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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

Luke came straight to Strongheart’s big shelter, where the Head Guard sat with Starlight and Newjohn. (The three of them had run out of things to say to each other by then, and spent a lot of time talking with their own people, and sending messages back to their own grounds, while they waited for news from Wide Forest. Starlight told me that she and Newjohn sometimes played chess. He was a pretty good player apparently, though she beat him more times than not.)

Old Strongheart howled with grief when he saw the body of his second oldest son, kneeling and throwing himself over it to kiss, over and over, its cold cold cheeks. Leader Harry’s corpse had long since gone completely rigid. The mouth was fixed open, the eyes dried and shrunken in their sockets, and, because it had been carried over the back of a buck with its arms hanging down one side and its legs the other, it was stuck in that position, lying on the ground on its side with its arms extended upwards and its legs straight, its head facing its knees, as if poor Harry had been frozen solid in middle of trying to touch his toes. ‘I should have died,’ the old man wailed, ‘not you, my boy. It should have been me.’

Harry was no boy really, of course. In fact he was a grand­father himself, many times over. Jane and Flowerlight knelt beside him, Strongheart’s two young shelterwomen, stroking his back and making soothing sounds.

Luke watched all this, appalled. When that arrow had done for his friend Gerry, his feelings for the Davidfolk had turned to pure hate. But all that had changed since he’d heard Gaia’s voice in the linkup – Gerry would never have died, after all, if the Johnfolk in their pride hadn’t crossed the water – and now he blamed himself, not just for Harry’s death, but for Gerry’s as well, and many others too. He knelt down beside the old man.

‘Forgive me, Father,’ he whispered. ‘Forgive me. I know how it hurts, and if only I could undo what I did, I would, even if it meant giving up my own stupid life.’

Strongheart showed no sign that he’d even heard him, his tear-stained face pressed against the cold stiff shoulder of his son, so Luke lowered his own face right down until it was on a level with the old man’s. ‘I’m so sorry, Father. We thought he had a knife, but he was just trying to . . .’