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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

Long ago, Mary told me, the people in Rockway Edge used to be Johnfolk. There’d been a little group of them up here, as far rockway as you can go, a bit like the other lot way down alpway at Brown River, at far end of Wide Forest. But there hadn’t been so many up here as there were down there. So, while the Brown River lot had managed to keep their own Headman and their own ground and their own story, up here at Rockway Edge, Great David’s son, Harry Stonehand, had been able to surround the Johnfolk with so many guards that they had no chance of either beating him or getting away from him. Stonehand had given them a choice. Either their blokes could fight him until none of them were left alive – in which case he’d take all the women and kids to be helpers and bedwarmers for him and his leaders, and send good Davidfolk up to live on their ground and in their shelters – or they could agree to turn their backs on John and come back to True Family – in which case they could keep their shelters and carrying on living here as they’d done before.

‘He gave the Edgefolk two wakings to decide,’ Mary said. ‘He even had horns blown to mark the time. One blast at the beginning of each waking, two in middle, and three when the waking was done. The whole first waking went by and nothing came back to him. Then the second waking came. The first horn blew. Nothing. The two blasts blew. Nothing. But right at the end of that second waking, just as Harry’s guard was blowing the third of the three horn blasts, the Headman of Rockway Edge came and knelt down in front of Harry and told him his people would come back to the Family of Gela.’

Mary’d had enough of walking now, so she climbed up on the buck behind me, and we began to ride out onto one of those narrow fingers of ground, in between two fingers of water. There were strange creatures here. Three small bucks ran across our path and dived into the water, heading down into the shiny wavyweed, as easily as if water was where they always lived. Their four hind feet had skin stretched between their toes so they could use them like paddles as well as walk on them, and they didn’t use their front legs as legs for walking or swimming at all, but held them out before themselves, like the arms of a fish.