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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

A tubeslinker stuck its head out of the airhole of the whitelantern tree above me. There were two bats hunting for flutterbyes round the tree’s lanterns, and the slinker watched them as they dived and swooped. As it watched the bats, the slinker swayed from side to side, following their movements. And then suddenly one of the bats came too near and it sprung outwards. Two three feet of thin bony body came shooting out of that hole as it grabbed the bat in its jaws and held it tight. The bat thrashed about with its wings and waved its little arms about, but none of that stopped the slinker from dragging it back down into the hot sticky darkness inside the tree, crushing its wings as they were tugged inside the hole.

Eventually we came back to Veeklehouse again, my fourth visit this time, about a year on from the third. As she always did after a journey, Mary lay down for a rest and, once again, I walked over to the cliff. That’s how it is, I’ve noticed, when you come back to a place where you’ve been before. Unless you make an effort to avoid it, you find yourself doing the exact same things you did last time you were there.

I went back to the cliff, but I wasn’t looking for New Earthers this time. What would be the point of finding New Earthers to hear them mock my old friend, and laugh about her death? But since that time by the White Streams when I couldn’t sleep, I’d been missing my home a lot. I knew it was going to be a long time yet before we went back there, but I thought that if I could at least have some news of Knee Tree Grounds, it would make the place feel a bit closer again. So instead of trying to find New Earth paddle-men, I sought out the Davidfolk paddle-men, the ones who took the traders from Veeklehouse up and down poolside to places like Rockway Edge, and David Water, and Brown River.

I must have spoken to twenty men on the ledge under the cliff where the boats were, but most of them hadn’t even heard of Knee Tree Grounds, and the few that had heard of it had never been there. I knew I’d been away from Mary too long – she’d be waking up now, wondering where I was, and wanting me to help her get ready for her show – but I just couldn’t bring myself to go back to her without having some news, so I kept on asking, until at last I did find a bloke who knew something.

‘Knee Tree Grounds?’ he said. He was an old guy with a long white beard. ‘You’re one of the people that used to live there, are you? I wondered what happened to you all.’