Dark Eden

most.
    Council got ready out there in middle of Circle and Oldest were propped up there on their padded logs by six seven of their helpers, and then Any Virsry started off again with the Mementoes being brought out to remind us yet again that we were all one Family and that we came here from Earth. Out came the Boots, the Belt, the Backpack, the Kee Board, and the helpers took them round all the groups so people could reach out and touch them and feel the weird stuff they’re made of that no one knows where to find or how to make (except maybe Boots, which seem to be made of some kind of skin). Kids were excited excited. All the littles wanted to touch Kee Board, and push down those little squares with letters on them. Oldest were allowed to take these things out of their hollow log whenever they wanted, but they were only shown to whole Family once every year at Any Virsries, and for little kids, seeing something from that long ago was like seeing something from a dream. They couldn’t quite believe that it was all really there again.
    And it wasn’t just kids that got excited either. Some grownups cried when they saw the Mementoes, and when they reached out to touch them, some had trembling hands, full of hope and longing, for many people thought that when you touched the things from Earth it made aches and pains go away, or brought dreams into your head of that bright bright world, bright as the inside of a lanternflower. And as for that horrible Redlantern woman, Lucy Lu, she went into a bloody trance.
    ‘I feel them!’ she cried out, the lying slinker. ‘I feel their presence all around us!’
    But pretty soon helpers gathered the Mementoes all together again, shoved them back into the log and closed them inside with a greased lid, and then Family Head Caroline went pacing round in front of Council and Oldest, going through the Genda and telling us what Council had agreed, with little Jane London, the Secret Ree, hurrying behind her with the notes she’d scratched at the meeting on pieces of bark.
    Behind the two of them were lined up all the group leaders: our Liz (that fat, ugly, bossy old thing), and old blind Tom Brooklyn, and silly gushing Flower Batwing, who thinks she is young and pretty when she’s really old and wrinkled and dried up, and Mary Starflower, who likes to draw in breath when someone else speaks, like they’ve said such a terrible, stupid thoughtless thing that she wonders whether it can ever ever be undone, and Julie London with her hard, sharp, pushy face, and Candy Fishcreek, who always whispers so that everyone has to be quiet quiet to hear her, and Susan Blueside, who doesn’t seem smart enough to be a group leader but is stubborn like a lump of rock. Susan Blueside didn’t look too happy, so I guessed she’d lost the battle over London group’s move. But the one that stood out from the rest was Bella Redlantern. She was right at the end of the line, next to Liz, but the space between her and Liz was fully twice the space that was left between any other two of them.
    ‘London is to be allowed to move ten yards Blueway,’ Caroline announced, ‘as long as they rebuild Blueside fence ten yards further out and help Blueside build new shelters.’
    Secret Ree winced and pointed at the writing on one of her pieces of bark. Caroline frowned for a moment, but then corrected herself.
    ‘London is to be allowed to move
twelve
yards, as long as they rebuild Blueside fence
twelve
yards further out,’ she said.
    She studied the bark writing for a moment to remind herself what was next.
    ‘Each group,’ she went on, ‘is only going to be allowed to fish on Greatpool during their normal group waking, and each group is only allowed one boat and one net out there at at a time. And no net used on Greatpool can be more than four yards long. This is to stop taking too many fish.’
    There were some grumbling sounds from people in Family who liked to think of themselves as fishers. (Silly buggers. Would they rather catch
all
the fish and then have no fishing to do at all?) Caroline glanced across at the notes again.
    ‘Youngmums,’ she said, ‘will have to scavenge and hunt like everyone else when their babies are three periods old. Clawfeet and oldies can look after the littles.’
    There were grumbles from youngmums and clawfeet, but on Caroline went.
    I waited. I didn’t
really
expect anything but I wondered if there’d be anything to suggest that they’d even considered