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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

‘I’m sorry,’ said Gaia, ‘but we’ve looked and looked and it seems we’ve got no moving pictures of Angela with us, and we don’t have her voice either. We’re hoping that when we get a chance to look inside that Screen of yours we’ll find some . . .’ She said some words we didn’t recognize: ord yohs, they sounded like. ‘But until then, I’m afraid a few still pictures are the best we can do.’

‘Another picture then,’ said Strongheart.

The next picture was cloudy, like we were looking at it through fug or muddy water. There were three young young men sitting behind a kind of table. None of them had beards, which made them look even more like kids. In front of them was a big crowd of people, some sitting, some standing, so we saw the three men over the backs of their heads.

‘This is Tommy Schneider, Mehmet Haribey and Dixon ­Thorleye,’ said Gaia. ‘I know a lot of you are named after one or other of these three guys. Tommy, your ancestor, is the one on the left.’

The three of them seemed so small, somehow, and so so young. And they were kind of . . . well, ordinary. It was hard to believe that guy on the left was the father of anyone, let alone the dad of all the people of Eden, the one we spoke of when we said, Tom’s dick, or Tom’s neck, the one someone in every cluster acted out each Virsry when the old story was told. He was barely more than a newhair, and he had a kind of silly nervous smile.

Then the picture started to move. We heard the sound of an angry crowd, everyone shouting out at once. We saw Tommy raising his hands to ask for quiet.

‘Hey guys,’ I think he said, though it was hard to make out, ‘we don’t make the decisions, we just—’

But the crowd in the picture wouldn’t let him finish. Their shouting rose up again and drowned out whatever he’d been about to say, and then the picture stopped moving.

‘Why were those people yelling at them?’ someone called out.

‘They didn’t think Tommy and the others should go up to the starship,’ Deep said. ‘They thought they should stay on Earth.’

‘Here’s Angela again,’ said Gaia as another picture appeared, and we saw the young woman with black skin. She looked even younger here, and she was holding out her hand to show off her two-coloured ring. ‘That’s her coming-of-age ring!’ said Gaia. ‘I hear you have lots of stories about it. I’ve got one just like it here on my finger, look. It was given to Angela’s sister, Candice.’