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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

‘We can’t take people back to Earth,’ she said. ‘Well, maybe one at most, but no more than that. And we haven’t got anything to give you right now, apart from maybe fixing a few more people with the . . . uh . . . poison fever, as you call it, and maybe finding out what’s in this screen. As for how long we’ll be here, we can only stay for a few more days, because the starship is . . . well, I guess you could say it’s like a creature that starts growing old as soon as it’s born. But we’re finding out about Eden and how it works, and what the trees and animals are made of, and when we get all of that information back to Earth, then people there will be able to figure out ways to help you. New ways of feeding yourselves and keeping healthy and making you better when you’re ill. New ways of using the stuff round you to make things. New tools. So next time someone comes, they’ll be able to give you things that will make your life easier and—’

‘Next time?’ asked Starlight. ‘Are you sure there’ll be another time?’

Again, Gaia looked at the other Earth people.

‘I’m sure there will,’ she said. ‘It won’t be any time soon, though, because we have to rebuild the whole starship and that . . . well, like Marius explained before, by the time we’ve got all the stuff together, it could be . . .’

‘It could be fifty years,’ Marius said, still bent over that screen, ‘or even longer.’

I felt a terrible stab of grief. All these years we’d waited, all these generations, making circles on the ground, singing songs, making it okay for ourselves that Earth wasn’t here by telling ourselves to be patient, and one waking it would come. And now it had come, but it would soon be gone again, and we’d be alone once more, scratching in the dirt, fighting over old stories. And when Earth came back, if it came back – even that didn’t sound certain – it would most probably be too late for me. I wasn’t exactly sure how old I was in years – we didn’t count time that carefully out on the Grounds – but I reckoned I was well over thirty, and few people got past sixty seventy.

‘One person can go with you?’ I suddenly said. ‘Is that what you said?’

Gaia looked at me, surprised.

‘Yes, we figure we could take one.’ She smiled. ‘Why? Would you like it to be you? You were the first Eden person we saw, after all, you and Trueheart, and you’ve been a good friend to us.’