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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

At least I had Dave and all my kids with me, though. Tom and Clare had four boys in the guards, two of them at Veeklehouse. They knew quite well that either those two were fighting right now with their glass-tipped spears against enemies with metal spears and knives, or they were already dead. It was same for most of the older parents who were with us.

‘Even if my boys live,’ Clare kept worrying, ‘how are me and Tom ever going to find them again if we can’t go back to Michael’s Place?’

One time, some traders from Veeklehouse came past us. I knew them slightly because they’d sometimes had some of Dave’s bone tools from me, when I took a batch into Veeklehouse to trade. There was a man, his two shelterwomen and nine of their kids, all packed onto four big smoothbucks. They were headed to Davidstand too, but having no one among them who had to go on foot, they could travel much faster than we could.

‘We’ve lost everything,’ the man told us. He was a big guy with a black beard, and he always wore a long red fancy wrap like he thought he was one of the high people. ‘They burnt down our shelter, and smashed up every single bit of our trading stuff that they didn’t take for themselves. But we’re lucky to be alive. Bloke who traded next to us – you remember old David with the bald head? – well, he tried to stop them from taking his stuff, and ended up with a spear through his belly.’

‘They were like starbirds crawling over a dead buck,’ the older of his shelterwomen said. Her name was Kindness, which always made me smile, because she never seemed to smile and was hard hard hard when it came to trading. ‘They took all our food and our badjuice, and when they’d had enough, they flung what was left at one another and trampled it under their feet.’

‘Yeah, and then they propped dead guards up against the posts of shelters,’ the man said, ‘and pranced round them laughing, in women’s wraps and feathers. You’d never see our men behave like that.’

Later, when Clare was busy with her little ones, her daughter Trueheart came to walk beside me and Fox.

‘I guess you’ve been to Davidstand before, Auntie Angie?’