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Back Daughter of Eden
Chapters (68)
  1. Title page
  2. Dedication
  3. Part I
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.
  30. Part II
  31. Twenty-six
  32. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Thirty-five
  41. Thirty-six
  42. Thirty-seven
  43. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-one
  48. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 25. 15:30 MT.
  49. Forty-two
  50. Forty-three
  51. Forty-four
  52. Forty-five
  53. Forty-six
  54. Forty-seven
  55. Forty-eight
  56. Forty-nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-one
  59. Fifty-two
  60. Fifty-three
  61. Fifty-four
  62. Part III
  63. Fifty-five
  64. Fifty-six
  65. Fifty-seven
  66. Fifty-eight
  67. Also by Chris Beckett
  68. Copyright page

A square of metal swung down underneath it and straight away a kind of ladder came down. We stared and waited and, after a dozen heartbeats or so, we saw feet on the steps. Me and Trueheart squeezed each other’s hands even more tightly. A woman was climbing down. We saw her knees, her hips, her belly, her chest, and then there she was, standing at the bottom of the steps underneath the veekle. She was smiling. And she wasn’t looking at the high people or at anyone else, she was looking straight at me.

I had never seen such a perfect face. Her teeth were white – white white, and not a single one missing! – her skin was smooth smooth, and so dark that you could almost call it black, and her eyes were bright and clear. I always thought Starlight was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but this woman was beautiful beautiful in a way I couldn’t even have imagined if I hadn’t seen it. She was tall too, tall tall for a woman, taller even than Starlight, taller than almost every man I knew. And she was wearing a strange wrap that fitted tightly round her body and arms and legs. It looked like it was made out of some kind of grey metal, but it followed her movements in a way that buckskin and fakeskin never did, almost as if it was living skin.

‘Hello there! My name is Gela!’

That’s what I heard her say. That’s what everyone heard her say. And of course we all knew that all the old stories said that Gela’s skin was black, whatever Mary Shadowspeaker might have said. A few yards away from me, an old woman began to scream.

‘It’s our Mother! Our Mother has come back to us!’

And now, all round the clearing, people began to scream and shout, and some rushed forwards towards the veekle. But then the lights shone out again, all at once, bright bright, brighter than anything any of us had ever seen, scalding our eyes with their fierce fierce whiteness, so that the people stopped running and backed away again, crying out in fear.

But I didn’t back away and nor did Trueheart. Something about the woman had convinced us there was nothing to be afraid of and, peeping through my fingers, I could see she was still just standing there like nothing had happened.

‘Don’t rush her, people!’ I called out, and then I heard Starlight call out as well. ‘Hold back, everyone! Let her have some space!’