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Back Daughter of Eden Save as PDF
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

‘You’re right,’ I said, waving back to a small child who’d spotted me and was pointing in my direction. ‘The fact that we can’t live up to their expectations means that a large chunk of their belief system no longer works.’

‘It’ll be painful for them,’ Deep said. ‘But it’s always been hard, hasn’t it, throughout human history, when new realities come up against old certainties? It was hard when Earth society had to adjust to the ecological problems in the twenty-first century, and the Salvationists came along. It was hard when the Salvationists were overthrown. There was a lot of blood spilt each time, a lot of cruelty. But then again there was bloodshed here too, wasn’t there, before we even arrived?’

I looked down at the people below us, with their bare feet, and their animal-skin loincloths, and their crude spears tipped with shards of volcanic glass. The little girl’s mother was standing beside her now, and both of them were waving and smiling, trying to get my attention. The woman was one of the people who had twisted feet – clawfoot, to use the Eden word – like Angie’s Dave. A bunch of other people round them were waving with them, all of them beaming delightedly up at me, now that I was looking their way. There was another clawfoot among them, and a couple of batfaces. I waved quickly back and just managed a smile for them before I had to turn away with tears in my eyes, unable to bear their hope. Marius had stood up to come and join me, and he too smiled and waved at the folk outside.

‘You know what would really help these people more than anything else we could do?’ he said. ‘It would be if Deep and I were to go out there and get as many women pregnant as possible. We could double Eden’s gene pool at a stroke.’

I studied his face for a moment. ‘You are joking, right?’

‘Of course I am, Gaia, but it happens to be true all the same.’

Forty-two

Leader Harry and his men met a guard riding at full speed towards them on the back of an exhausted woollybuck, its mouth dripping with green foam. He pulled up in front of them in a cloud of snow that glittered in the light of the headlanterns.