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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

The trees are the core round which all of Eden’s life revolves, or at least all of the life that isn’t under water. The warm moist air round us – I wish I could convey its sweet, damp, very slightly ammoniacal smell – is their creation. The sombre glow of their flowers is what illuminates the stage for everything that happens in Eden. But they don’t just provide the light and warmth that on Earth would come from the sun. They’re also the food source on which the entire ecosystem depends, from the glittery starflowers that parasitize their roots, to the strange ribbon-like flutterbyes that drink from their flowers and nibble at the sugar that crystallizes round openings in their trunks. Their pulsing sound is everywhere. Whenever we turn off the whiny motor of our bike, there it is: countless iterations of that steady remorseless beat, merging into a hum. It’s the heartbeat of the planet itself.

Marius is excited. We’ve discovered that, in spite of the enormous differences between Eden and Earth, the basic biochemistry is very similar indeed. We’ve found the same amino acids. We’ve found something very similar to DNA, and in the animals’ blood, a kind of haemocyanin, such as is found in the blood of many inverte­brates on Earth, performing a similar function to haemoglobin. All this helps to explain, of course, how the humans here have managed to feed themselves, but what excites Marius most is the contribution it will make to our understanding of the origins of life in the universe. Given that this life has arisen entirely separately from life on Earth, and in an entirely different environment, the biochemical similarities suggest that there may be only one basic template for life, and that any planet that can support life at all is likely to support humans as well.

Speaking just for myself, though, I don’t think that’s the most exciting thing right now. We have to do this work of course, and it really is interesting, but a big part of me regrets the need to turn so quickly away from the mystery in front of us to readings and measurements on our machines. I’m a scientist by training, and I love science, but I still can’t help thinking that there is something slightly neurotic about this need to reduce things so quickly to numbers and explanations. I mean, let’s face it, we ought to know by now that no matter how far the chain of explanations extends – however far back in time, however deep down into the structure of things – and no matter how many new mechanisms and causal relationships we learn to understand, the essential mystery will always remain untouched. Because it is infinite, like those fractal patterns that re-emerge again and again, at every level of magnification.