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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

She’d said my heart was pure as a whitelantern flower, and I knew that wasn’t so. But I also knew that Mary’s was pure. It wasn’t like a whitelantern flower, not gentle and white, but it was pure pure like a flame. Of course she’d never say anything she didn’t believe herself. Of course not. Of all people on Eden, Mary would be the last to do that. Anyone who knew her could see that all that mattered to her was speaking for Mother Gela and bringing Family back home. She’d given her whole life to that. Of all people, she could be trusted to speak the truth.

And yet I still didn’t tell her about Starlight, and nor did I tell her that I myself had heard the Secret Story.

Eleven

They were right round us, their cold metal faces all alike, staring down at us from the backs of those strange blue bucks. The bucks shifted restlessly from foot to foot, snuffling with their mouth feelers and scratching at the dirt with their claws. We Michael’s Place folk formed a kind of circle, and some of the men pointed their spears out towards the Johnfolk. But we knew there was no point in fighting them. There were thirty of us, but most were oldies or little kids, and only a few of us had anything to fight with. There were about thirty of them too, but every one of them was a strong grownup man, and all of them carried either spears with long long metal tips, or bows and metal-tipped arrows.

I looked round for my kids. Dave, still on Ugly’s back, was shielding Candy and Metty in his arms. Fox had come to stand beside me. His face was blank, but he silently reached up for my hand. How could I protect him? Yet even now he took some comfort from my being near.

Trueheart had come over to be with her mother. We watched the metal faces of the ringmen, waiting for them to decide what they were going to do. Every grownup, and every kid who was old enough to talk, was thinking of the old stories about how cruel the Johnfolk had been, all those years ago, in their last big fight with the Davidfolk. We remembered how they’d taken children from their mothers: boys to raise up as ringmen, and girls to make into the mothers of yet more ringmen. That was how they built up their numbers when once they’d been so few and Davidfolk had been so many. We remembered how they’d burnt down whole clusters, how they’d done for young men, and forced their dicks on women and young girls.