Dark Eden

generations. Nothing has changed except for one thing, and in a way it’s a good thing. Now we know for sure we can just get on with things and don’t have to wait around for Earth.’
    I looked at Tina, and that reminded me of something she’d said to me once by Deep Pool, when we were newhairs back in Family.
    ‘It’s like when a kid gets lost in forest. The kid’s mum can’t rest, can’t get on with anything but searching and crying and searching, until they find the bones. And when they do find the bones and bring them to her, she’s sad sad, and she screams and cries and rocks and tears her wraps. But at least she knows there’s no point in searching any more, and slowly slowly she gets back to her life as it was before, and back to her other kids, knowing there’s no need to look out any more for the one that’s gone. We’ve always known that Earth might never come. We’ve always known that, even if Earth did come one waking, it probably wouldn’t be while we were alive. I mean, that’s what decided Tommy and Angela to stay here in the first place, isn’t it? But we’ve always deep down secretly hoped that Earth would come soon and carry us away from all our sadness and trouble, even if the odds were against it, and even though we knew – don’t forget this either – even though we knew that Earth had
bad
bad troubles of its own. We just couldn’t help it. We didn’t fully give ourselves to Eden because we were dreaming about that other place full of light. But now we can
really
be here.’
    Jeff recognized that I’d got that last bit from him, and he gave me his funny little smile. Tina nodded. And Gerry, even though he was still crying crying, looked proud of me, and that always felt good. I nodded to myself. I thought I’d done well. I was pretty sure I’d got through to most of them.
    I wiped tears from my own eyes and finished what I had to say.
    ‘We can’t stay here,’ I told them, ‘we’re still too close to Tall Tree ridge. And we can’t take this sky-boat with us. So we’ll just have to leave it behind us here. But it’s good that we found it. It’s good good. Those three have been sitting in there all this time like they were still trying to cross sky and finish their story, but now we’ve found them, that’s all over. They’re back in
our
story again and we can let them rest.’
    They
were
back in our story. They existed again, and I was pleased about that, in spite of the sadness and loneliness of knowing they never even made it to
Defiant
, and the horrible sadness of losing even the hope of Earth.
    For a moment I had a sense of people from the future all around us, generations and generations of them, watching this scene, calling to us in their faint thin voices. But I couldn’t make out what they were saying because living people right in front of me were shouting things out as well.
    ‘What will we do with the bones?’ asked Tina.
    ‘We can’t just go,’ sobbed Martha London, arm in arm with bulgy-eyed tear-stained Lucy. ‘There’s telly vision here, and lecky-trickity, just like Earth.’
    ‘We should take the bones out of the Veekle and bury them properly with stones,’ Gela said. ‘Give them a funeral.’
    ‘No time to find stones,’ I said at once, pulling myself back into the moment. ‘And anyway, remember why we buried people under stones when they died? It was so Earth could find them and take them home. And that’s . . .’ I stopped to steady my voice. ‘Well, like we’ve just talked about, that’s not going to happen, is it?’
    Several people started to sob again at the thought that even our bones would never return to Earth. But one or two were already trying to figure out a new way of dealing with our dead.
    ‘Maybe we should just take them out and lie down them here, then,’ said Janny.
    ‘What?’ said Gela. ‘So David’s lot can find them and take them back for Lucy Lu to drool over?’
    ‘I know what we’ll do,’ said Tina. ‘We’ll put them in Worldpool, and all that swirly water will take them away.’
    That was what we did.
    Clare scratched their names on stones, with her tongue hanging out just like Secret Ree’s, and we laid them on the ground next to Veekle like the stones in Ash Clearing back in Circle Valley:
    FIRST DIXON, ASTRONORT
    MEHMET, ASTRONORT
    MICHAL, ORBIT PLICE

    Then we carried the bones down the rocks, and waded two three yards out to the place where the bottom of Worldpool dropped down into