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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

Once Marius came stumbling out and squatted down for some time in a drift of starflowers to take a crap. He took a long long time over it, and everyone watched in fascinated silence. Later on, Gaia came out and threw up two three times, and then Deep as well. It seemed our food didn’t agree with them. They did their best to smile at us in a friendly way before they hurried back inside the bark walls of their shelter.

Starlight came to see me. The other Michael’s Place people watched in amazement as this high high woman, in her blue wrap and her coloured stones, kissed me and hugged me, and then squatted down beside me to talk. They all moved back, bowing, to give us space, and when Trueheart came closer so she could listen, her mother hissed at her to leave us in peace. Glancing at Starlight to check she was okay with it, I told Clare that Trueheart could stay where she was.

‘I won’t stop long,’ Starlight said. ‘I need to be there when Strongheart and Newjohn are talking, to make sure they don’t do anything that could harm us in Half Sky. But I had to come and say hello properly, and to catch up on your story.’

‘Tell yours first,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard enough of it already to know it’s more exciting than mine.’

Starlight told me New Earth had turned out to be a cruel harsh place. She’d made dangerous enemies over there when she and Greenstone had tried to make things a bit kinder and fairer. It was really true that Greenstone had been thrown into a fire – this would have been more than ten years ago, but Starlight still had to control her face carefully as she told me this – and the same thing would have happened to Starlight if she hadn’t managed to escape across the Pool. She and the Kneefolk had put out the story about her body being found with a spear hole through it, so that the New Earthers wouldn’t come looking for her. She’d gone to Half Sky so as to be as far away from them as she could.

‘I’m so sorry that you had to hear that story, Angie, about me being dead. All I can say, that if we hadn’t told it, I think I might really have been dead by now.’ She laughed. ‘But never mind all that, eh? Your mum will be happy happy to know I’ve found you, Angie! So will everyone. You must come over and see us all!’

‘My mum ?’