Not Wanted on the Voyage

In the dark that followed - Lucy said; "where I was born, the trees were always in the sun. And I left that place because it was intolerant of rain. Now, we are here in a place where there are no trees and there is only rain. And I intend to leave this place - because it is intolerant of light. Somewhere - there must be somewhere where darkness and light are reconciled. So I am starting a rumour, here and now, of yet another world. I don't know when it will present itself - I don't know where it will be. But - as with all those other worlds now past when it is ready, I intend to go there.

They waited. The door did not open. The rain did not stop. The darkness made a tent and covered them completely.

...with every new manoeuvre, the light was growing dimmer--fading by numbers as well as strength--and the sound could no longer be heard, but only the pulse of it--seen going out in the darkness--losing its edges--caving in at its centre--webbing, now, as if a spider was spinning against the rain--until the last few strands of brightness fell--and were extinguished--silenced and removed from life and from all that lives forever. And the bell tolled--but the ark, as ever, was adamant. Its shape had taken on a voice. And the voice said: no.

It was not the thought of seeing God that upset her. It was the thought of being seen.

Cruelty was fear in disguise and nothing more. And hadn't one of Japeth's holy strangers said that fear itself was nothing more than a failure of the imagination?

As for the present-day Festivals they were endless--blurred--going on forever so that no one knew where one had ended in the next begun.

He was the tallest and the strongest of all the children ever born to Doctor and Mrs Noyes and the first of them to survive.