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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

But, of course, what held my attention most at that moment were the people. The two harelipped women were the first I’d spotted, and they were still standing there – one of them quite old and wizened-looking, the other more youthful – watching us with their mouths wide open. But there were others too now. Some way over to their left, a very old man with a white beard was clutching a spear like some extra from a movie about the Stone Age, complete with a furry animal-skin garment, and a tribal emblem of white dots on his forehead. And more people were arriving all the time: men with tribal dots and spears, women with bare breasts and skins tied round their middles. We saw two more harelips and a woman dragging herself painfully along on horribly twisted feet. Everyone looked like they were suffering from acute malnutrition. Everyone was shrunken, twisted, gaunt. As you’d expect, they all had Afro-­European features, some inclining more to the African side, some more to the European.

‘You sure we should go outside now, Gaia?’ asked Deep. ‘How do we know those guys with spears aren’t just going to run us through?’

‘We take guns,’ said Marius. ‘One shot in the air will have them running.’

A group of new people had arrived, wearing not animal skins this time but a kind of coarse fabric that looked like sacking, in various shades of grey and brown. This lot were mostly men – the one in middle was a fat, bald old guy who looked about eighty – but there were several women among them, and one of them in particular caught my eye: she was taller than most of the men, very straight in her bearing and about my own age, and she could have been described as beautiful if she didn’t look so wasted and wan.

‘Don’t even think of taking a gun, Marius,’ I said. ‘If you can’t face them without a gun, stay inside.’

‘Oh come on, Gaia,’ Marius said crossly, ‘I wasn’t suggesting shooting them. But Deep’s right, they might attack us. We don’t know what they remember about Earth and spacecraft. We could be alien invaders as far as they’re concerned.’

‘He’s got a point,’ said Deep. ‘Do we really want to be the second bunch of explorers who made it here to Eden and never got home?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We need to be careful. But why don’t I go out by myself first off ? A woman’s less threatening, don’t you think? No guns, no nothing, but if they attack me, just turn the lights back on at full brightness. I mean, look at the light level they’re used to. By the time they can see again, I’ll be safely back inside.’

Part II

Twenty-six