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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

Gaia was embarrassed. ‘Oh no! Certainly not! I’m so sorry, you guys. I didn’t mean that at all!’

Starlight shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. We are babies compared to you. We know that. And of course it was babyish to fight over a silly thing like a ring. But we don’t have starships and veekles, we don’t have cars, we don’t have telly vijun and screens and lecky-trickity. And so that ring—’

‘Gela lost the ring, remember,’ I interrupted her. The old story suddenly seemed powerful powerful to me, here in the company of these Earth people who were with us now, but would so soon be gone again. It felt so powerful that I almost burst into tears. ‘She lost the ring and it was her last link to Earth. That’s why it’s important to us! If the stories are true, she cried and cried for wakings and wakings, raging against Tommy, raging against the kids she’d had with him, for stealing her from her mum and dad and everyone she knew.’

Dave nodded. ‘Yeah. The Big Row.’

‘The Big Row?’ asked Gaia. ‘That’s a story you all know?’

‘Yeah, of course,’ said Dave. ‘We often tell it and we often act it out.’

Gaia glanced at Deep and Marius. ‘Wow! Think of that! A man and a woman have a fight in front of their kids, and four hundred years later their descendants are still acting it out!’

I’m sure she didn’t mean to shame us, but I felt ashamed. Probably we all did. Because, now that she’d pointed it out, that also seemed pretty babyish, the fact that we kept on acting out a little thing like that after all this time. After all, there must be arguments between men and women every waking, all over Eden.

But then Marius spoke, still bent over the Screen and his tools: ‘I get that, actually,’ he said slowly, like he wasn’t just telling us something, but figuring it out for himself. ‘My mum and dad used to fight a lot when I was little. It was horrible. Each time it felt like the whole world falling apart. Sometimes I’d lie on my bed and stick my fingers in my ears and mutter to myself so it would blot out the sound of their shouting. I had other people to turn to, though. I had my sister, and my friends, and my grandpa, and my aunt Hentie. But for those kids back at the beginning here on Eden, there wasn’t anyone else. Tommy and Angela really were the whole world. It really was the world falling apart.’