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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

But right now it was different for Harry. He had a story to tell that he knew for certain was true. He knew the Johnfolk wouldn’t believe it, any more than he would have believed it if they’d told it to him, but he had seen with his own eyes the veekle in Circle Clearing, and he had no doubts about it at all. And that made him strong strong. He wasn’t standing on a wobbly stone just at that moment. He was standing on solid rock. It felt good good. Even the coldness of the Dark felt kind of good as it bit through to his bones. It told him he was right there in the world, with nothing left to hide behind.

‘We were proud proud of him,’ was what his guards said afterwards.

‘You can shoot me if you want,’ he called out, ‘but I’m coming forward anyway, and you can see for yourself that I can’t possibly hurt you.’

Forty-three

Gaia let me try on her ring. We were sitting outside the Earth people’s shelter with Starlight and Clare. Little Suzie was sleeping beside Clare on a piece of woollybuck skin: her shoulder hadn’t completely healed yet, of course, but all the heat had gone out of it. She wasn’t sick any more, and Flame had gone out scavenging with the other grownups and older kids. Metty was asleep on my lap. Candy and two three other little kids were playing nearby with a couple of little dolls Dave had made for them from bone and buckskin.

‘Let’s pretend they get in the veekle and go flying off to Earth,’ Candy said.

‘No, that’s boring,’ said her friend Mehmet. ‘Let’s pretend a leopard comes for them, but they do for it with a spear.’

Earlier on, the three Earth people had opened up that old Screen with a kind of metal knife. All three of them had spent some time leaning over it, looking at what was inside and saying things to one another that I couldn’t make sense of at all. Now Deep and Marius were poking round in it with some of their strange tools, still speaking to each other from time to time in words that I could hear, but could get no meaning from. Dave squatted nearby, whittling away at bits of bone with a stone knife. He was no good for hunting or scavenging.

After I’d tried the ring on my finger, I took it off and looked at the tiny letters inside. ‘It’s beautiful beautiful,’ I said as I handed it back to Gaia.