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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

‘Well, look at me! I’m not worried. I know I’ve done my best. There are some things I obviously didn’t understand properly, but I know our Mother can see how I’ve tried to help her, and I know she’ll explain where I went wrong.’

But she still couldn’t help wondering just how Gela was going to do that, and worrying about what the answer might be. In some ways, it might actually have been easier for Mary to have accepted that the whole story wasn’t true than to accept that part of it was true but that she herself had been completely wrong about her own place in it. It might have been easier to accept that Gela was dead, and that no one would ever come from Earth, than it was to accept that Gela was alive and Gela had really come back to Eden, but that she’d never ever spoken to Mary.

A couple of wakings before Luke reached the same spot, she passed along the ridge above the Crying Tree. She thought of her ancestor Wise Mehmet, down next to that exact same tree more than two hundred years ago, beginning to face up to the fact that he’d made the wrong choice, followed the wrong man, believed in the wrong story.

But it was easy for him, she thought. He’d only been with John a short time. He was still young. No one was asking him to give up something he’d believed in all his life.

She’d reached Old Family cluster just as the crowd was gathering in Circle Clearing to see that second show of pictures on the screens. There was the new veekle standing there in middle of Circle on its thin thin legs, just where the Davidfolk had always said it would be. There were the tall Earth people in their strange smooth wraps that seemed to be made out of some kind of soft metal. There was a beautiful woman with dark dark skin.

So it really was true! Poor Mary was trembling. Her mouth was dry. She didn’t know what to feel or to think. She’d always said that Earth would come, she’d always told people they must get ready for it, but it turned out that she wasn’t at all ready herself. She’d certainly never really thought she’d see Gela standing in front of her in her own lifetime, as alive and real as anyone she met as she travelled across the Davidfolk Ground.