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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

So many times she’d wept and cried in her shows, as she talked about Earth and Gela and home, but now, when everyone else was crying and laughing, dancing and singing ‘Come Tree Row’, Mary’s eyes were dry. She looked round for her helpers and guards.

‘Come on,’ she told them. ‘I’m sure you want to see for yourselves. Let’s get the bucks ready and start out for Circle Valley before the paths are so full of people we won’t be able to move.’

How can I be so ungrateful? she must have asked herself in her head, as she and the others began to climb the steep path out of Tall Tree Valley. It doesn’t matter about me. Why can’t I get that through my head? Of course it doesn’t matter about me. All that matters now is that Earth has come.

But however hard she tried, Mary just couldn’t feel this. She was good good at teaching herself to feel things she knew she ought to feel, and not feeling things that she knew she shouldn’t. She was much much better at it than most people. That was where her certainty came from, and her courage. It was how she stopped herself from giving way to doubt. But right now that task, that struggle to make herself feel the things she knew she ought to feel, was too hard even for her.

GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.
MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.

There are creatures called ants but, apart from being small and living in nests, they’re nothing like ants at home. They’re like tiny transparent worms with legs and, when they’re provoked, they glow a vivid red. There are things called birds but you couldn’t mistake them, even for a moment, for the birds we have on Earth. They have arms as well as wings, for one thing, and their so-called feathers are more like scales: long flexible scales that clatter and rattle as the creatures blunder through the branches. There are animals called bats, but they stand on two legs and stroke their wings with strangely human hands. And of course the things called trees have no leaves, and the so-called wood that forms the outer shell of their trunks is smooth and bluish and looks kind of mushroomy, though actually, to the touch, it’s chitinous and hard.