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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

‘You!’ he called out to the six guards who were still alive. ‘You guards! Come forwards and talk. We won’t hurt you. Tell us what this thing is!’ Of course the guards didn’t move. They might just be ordinary guards, but they didn’t take their orders from Johnfolk, whether high or low. ‘Please!’ called Luke. ‘Please! We won’t hurt you! I promise you that.’

For a third time he turned back towards his men. He still had no idea what to do. He wasn’t even sure what was happening. Everything was so sudden, and so strange, and so dreadful that it was hard to believe that he was even there. But all the same, two things were becoming slowly clearer to him. The first thing was that a messenger had been sent to him by Earth, and he’d answered with an arrow. And the second was that, when stories were told about Headmanson Luke in generations to come, that would be the one thing he’d be remembered for. Long after everyone had forgotten his face, and the sound of his voice, long after anyone could remember what his friends and his family liked about him, or what he cared about, or what he was good at, people across Eden would remember that Headmanson Luke Johnson was the man who did for Earth’s messenger.

The six guards looked at each other, exchanged nods, and came reluctantly forward. They climbed down from their bucks and squatted down to attend to their leader and their two mates, David and Mehmet. But all three were dead, each one in his own slowly spreading patch of bright red snow.

One of the guards stood up – he was a guy of forty fifty with a thick grey beard called Roger – and looked straight at Headmanson Luke. He knew that Luke was a high man, and he knew that Luke’s ringmen could do for him at any moment, but he was too angry to kneel or bow or be polite. The dead guard David had been his younger brother.

‘Leader Harry got down from his buck,’ he said. ‘He came forward on his own. He threw away his spear and pulled off his wrap. Tom’s stinking dick, man, what else did he have to do to get you to listen to him?’

Luke held out the little square of glass. His hand was shaking.

‘What is this thing?’