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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

I think it was some time after the Earth people and the high people had climbed down from the table again that folk started to go up close to the veekle, standing with their toes against the stones of the Circle, and peering up at its shiny metal skin. It was too high up to reach, but four five kids, on far side to where the Earth people were standing, ran right underneath it, even though that meant going inside the Circle, and one of them started to climb up the ladder. Guards shouted after them to come back, but didn’t dare follow after them.

‘Leave it, please!’ called Marius sharply, and as the kid on the ladder jumped down again, and all of them ran off squealing, he pointed at the veekle with a little black thing in his hand and the ladder pulled up inside by itself with a funny whirring sound, and the piece of metal closed up over it until you could hardly make out the place it had come from in that smooth metal skin.

More people were still coming into the clearing. They were given meat and cakes by Strongheart’s helpers.

Then Clare came to find me where me and my kids were standing with the Earth people and the high people. With her were Tom and Flame and little Suzie. They were stopped by one guard after another, but they talked each guard round, and gradually made their way forwards. The poisonfever had taken the little girl so badly that she wasn’t even awake any more. She obviously didn’t have long to live, and the way she flopped in Flame’s arms you might have thought she was already dead if it wasn’t for the heat of her, which you could feel without even touching her, like the heat that comes off a spiketree.

‘Ask them, Angie,’ said Tom. ‘Ask them if they can help her.’

‘Gaia?’ I called out. ‘Marius? Deep?’

The three Earth people were talking to the high people and they didn’t hear me, but Starlight did, and she drew their attention to us, and to the sick child in Flame’s arms.

Straight away Gaia and Marius came over, along with Strongheart’s two young shelterwomen, Jane and Flowerlight. I can’t believe that those two tough young high women would normally have bothered about the baby of a low girl like Flame. It would be unusual for them ever to be this close to such a child, in any case, because all their helpers had to leave their babies behind when they came to work at the Great Shelter. But now, when they saw how seriously the Earth people were taking this, it was like the two of them were competing with each other to show how much they cared.