MICHAEL stood stock-still in the middle of the clearing, watching the flying machine gather speed and dwindle in the sky until it vanished behind the clouds.

On board were his friends David and Rosalind, and David’s young sister Petra, who, he knew, were being whisked to safety far far away. The ‘Sealand woman’ (she had said “Zealand”—perhaps that was the correct name for her country?) had appeared on the scene, dea ex machina-like, in the nick of time—not merely to rescue the fugitives, but also to put an end, once and for all, to the pitched battle raging between the Fringes people and the Waknuk raiding party.

How she had achieved that last result, however—the cold, cruel, utterly ruthless weapon she had employed—he had tried to blank that vision out of his mind. Not only that the mere thoughts filled him with stark horror, but he had, understandably, wanted to conceal his emotions about the whole scene from his friends until they were out of range of his thought-shapes—especially from Petra, who was surely too young to fully understand the implications. At least, he hoped she was too young, because she would never be out of range.

At present, he could sense Petra’s thought-shapes as she babbled to her companions. Yes: she seemed unperturbed. All her thoughts were about the thrill of flying, and about the promise of a fantastic new land to discover. David’s and Rosalind’s thoughts, on the other hand, were already too faint to be discerned, and would soon be completely out of range. Michael thought to himself: that’s all for the best. There were things beginning to surface in his mind once more, that he could no longer suppress—that he did not wish to share. Possibly David and Rosalind wouldn’t have wanted to share their feelings either.

What the Zealand woman (she had never given a name) and her crew had done, that terrible and unanswerable death-blow, was merely to scatter thin sticky white threads all over the clearing. Harmless enough, one might have thought. But these threads were very sticky—impossibly strong and sticky—wherever they had touched a human being or an animal, they had trapped them in a web from which, no matter how much force they exerted, they could not escape—a web in which they could only struggle, and eventually succumb to asphyxiation. As far as he could see, no-one had sur­vived this slaughter. Nor had the horses. No-one but he—and he was unhurt. The Zealand woman had sprayed him with some kind of solvent to dissolve the sticky threads, saving his life.

The corpses lying around the clearing were already becoming distorted and unrecognisable—but he knew who they were. He had calmly watched them die in the heat of battle, but now the battle was over and he could reflect. Many of them were his friends…

Already feeling sick, he urgently needed to get away from the clearing and the carnage. As he stumbled his way between the corpses, being careful to avoid the white threads (‘plastic’ was the word the Zealand woman had used to describe them, but the word meant nothing to him), he noticed a slight movement out of the corner of his eye.

A young woman who had lain, seemingly dead, at the edge of the clearing, just out of range of the sticky threads. A woman whom he recognised, even though he had never met her. A woman who had played a part in saving his companions’ lives—he did not need to see her feet to know who she was…

Sophie! She was still alive!

In spite of the nausea which was almost consuming him, and the danger of lingering too long in this place, Michael made up his mind instantly. Of all the Fringes people, he could not abandon this woman. He made his way towards her. As he did so, he passed the body of her lover Gordon—the ‘spider-man’ David had called him—who was certainly dead, enveloped in the threads. Two arrows had struck Sophie. One had certainly pierced her arm, but the other had scarcely grazed her. David had, wrongly, reported that the second arrow had caught her in the neck and killed her outright—but no: it had lodged in the shoulder and the wound did not look too severe. The arrow had struck on her shoulder blade and not penetrated too deeply, but the shock had knocked her unconscious. There was a good chance that both wounds would heal.

Michael took the decision to pluck out the arrows straight away, while Sophie was still semi-comatose. As he did so, as gently as possible, Sophie groaned but did not call out. The arm wound bled freely: Michael tore up his shirt to fashion a makeshift bandage. Blood quickly soaked through the first bandage, so he hastily took it off and put on a second one. To his relief the bleeding seemed to have now been stemmed. He fashioned a rude sling for her. Then he gently peeled off her bodice, and, feeling rather embarrassed, trying not to look at her breasts, he carefully wrapped the remainder of his shirt around her shoulder and under her armpit.

Then he hastily replaced her bodice, which although torn and bloodstained was still wearable, and carefully lifted her—she was no great weight—and carried her across the clearing, through the cleft and out to the river bank. There he laid her carefully on the ground. He turned away from her, moved forward a few paces, and vomited.

It took him many minutes to recover himself.

The river bank seemed as devoid of life as the camp. But he could see no bodies lying on this side of the cliff. He took a deep draught of water from the river, then filled his water-bottle and turned to Sophie once more. She was now conscious, and surprisingly well-composed in spite of the pain she must have been in. He gave her a drink of water. She looked at him, puzzled.

“I’m Michael. I’m a friend of David and Rosalind’s…”

She was instantly alert—and alarmed. “David! David—and Rosalind—and Petra! What’s happened to them?”

“They’re safe. They’re now far away from here. That’s all I can tell you for now.”

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“You’re another of those people? The ones who can ‘talk’ with their thoughts?”

“Yes I am.”

“So you’re one of them! Them—who brought the norms to this place to murder my people! Why the hell should I trust you?” She tried to lift herself, but was still too weak.

“You saved the lives of my friends. I owe you everything for that. And you were David’s friend. That makes you my friend. Is that enough?”

Sophie lifted herself on her good arm, and thought about it for a long time. “They murdered him. Gordon. He’s dead, isn’t he…” she finally said.

“Yes, I’m sorry, I’m afraid he is. I know about Gordon. Gordon and you.”

She seemed to accept that. “So where are the rest of my people?” She became suddenly agitated. She attempted to sit up, and stared at the cleft leading back into the clearing and the camp—then she weakly sank back to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” said Michael, quickly. “You’re still too weak. And you can’t go back there. You really can’t.”

“Why not? What about my people? Did your people—your norms—kill them all?”

“I can’t explain. Not now. Please understand. But it’s too danger­ous for you to go back there. If you stay with me, I can take you to somewhere where you can rest—where you can get food and drink—somewhere where you can live, even. Somewhere away from the Fringes.”

“But what about—?” She pointed to her bare feet. “How can I possibly live anywhere but the Fringes—like this?”

Years earlier, when Sophie was a mere child, she and David had met by chance. Michael knew the story. David—then also only a child—had discovered by accident that she had six toes on each foot. Her parents had been carefully concealing this fact. In the district where they lived, where anyone with a genetic mutation was per­secuted: sterilised and ruthlessly cast out to fend for themselves in the Fringes, such knowledge was perilous. For several months David and Sophie had managed to keep the secret—but eventually they had been found out, David had been punished, and Sophie had been consigned to the Fringes. Only there could she live without being persecuted, but it was a life of abject deprivation and poverty, and with no future to look forward to.

Michael wondered if, should she be offered a chance to return to ‘civilised’ country, safely, she would leap at it.

Or she might not. She might resent being amongst ‘norms’ after they way they had dealt with her.

And he had another plan, too—but only David and Rosalind, and Rachel back at Waknuk, knew about it. He wasn’t about to share that with Sophie.

“Listen, Sophie,” he said—thinking ahead and mindful of the fact that the spiritual leader of Waknuk, the puritanical and tyrannical Joseph Strorm, David’s father, was dead. “It may be that things will have changed at Waknuk, since you were there. You may be able to lead a normal life without ever being found out. And there may be other places, less authoritarian than Waknuk. I don’t know, but it’s worth trying. Will you come with me?”

Sophie paused and considered. Did she trust Michael? He looked like a norm, but his friends had been persecuted by norms—and he too would have suffered, if he had been exposed. If only she could penetrate his thoughts, as the others could! She remembered how her mother had had some sort of ‘understanding’ with David. Perhaps she might be able to acquire some sort of this power too—maybe it was nascent in her and not yet developed. Could it come to any­thing? She strained her thoughts hard, wondering what one had to do to ‘project’ them—but Michael appeared not to react.

Anyway, Michael was being cagey about the happenings in the clearing, but it was clearly no use for her to try and go back there and discover for herself. Whatever had happened must have been terrible…

“You’re telling me I can’t stay here.”

“No, you can’t. I can tell you, most of the men in the posse are dead, but others may come later. And when they see the remains of the—” Michael caught himself just in time—“the battle, they’ll be wanting to kill any Fringe dwellers they come across.”

Sophie thought some more. She believed Michael’s warning, and realised that to stay in the camp meant death. What was the alter­native? Perhaps the most puritanical, the most doctrinaire of the norms had been in the posse—had been killed. Those left behind might be more liberal, more forgiving. Michael had hinted that there might be a chance of a ‘normal’ life back in civilised parts. The only option, perhaps. She put a last question to Michael.

“David’s father? You know, the preacher man: the one who was the most fanatical campaigner against Mutants in the whole of Waknuk. David told me a lot about him. Was he in the posse? What became of him?”

“Yes, he was with us. He was killed.”

Sophie made her mind up. “I’ll come with you,” she finally said.

“Good,” said Michael. “I’m honoured—and delighted. We’ll have to find you some shoes, of course. Now, the first thing we need is a horse. You wait here while I go to look for one.”

With that, he turned to the river, and walked upstream until he recognised the place where they had crossed, near to the pear-shaped tree. Testing the water, he found that it was not at all deep, and he could easily wade across. Climbing to the far bank and following the path for another mile, his luck held out. There was a horse quietly grazing on the verge, while its fallen rider lay dead on his face on the path. Clearly one of his party: turning the body over, he recognised one of the Waknuk farmers. He had been killed by a sniper’s arrow fired from the forest. The horse looked unhurt and in good shape. Hoping that the sniper—one of the Fringes people, he guessed—had long since moved on, Michael caught the reins and tied the horse to a tree. Then he searched the body, stripping the shirt off it to replace his own. He could find no gun, but there was a bow and a few arrows, and some food in the horse’s saddlebags. Untying the horse, he mounted and rode quickly back to the river.

Sophie was now sitting up and seemed in better spirits. She evidently had amazingly rapid powers of recovery—a consequence of the hardships of Fringe life no doubt. Together they ate some of the food: then Michael lifted Sophie up on the horse’s back and mounted in front of her, instructing her to cling on as tightly as she could.