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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

Tom snorted. No one ever mentioned Half Sky in Michael’s Place without one or other of the men snorting like that and making some kind of joke. I knew hardly anything about the place, but I’d heard you got there by going down to Brown River, and then paddling up the river itself right through middle of Snowy Dark and round the other side. Only other thing I really knew about it was that it was Tina Spiketree who first took people there, about the time that Jeff and his followers came out to Knee Tree Grounds, and for the same reason: to try and get away from the fight between the Davidfolk and Johnfolk. Sometimes you heard the Half Sky people spoken of as the Tinafolk. Not that people spoke much of them at all.

‘What?’ said Tom. ‘To the Women’s Ground? To let women boss me round? You must be joking! No way would I—’

‘They have Head Women and Headmen both, from what I’ve heard,’ Clare said, ‘and a Council that has men and women in equal numbers. And anyway, if it’s such a stupid useless place, how come Strongheart himself has invited their high people to the four hundredth Virsry?’

But Tom took no notice of that. ‘No way am I ever going to live in a Women’s Ground,’ he repeated firmly, glancing half-angrily and half-guiltily, first at Clare, and then at Trueheart, daring them to argue.

‘Me neither!’ said his brother, my Dave. ‘We get bossed round by women way too much already if you ask me.’

‘Okay, okay,’ Clare soothed them. ‘But if we don’t like their ground, we could find our own place over there. There’s lots of space, so I’ve been told. There’s a whole big forest on far side of the Dark that’s every bit as big as Wide Forest. We could find ourselves a new Michael’s Place, with no high people there to tell us what to do. Whether men or women.’

Flame giggled, that poor lonely girl. She might be Tom’s second shelterwoman but she was squatting there on the ground behind the rest of the grownups, almost like she was just another kid. ‘No high people,’ she said. ‘That sounds good to me.’

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ I came in quickly, mainly to stop one of the other women crushing her as they often did. ‘The trouble with high people is that they think the story is all about them.’

Tom frowned at me, not quite sure what I meant, but not liking the way this was going. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that’s something to think about another time. For now, we’re going to Circle Valley.’