightly impish face with brown freckles and a wide mouth made for laughing. But she was very pretty all the same, and the smile she gave them was broad but slightly teasing.

“It is Michael, isn’t it—and Rachel too,” she began. “And these are your boys?” Rachel nodded. “Yes, I can see the family resemblance. So how have you fared, all these years? Perhaps you don’t remember me?” And suddenly she broke into thought-shapes. “A fish—with a droopy tale…”

“It’s not … Petra is it? Petra, but grown up! Petra, my goodness!” cried Rachel, astounded. Michael was equally amazed. Now that they looked at the girl more closely, they could recognise the mischievous little girl with the amazing thought-speech powers, the girl whom Michael had watched being carried off in the Zealanders’ airship. Both he and Rachel threw their arms around Petra and smothered her with kisses. The young man who’d come with her stood back, looking rather abashed.

“Oh, I must introduce you to Shaun, here,” said Petra, after extricating herself from their embrace. “Shaun’s my boyfriend. He’s come with me, all the way from Zealand, and he’s been helping me trace you down. I should explain, Shaun doesn’t do thought-shapes: he’s not a telepath. He’s just like ordinary Labrador folk.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Shaun, at last breaking his silence.

“But we’re together all the same,” continued Petra. “I’m not as ‘strong’ as I was when you last saw me. Thought-shapes, I mean—what we now call ‘telepathy’. It sort of ‘went down’ as I went into adolescence. That happens a lot with super-telepaths, so I’ve been told. I’m probably about the same strength as you two, now. So no long-distance thoughts all the way to Zealand! And I don’t do it much, not since I met Shaun, I talk in words nearly all the time.”

“So do we,” said Michael. “Yes, telepathy is a useful gift, but it leads to trouble as you know well. We use words all the time when it’s just us together.”

At that moment the two boys, noticing that there were visitors, raced up towards them.

“These are our boys: Billy and Luke. Little scamps they are,” said Rachel. “Boys, this is an old friend of ours, Petra. She’s come a long long way to see us.”

“Pleased to meet you, Auntie Petra,” said both boys, dutifully, before scampering off once again.

“So how is life in Zealand?” continued Michael.

“Well, that was the big surprise. The ‘Sealand woman’ who took us there, well she wasn’t all we took her to be. Even I knew that, and I was only about eight at the time. And David explained it all to me later. Her real name’s Bernadette, did you know that?”

“Yes, we do, as a matter of fact. We learnt some things about her, from the former Governor in Rigo. But go on.”

“She was lying to us. Both David and Rosalind were very upset when they realised. They’d thought all along that one couldn’t lie with telepathy, but now they realise they were wrong. I was perhaps too young to understand the implications, but the main thing was, there weren’t as many telepaths in Zealand as she’d said. Only a few thousand, and the rest of the population were just ordinary people like back in Labrador. But at least we weren’t hunted down by the ordinary folk, not like back in Labrador…”

“Things were changing for a while, back in Labrador, when the old Governor, Hilary Bligh, was in office,” said Rachel. “A period of liberalisation, of enlightenment. But after she was voted out, things went back to as they were before. It’s still bad back there, as bad as in the Joseph Strorm days. Or even worse. Which is why we’re here.”

“I understand. We’d heard about goings-on in Rigo, so although we went there first, we had to be very careful how we made enquiries. Shaun was terribly afraid for my safety—although I felt sure no-one would recognise me. And we got away with it.”

“So, what of David and Rosalind? Did they come with you?” asked Rachel.

Petra’s face fell for a while, and they could sense that there had been trouble. After a long pause she began again:

“I have to tell you something, but I don’t know how to break it to you. Rosalind’s no longer with us…”

“You mean she’s—dead?” said Michael, stunned.

“I’m afraid so. David’s all right—well, as all right as he can be. He didn’t come with us. And he’s got another lady companion—that’s cheered him up quite a lot. Her name’s Pauline, she’s a teacher at the school I went to, and she’s a lovely person. I hope she and David get married. Like Shaun: she doesn’t do telepathy, but David’s quite happy to accept the situation—like I do.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“So what happened to Rosalind?”

“It’s a long story. She was very upset when we found out the truth about Bernadette. Well, all of us were. She, Bernadette, kept a sort of commune of telepaths, in a big private mansion some miles from the capital city in Zealand, Dunton. But the Government consisted almost all of non-telepaths, and they didn’t like what was going on there. At least, so David and Rosalind told me, though I was too young to understand back then. Apparently Bernadette was plotting to ‘take over’ the government altogether, and put telepaths in charge of everyone. She was persuaded that we were a ‘superior’ race and that we were destined to eventually supplant the non-telepaths. She kept us, and all the other telepaths she’d ‘collected’, virtual prisoners, teaching all about things like insurrection and revolt.”

“I notice you say, ‘was’, ‘kept’, and so forth. So what became of Bernadette? Is she dead too?” asked Michael.

“Not as far as I know. But one day she simply disappeared. Didn’t show up in the morning. Several of us tried to contact her by thought-shape, but there was no answer. And that’s not all. Later that day some policemen from Dunton turned up at the mansion, with a warrant for her arrest. They didn’t tell us much, but said she was wanted for questioning: she was suspected of serious crimes against the State. And the authorities in Labrador were also seeking her extradition, too. That’s all we were told. This happened about two years after we arrived.”

“The garrotte-thread! That might be it,” interrupted Michael. “You probably don’t remember the horrible stuff she scattered around the clearing, in the Fringes. Totally illegal.”

“Yes I do remember. I remember it sticking to my face and hands. I remember saying, ‘that was very horrid’. When the Sealand woman—Bernadette—finally released us.

“Anyway, no-one’s heard anything of Bernadette since. I don’t know whether the police ever caught up with her. She was a clever woman, she must have had ways of eluding capture. She might still be at large—or in prison—or dead. No-one knows. And people in Zealand are better, with her gone.

“But to continue—about Rosalind. She and David got married, after we left the mansion and settled in Dunton itself. Oh yes, the commune sort of fell apart, after Bernadette disappeared. People went and settled among the ordinary people, and were made quite welcome there. But Rosalind was unhappy. When they first applied to get married, they were told that it wasn’t allowed in Zealand, because they were first cousins. They had to appeal to the Governor. Eventually David managed to persuade him that they were only half-cousins, and finally he gave his approval. But it took many months, and in the meantime Rosalind had become pregnant. They were both very relieved when they finally got to walk down the aisle in church, only a few weeks before the baby was due.

“But then we had more tragedy. The baby was born—a little boy—but he was very sick and he died after only a few days. I was taken to see him just once. He wasn’t visibly a Deviation: Deviations are very rare there anyway. I’m sure any Inspector in Labrador (they don’t have Inspectors there) would have passed him as a Norm; but the doctors explained that he was very ill inside, and there was nothing they could do. Rosalind was never the same after that. She looked very changed, and she and David were drifting apart, too. It was none of the passionate love they’d had before they left Labrador. But a second child was on the way; this time the doctor was more hopeful that it’d turn out well.

“The baby arrived—a little girl it was this time—but this time it was Rosalind taken very sick. The doctors did their best for her, she rallied for a while, but in the end they couldn’t save her. We lost her about a month after the baby was born. But the baby was all right. David had to look after her on his own, but I was able to help, of course—when I wasn’t at school. And then Pauline came along. Well, I introduced them, as it happens! I should explain that Pauline’s a widow too: she has a little boy, a bit older than David and Rosalind’s daughter. She’s called Sophie, by the way—”

“Which reminds us,” interrupted Rachel. “There are one or two other people here you’ve got to meet. But more about that later. Go on with your story.”

“There isn’t much more to say. I went to school in Dunton—an ordinary school—I think there were only three of us telepaths in the school altogether. And the teachers didn’t encourage us to use thought-shapes, so we got used to talking in words all the time. It was a nice school, and it was there I met Shaun.”

“And very lucky for me, we did meet,” put in Shaun. “We’ve been seeing each other, on and off, for years, but it’s only since we left school that we’ve been really together. We’ll both be going to college next year, but in the meantime we took this opportunity to travel around a bit. And David was very keen for us to seek out his friends in Labrador. And here we are.”

“How did you get from Zealand to here, may I ask? Did you come in the airship?” asked Michael.

“Oh no. The airships don’t go on such long voyages usually, and they’re very expensive. We took a ship, sailing north-east from Zealand. It’s a very long voyage but the ship calls in at several islands on the way. The people there are more like the Zealanders, they don’t have many Deviations, and they don’t persecute them. But a lot of them have darker skin than we do. Some of the Zealanders are darker, too. Petra says it’s not like that in Labrador.”

“There are black-skinned people—or were—in Rigo and the surrounding districts at least,” said Rachel. “And here. We’ve met some. Including one of our best friends, here in Newf. He’s a doctor here: we’ll take you to meet him some time. But back in Labrador things are bad for them now. We fear they’ve been driven out—as we have—or killed.”

“How horrible!” commented Petra. They fell silent.

After a pause, Michael urged Shaun “Please go on with your story.”

“Well,” continued Shaun, “in the end the ship reached a sort of narrow cutting—a ‘canal’ the crew called it—between two stretches of land which we were told weren’t islands. They were part of a huge continent and this was the only way through. The land on either side of this canal looked like Badlands, but we didn’t see much. Before we even reached there, we were ordered to stay in our cabin. The ship’s crew came along and covered all the portholes with sheets of lead, and we noticed that they also put on strange bulky suits which covered every part of their bodies, even their faces. We asked the captain, and he told us it was to protect us, and his crew, from the deadly emanations from the Badlands. Something people in Labrador ought to learn about!

“In the end we were allowed out on deck, but only after we’d passed that dangerous stretch, and we saw that we were approaching a string of islands. They were called the Indies. We put in at one of the ports there, and changed to another ship which brought us to Rigo. The ship stopped at Lark harbour: if we’d known you lived here we could have disembarked there! But it didn’t matter; once we found out where you were we took a third ship to bring us back here.”

“So who are the mysterious people you want us to meet?” asked Petra.

“Wait and see,” said Michael. “We were thinking of calling on them anyway, just as you arrived. Just wait while I hitch the horses to the carriage. Oh yes—do you really have horseless carriages in Zealand? In Dunton?”

“Yes—a few—but people use horses and carts just as much. The horseless carriages need a sort of oil to keep them going, and there isn’t much of that to be had. Bernadette misled us about that too.”

In a few minutes they were all squeezed into the carriage and rattling along at a steady pace. Michael took pains to point out his workshop as they passed, and a few other examples of his handiwork. They reached open countryside but not for long: soon they were driving down the track that led to Mark’s farm.

Mark and Stephanie were standing in the yard to greet them, wondering why they were later than usual: it was nearly sunset. Then they noticed the two strangers in the carriage. As they alighted, and the boys raced off around the farm yard, Michael began the introductions.

“Petra and Shaun, may I introduce you to Stephanie, first of all. But, Petra, you know her by another name—”

On hearing the name ‘Petra’, Stephanie and Mark both gave a little gasp. “You’re not really—Petra, are you?” burst out Stephanie. “But you’re grown up! And you’ve come all this way to see us! But do you recognise me?”

Petra studied Stephanie’s face for a moment, then she smiled. “Yes, I know who you are. You’re Sophie aren’t you? Sophie who saved us in the Fringes. Sophie who was crying in your cave, until I came and comforted you. David thought you were dead, but I tried to reassure him, you mightn’t be—and I was right! How wonderful! But you’ve changed. Not only your name, you’re altogether changed. You’re beautiful.”

“You certainly are,” said Shaun. “And this is your husband?”

“Yes,” said Mark. “And you know who I am, too, Petra, though you probably won’t recognise me. We only met once, and I don’t think you saw me at the time. I’m Mark.”

“The Mark who we all thought had disappeared! So you too, weren’t dead after all.”

“No: as you can see, we’re both very much alive. And yes, we’re married now, and this is our farm. But what of David and Rosalind? Did they come too?”

Quickly Michael explained about Rosalind, and what had been happening in Zealand. Both Mark and Stephanie were sorrowful on hearing the sad news, but took it stoically. They were accustomed to tragedy. Stephanie, especially, recalled how, as Sophie long ago in the cave, she had felt a lot of hostility towards Rosalind, seeing her as a rival. And now it had come to this! But it was too late to feel remorse. As long as David was finding happiness once more—

“You know, I had this sort of feeling, long after I met them in the cave,” she murmured, “that it wasn’t going to work out: David and Rosalind, I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” put in Michael, after some thought. “It wasn’t the right thing for them—falling in love and marrying so young. They would have been better off just as childhood friends and cousins. Just as it wouldn’t have been right—David and you, Stephanie—Sophie as you were—in those early days, either. But David and Rosalind!—it was so embarrassing for the rest of us! Having to listen in to their lovey-dovey thought-shapes—and more, when they got really serious together. Of course you were too young, Petra. Yes: telepathy can be a curse—and not just in Waknuk, but even here in this more enlightened and tolerant neighbourhood. I’m glad we now use it far less than we used to.”

“I just hope David hurries up and marries Pauline,” continued Stephanie. “It must be a good match, if you think so, Petra. You’ve always been a good judge of character. And then they must both come over here as quickly as they can—with the children, of course. Can you send David a thought-shape, Petra, to tell him about us?”

“No I can’t. I can’t do it long-distance any more. We’ll have to write him a letter. It’ll take a long time. But when he learns about you here—you especially ‘Stephanie-formerly-Sophie’—when he learns you’re alive, he’ll come—with Pauline and the children. I’m sure of it.”

THE END