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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,’ she said. She was riding at the time, and I was walking beside her. ‘We don’t know how life began on Eden, do we? We know it came from Underworld, as Michael Namegiver taught us – and you notice the Hiding People knew that too – but we don’t know how it came into being down there in first place. So who am I to call those people liars?’ She laughed, and pointed out two little sweetbats watching us from the branch of a tree. ‘And if there was a mother of all the creatures in Eden, I reckon it would be a bat, don’t you? I’m sure they’re the smartest of the animals. I mean, look at those two. It’s like they’re curious about us, isn’t it? It’s like they’re trying to figure us out. None of the other creatures are like that.’

‘I’ve heard there are bats in New Earth that can be trained to speak.’

Mary shrugged. ‘Well, maybe, but you’ve got to bear in mind that those Johnfolk are liars. Did you know they even claim to have real cars ?’

Presently the path became strangely dark, and we knew there must be nightmakers not far ahead of us, reaching up with their long black necks to bite the lanternflowers from the trees, and bending down to chew up the starflowers.

‘Why did you warn those people about the Secret Story?’ I asked.

Mary turned and looked back the way we came, though the Hiding People had been out of sight for a while. ‘Well, I reckon people like that are easy easy to fool, and I just don’t want them to be fooled like that. Like I said in Veeklehouse, Gela is alive. She speaks to us now. So, even if the Secret Story was true, even if it really was a thing Gela said to her children long ago when she was young, why would we need to pass it on when we can still hear her now? What would be the point?’

The nightmakers had done a thorough job. With no starflowers or lanterns left along the path, all the light that was left to us came from behind the trees along the path, instead of from them or from beneath them. I could see the big square shape of Mary’s head, but I could barely make out her face.

‘And of course it’s not true, anyway,’ she said. ‘Gela hates it. You can’t yet read our Mother’s heart like I can, Angie dear – though you will one waking, and you’ll be brilliant at it – but take it from me that Gela hates it that people can speak that nonsense in her name.’

We rode for a while in silence beneath those strange dark trees.