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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

Of course Harry’s two guards, David and Mehmet, rushed forwards at once on their bucks, but they didn’t get far. Straight away Luke’s ringmen fired more arrows, not just one or two but dozens of them, and the two of them fell backwards off their bucks onto the snow. Now the other six guards came riding forwards too. The ringmen aimed their bows. In a couple of heartbeats all six would be dead as well. But then Harry yelled out. He was still alive, kneeling in the light of Luke’s buck, with a big circle of red red snow all round him. And he yelled out not just to his own men but to everyone who was there.

‘Gela’s heart, stop it !’ he yelled. ‘Stop this nonsense, will you, and listen!’

And everyone did. There was something about the way this dying man spoke that pulled them up short, ringmen and guards both, Johnfolk and Davidfolk, even the Headmanson of New Earth. Everyone stopped and listened, and in the silence, the Headmanson and the ringmen who’d rode up beside him heard a woman’s voice, small small, that seemed to be speaking from Leader Harry’s hand.

‘Hello Johnfolk,’ it said, ‘this is Gaia from Earth. Three of us have come in a starship. Please stop fighting now and come to meet us.’

Then Harry tipped forwards onto the bloody snow and the black square fell from his hand. Luke jumped down from his buck and picked it up. Almost at once it spoke again, startling him so much that he dropped it back onto the snow.

Luke stood there for a moment, looking down at it, then he turned towards his men, his face suddenly scared and desperate, almost like he was hoping they’d tell him what to do. Of course they said nothing. He couldn’t even read anything in their faces, hidden away as they were by their buckskin headwraps. All he could see here or there was a glinting eye. After a couple of heartbeats he stooped down again and once more picked up the black square. He must have held it a different way this time because it remained silent. He tipped it back and forth in his hand. He sniffed at it. He turned round to his men again, as if he still hadn’t given up on the hope they might know what to do next, but of course nothing came back to him from those rows and rows of blank buckskin masks. In New Earth, just as in the Davidfolk Ground, low people don’t tell high people what they should do.