And when a second seed fell from the sky — another fat black and white bundle suspended under a blue canopy, landing where the first had lodged at the top of the cliffs — he knew that he could not rest until he had seen for himself what mighty tree might sprout from those strange seeds.

Joshua approached Abel and Saul and other men to accompany him on his jaunt up the cliff face. But there was no purpose to his mission — no game to be hunted, no useful rock, no foraging save for the huge enigmatic seeds which had slid silently over the surface of everybody else’s mind.

And besides, everybody knew there was danger at the top of the cliff. The camp of the Zealots was there, in the centre of a great clearing hacked crudely out of the forest. The Zealots were Skinny-folk. They were easily bested if you could ever get one engaged in close quarters. But the Zealots were cunning, and their heads were full of madness: they could baffle the most powerful of the Hams. They were best avoided.

Joshua tried to go alone. He set foot on the rough goat trail that led by gully and switchback turn up to that cliff-crest forest.

The trail was easy enough, but he soon turned back. The isolation worked on him, soon making him feel as if he didn’t exist at all. The People of the Grey Earth needed nothing in life so much as each other.

But word of his project permeated the gossip-ridden hut. A few days later, to his surprise, he was approached by the young girl Mary, who asked him about the cliff, and the forest, and the strange sky seed.

And a day after that, to his greater surprise, she accompanied him on the trail.

She gossiped all the way to the top of the cliff. “…Ruth say Abel skinny as an En’lish. An” Ruth tell tha” to Miriam. An” Miriam tell Caleb, an” Caleb tell Abel. An” Abel throw rocks and skins all over th” hut. So Abel couple Miriam, and he tell Caleb about tha’, and he tell Ruth. And Ruth say…”

Unlike himself she was no loner. She was immersed in her little society. By comparison it was as if he couldn’t even see or hear the vibrant, engaged people she described.

All of which made it still stranger that she should choose to accompany him on this purposeless jaunt. But Mary was at a key moment in her life, and a certain wanderlust was in her blood right now. Soon she would have to leave the security of the hearths her mother built, and share her life with the men, and with the children who would follow. To cross from one side of a skin hut to the other was an immense journey for someone like Mary. And as nervous courage empowered her for that great adventure, she seemed ready, for the time being, to take on much more outlandish quests.

She was not in oestrus, to Joshua’s great relief. As he made his careful way up the cliff face he was pleased not to have the distraction of his own singing blood.

They reached the top of the cliff. Here they found a shrub laden with bright yellow fruit, and they sat side by side at the cliff’s edge, plucking the fruit, their broad feet dangling in the air. They gazed out in silence towards the east, and the sea.

The sun was still rising, and its light glimmered from the sea’s steel-grey, wrinkled hide. The distinct curve of the world was reflected in layers of scattered purple clouds which hovered over the sea. Joshua could see the grassy plain where he lived, sweeping towards the ocean, terminating in dune fields and pale sand. Near the squat brown shape of the hut itself, people moved to and fro, tiny and clear. He followed streams, shining lines of silver that led towards the sea.

A small group of antelopes picked their way through the morning grass. One of them looked up, as if staring directly at him.

Joshua felt himself dissolve, out from the centre of his head, to the periphery of the world. There was no barrier around him, no layer of interpretation or analogy or nostalgia; for now he was the plain and the sea and the clouds, and he was the slim doe that looked up at the cliff, just as he was the stocky, quiet man who gazed down from it. For a time he was immersed in the world’s beauty in a way no human could have shared.

Then, by unspoken consent, Joshua and Mary folded their legs under them and stood. Side by side, they walked into the forest that crowded close to the cliff.

The green dark was a strong contrast to the bright sea vista. It was not a comfortable place to be.

Washed by the salty air off the sea, the forest was chill, thick with a clammy moisture that settled into Joshua’s bones. And as they penetrated deeper the ground was covered in a tangled mass of roots, branches, leaves and moss, so that in some places Joshua couldn’t see the actual surface at all. He slipped, stumbled and crashed over the undergrowth, making a huge amount of noise.

Mary started to shiver and complain, growing increasingly fearful. But Joshua pulled his skin wraps tighter around him and shoved his way deeper into the forest.

A shadow slid through the wood, just a little way ahead, utterly silent.

Joshua and Mary both froze. Joshua bunched his fists. Was it a Zealot?

The shadow slowed to a halt, and Joshua made out a squat, stocky body, with short legs and immensely long arms, the whole covered by a dark brown layer of hair. A hand reached out and grabbed a bamboo tree. The tree was pulled down until it cracked, and drawn towards a gaping mouth.

It was a Nutcracker-man. Joshua relaxed.

Mary stumbled closer to Joshua, making a cracking noise.

The Nutcracker-man turned his great head with its sculpted skull ridge and giant cheekbones. Perhaps he saw them; if he did he showed no concern. He pulled his bamboo towards his mouth and bit sideways at the trunk, seeking the pithy interior. As he chewed, the heavy muscles that worked his jaw expanded and contracted, making his entire head move.

Though slow and foolish and easily trapped, the Nutcrackers” muscles made them formidable opponents. But the Nutcrackers rarely ventured from their forests, and when they did they showed no instinct for aggression against the Hams. Likewise the Hams did not eat people. The two kinds of people had little in common and nothing to fight about, and simply avoided each other.

After a short time the Nutcracker-man finished his bamboo. He slid effortlessly away into the green, placing his hands and feet slowly and methodically, but he moved rapidly and almost noiselessly, soon outstripping any effort Joshua might have made to catch him.

Out of curiosity Joshua and Mary tried the bamboo. It took both of them to crack a trunk as thick as the one the Nutcracker had pulled over with one hand, and when he tried to bite into it Joshua’s teeth slid off the trunk’s glossy casing.

They moved deeper into the forest. The sun, showing in glittering fragments through the dense canopy, was now high. But Joshua caught occasional glimpses of the sea, and he kept it to his right, so that he knew he was working roughly the way the floating black and white seed had fallen. Mary kept close behind him. Her biceps showed, hard and massive, beneath the tight skins wrapped around her arms.

And now there was another shadow passing through the forest ahead. But this time there was much more noise. Maybe it was a bear, careless of who or what heard it. They both crouched down in a dense patch of tangled branches, and peered out fearfully.

The shadow was small, even slender.

It was just a man, and a feeble-looking man at that, with nothing like the bulk of a Ham, still less a Nutcracker. He was a Skinny: surely a Zealot. He wore skins wrapped closely around his limbs and torso, and he carried a length of bamboo tube. His face was covered by an ugly mass of black beard, and he was muttering to himself as he blundered noisily through the forest.