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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’re sorry, are you?’ Treelight screamed. ‘So what have you lost, eh? What have you had to give up? You’ll be back on Earth in a few wakings, I guess, telling your friends about the funny Eden folk who don’t have lecky-trickity, or starships, or pictures that can talk.’

All three Earth people stared at her with scared, shocked eyes.

Treelight was just one person, but there were many many who were like her. Most of the people there were hungry, and worrying how they’d keep their kids alive when Strongheart’s stores ran out. Most of them had lost their homes. Many had seen friends done for by the Johnfolk. Most had men and newhair boys who were still in Wide Forest and could well be dead. Over and over, the mothers and fathers of guards had had to listen to stories about how our guards’ glass-tipped spears were no match for the metal spears and arrows of the masked ringmen. Over and over they’d had to hear about what the ringmen did to the men they caught.

All these people had clung to the hope that the Earth people would save them somehow, take away from them the reasons for their fear and grief. It was like they’d been running from a leopard and for a little while had really thought they were going to escape it, but now suddenly they’d reached a high high cliff and they couldn’t run any further. They had no choice but to stand and wait for that merciless creature to reach them.

I suppose if they’d thought about it, most people would have seen that this wasn’t really the Earth people’s fault, but right now the crowd wasn’t in the mood for thinking. And people all round the clearing began to scream out in their bitterness and disappointment as that dark dark leopard of grief and fear began to gobble them up.

‘It’s alright for you, isn’t it?’

‘What did you come here for anyway?’

‘You should have left us alone!’

‘The slinkers! They just came here to make fun of us!’

Everyone was full of fear, everyone was full of rage. Kids picked it up at once. Candy had stood up to shout and laugh with the others when those pictures of Eden people began to appear on the screens, but now she came back to my lap again, pressing her cheek against my breasts and putting her thumb in her mouth as she watched and listened to the anger all round us. Fox had been standing apart from me with some friends, but now he came back too and squatted beside me, resting one hand on my knee, his face tense and pale.

In front of the Circle of Stones, guards tightened their grip round their spears. I don’t think the Earth people would have lived if they hadn’t been there.