My name is Derrial Book. What I am now is a Shepherd. What I once was … well, that’s what this confession is all about.

I was born on a small moon away from the Core, where men and women worked the land to provide for their families, to give shelter to those that needed it, and to thank God for both. Not that there was much time for that, save on Sundays, when my family would all dress up in their finest (which wasn't much different from their everyday clothes, but with fewer mendings) and go to Church.

We’d sit and listen to the preacher, a Shepherd name of Owen, who read from an old Bible he said was from Earth-that-was, bringing the stories of Daniel in the lion’s den and David smiting Goliath to life. Shepherd Owen didn’t think much of the New Testament, with its heavy emphasis on forgiveness – he preferred the ‘eye for an eye’ battles from the Old, and I would sit there watching the tales unfold bloodily in my head, one of the few pleasures in a hard existence.

My Pa always thought I was going to be a farmer like him, and I was pretty sure he was right, but by the time I was fourteen the idea of breaking my back in the fields every day had lost its allure. I saw him, almost unable to straighten up of a morning, old before his time, and I came round to the conclusion that I wasn't going to end up like that.

“So what else you likely to do, Derrial?” Pa said when I told him. “You ain't got the book learning to be much more.”

“I know that, Pa,” I said. “But I’ve been reading much as I can, and the Shepherd’s been giving me extra lessons.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” Pa looked at me with that shrewd expression I had come to know. “That what you wanna be? A Shepherd?”

“I don’t think so,” I admitted. “Having to be polite to people all the time, ministering to their needs … it don’t seem like I could do that.”

Pa smiled. “No, you always was one to head out on your own.” He sighed, something that seemed to come right from his boots. “So what did you have in mind?”

“I …” I found it h