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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

Everything in the red box came wrapped in the same strange shiny covering with tiny writing on it. Gaia tore the stuff off and threw it aside (later on, people would fight for a piece of it) and took out a long thin thing with a point on the end, a bit like the needles made from spiketree thorns that we use to sew our wraps. Then she pressed the thorn into the flesh of the little girl’s arm. I saw it catch the light as it slid in, and realized that it was made of white metal too. Everyone gasped. After a short time Gaia pulled it out again and wiped clean the tiny hole that it had made with some more white stuff out of yet another shiny wrap.

‘Her fever will go down soon,’ she told Flame, standing up, and gently placing Suzie back into her arms. ‘But we’ll need to clean her wound again.’

Flame and Tom and the others stared up at her.

‘Are you saying she’ll live?’ Tom asked, his voice all wobbly and choked up.

‘Oh yes,’ Gaia said. ‘You’ll see her looking a lot better quite soon, and she’ll be fine in a day or two.’

She said ‘day’ instead of waking, that old Earth word, like a few old folk still did in Circle Valley.

Tom and Flame were crying, and so was Clare and me and Trueheart. Even Gaia’s eyes were shiny, like people’s sometimes are when they’ve done something good. Big grey old Tom fell down onto his knees and pressed her hand against his tear-smeared beard.

‘Thankyou, Mother, thankyou.’

Now there was a pause, while the people who had seen all this took it in, and those further back gradually received the news about what had happened. Whole of the clearing outside the Circle was packed with people now, and their excited voices came together in a constant restless clamour that drowned out the sound of the trees. Then people started to shout out.

‘Hey, I’ve got a sore leg,’ called out a woman just beyond the guards. ‘Can you fix that for me too?’

‘My eyes are going,’ shouted an old guy. ‘Can you make me see again?’

‘My little girl has a sore rash on her skin that won’t go away!’ called a young woman.

‘My teeth ache!’ a man said. ‘They hurt so much I can’t sleep.’

‘I’ve got clawfeet.’

‘My baby boy has a bad batface.’

‘My granddad can’t breathe properly. Have you got something in your red box for that?’