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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

We stood there staring at him, some of us with our mouths wide open. Teacher Gerry laughed.

‘You look pretty surprised!’ he said, like he really believed that, right then, when we were frightened for our lives, we would be interested one way or the other in his weird ideas. ‘But what’s your explanation, eh? How did bats get here? Or trees, or woollybucks, or people? They can’t just have made themselves. No, President made everything. It all began in his head.’

Again he laughed cheerfully. He genuinely seemed to have no idea how scared we were. He was one of those people who likes everyone and just assumes that everyone will like him back. It didn’t seem to even occur to him that we might not feel too friendly towards ringmen who’d forced their way onto our ground, and driven us from our homes. It didn’t seem to strike him that some of those guards these ringmen had done for at Veeklehouse might have been the sons and dads and brothers of the people standing here in front of him now.

‘But you don’t have to take it from me,’ Teacher Gerry said, ‘because if you listen hard enough, President will speak to you himself. You can hear his voice, I promise you, if only you make your mind quiet enough. And if you think about it, that isn’t even surprising. It’s him that’s telling this whole story, after all, and if he fell silent, there’d be nothing left: no you, no me, no Eden, no Earth, no stars, no anything at all. Think about that. President is speaking all the time, but it’s like the pumping of the trees, the humming of forest round us. We don’t notice it because it’s always there.’

He smiled at us, and then glanced back at Luke, who smiled back at him yet again like they were remembering some private joke they’d shared lying side by side, when no one else was there.

‘But that’s enough from me, eh?’

‘More than enough, I’d say,’ said Luke, ‘if the faces of these poor people are anything to go by!’

Gerry laughed merrily at that, while Luke called out to his men. They backed away to the left and the right so as to open up a path between them.

We looked at each other, wondering if this was a trick, a weird cruel joke. Maybe they were just waiting for us to make a move, and then they’d laugh and take our bucks and our meat and our sleeping skins and knives, steal whichever kids of ours took their fancy, force their dicks on whichever women they liked, and do for everyone else. It seemed quite likely.