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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

Straight away Tom backed up his clawfoot brother. ‘Dave’s right. You should stay here, Angie, and look after your own.’

I felt Gaia and the two Earth men looking at me to see how I’d respond. You never saw Marius or Deep bossing Gaia about: they treated each other like they were all the same. The rest of the Michael’s Place folk watched as well: Clare, Davidson, Little Harry, Flame with baby Suzie sleeping peacefully in her arms. Dave and Tom couldn’t stop me, after all, and Dave and the others could easily easily look after our kids. But I shrugged and accepted what Tom had said. He was cluster head after all, and I had to live with these people.

The Earth people frowned and glanced at one another, but they accepted my decision. They fetched some boxes made of metal from their veekle, and also a strange big metal thing with wheels, like a child’s toy car, though it only had two wheels, big fat ones, one in front and one behind. The bike, they called it. They put it together quickly quickly out of several pieces, and it came alive just like the veekle, giving out a little high whining sound, shining out light, and moving by itself through forest, somehow finding its way round tree trunks and rocks and pools. All three Earth people climbed onto its back with those metal boxes and they rode it like it was a buck.

Strongheart sent some guards to keep them safe. There were no forest leopards any more in Circle Valley, but there were still slinkers, which could take off your finger or bite a hole in your face, and lately snowleopards had started to come down sometimes from the Dark.

‘I’m sure we’ll be alright,’ Gaia said, and Deep showed us another new thing that they each of them carried, called a gun. He said it could do for an animal, even if it was a long distance away. He pointed it at a dead tree. ‘Prepare yourselves,’ he said, ‘it will make a loud noise.’ We thought he was going to throw it like a spear, or maybe put something into it like you put an arrow onto a bow, but he just pointed it and it suddenly went Bang! We all jumped, and the tree had a hole going right through it. No arrow could do that. Not even a metal one. Not even a metal arrow shot from a yard’s distance. Yet Deep was at least a hundred feet from the tree.

The Earth people were moving off on their bike, and the guards on their woollybucks were getting ready to follow them, when Trueheart suddenly spoke.

‘I’m going to go with them.’