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Back Daughter of Eden Save as PDF
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 should come with me,’ he said. ‘My brother Dave is looking for a shelterwoman. He’s a clawfoot and he’s a bit slow, but he’s alright. I reckon you and him would get on.’

Seven

Whatever was happening in Veeklehouse had long ago been buried by the hum of forest all round us, the pulsing of the trees, pumping their sap down to find the heat of Eden’s core, and pumping it back up again.

Too tired to speak, we walked in silence. We wanted to get as far away as possible from the Johnfolk, and so we pushed on for much longer than a normal waking, though our feet were sore and tired, and our kids were worn out. In the end it was our bucks that made us stop. Loping along in that strange way they have, with their backwards bending knees and their splayed feet, and their six legs that each move in turn, they began to stumble under their heavy loads, and to pant and groan and ooze green froth from their mouth feelers.

Well, we recognized the signs and we did not want bucks that couldn’t go any further and would have to be done for. Not only did we rely on them to carry our stuff and our clawfeet and old people and our little kids, but each one of them was a few wakings’ meat for us if things ever got hard and we couldn’t find anything else to eat. So we finally stopped, and ate some flowercakes, along with a slinker that Davidson and Tom had managed to do for along the way, tearing its tough muddy-tasting meat from its bony shell and hoping it didn’t give us a bellyache. Then Tom drew a circle on the ground and called out to Gela, as all Davidfolk do at the end of a waking, asking the Mother of us all to look after all until the time came for us to return to Earth:

‘Keep us safe, Mother! Keep us strong! Help us hold together and help one another! Help us be patient until the time comes, just as you were patient patient in all your time on Eden. Help us beat the Johnfolk and drive them back into the water.’

He got out the little guitar that my Dave had made for him from the hard grey shell of a groundrat, and started to twang out a tune on its string. It was a song from Earth, one of those songs that were so old that half the words don’t even make sense, but we still sing the sounds anyway so as to keep the song as close as possible to how it was sung on Earth. We used to sing that same song back on Knee Tree Grounds, and quite probably the Johnfolk sang it too, but it was surely the Davidfolk’s favourite song:

Come Tree Row, take me home