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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

Of course the Michael’s Place people weren’t the last to come over Snowy Dark to get away from the Johnfolk. All the time we were gathered round the veekle in Circle Clearing, new people who’d crossed the Dark were arriving at Old Family cluster. They were tired, scared and hungry, some of them were hurt, some had the black burn, many had lost people they loved over the other side, along poolside and in Wide Forest, where the New Earth Johnfolk were roaming freely, beating our guards easily pretty much every time they tried to fight back. As these new folk arrived, they wondered why the gates were open and no guards were standing there. Then they heard the shouting and whooping coming through the trees from Circle Clearing. They heard the drums thumping away, and the horns blowing, and voices singing: ‘Come Tree Road, take me home . . .’ Yet the shelters nearby were deserted, the fires untended, the trees pumping away on their own as if this was an empty part of forest, not the oldest cluster in whole of Eden. Had the Valley people gone crazy, they wondered? Didn’t they know that the Johnfolk were tearing the Davidfolk Ground apart?

Wearily they trudged and limped through the trees towards the sound, past the empty shelters, past the meat that was beginning to burn because there was no one there to turn it, the cooking pots boiling dry, the bucks tied to trees with ropes, sniffling and snuffling because their routine had been broken. They crossed the bridge over the stream and found Circle Clearing packed with people singing and dancing round a veekle like the one in Veeklehouse, but whole and new and alive. The new people looked at each other. The folk who were already there laughed at their bewilderment.

‘Earth has come,’ someone told them. ‘Mother Gela herself has come. She’s tall tall, and beautiful beautiful, and her skin is all smooth and black, just like in the stories.’

‘And there are two beautiful men with her,’ said someone else, ‘taller and bigger than anyone you’ve ever—’

‘They’ve got no hair on their faces,’ yet another person shouted.

‘We think maybe they’re Tommy and one of the companions,’ the first one said, ‘come back to life like Gela.’

The weary people looked at one another. Up on the Dark all they’d dared hope for was to get across the snow and down where there was warmth again. Walking across the Valley, all they’d dared hope for was to reach the cluster and find something to eat. But now this! Not just those small hopes met, but the biggest hope of all! Our Mother back again to take us home to Earth!

The new people began to laugh, and to hug and kiss each other, and to join in the singing and the dancing. And presently yet more people would come in behind them.