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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 want you all to listen carefully,’ said Gaia, speaking slowly slowly and carefully carefully. ‘I want you all to understand what I’m going to say. I want to tell you first of all that I’m not your Gela, whatever some of you think. What we know of Gela back on Earth is that she came to Eden four hundred years ago and never came back. We don’t know anything after that. We assumed she must have died here on Eden, but we didn’t know until now that she’d had children and grandchildren. As far as we know she never came back to Earth, alive or dead, and all that’s left of Gela is here on Eden.’ She waited, watching our faces to see if she’d been understood. She’d managed to keep her voice strong and sure, but we could see in her eyes that she’d dreaded saying these things. ‘I am not Gela,’ she repeated. ‘In fact I’m not even as closely related to Gela as all of you are. Half of every one of you comes from Gela. My only connection with her is that a tiny tiny part of me comes from Gela’s twin sister, Candice.’

There was a silence across the whole clearing. The trees pulsed. The flutterbyes rustled and flicked round the lanternflowers. A starbird screeched in forest: a proper Eden bird with feet and hands and big flat eyes.

‘That’s the first thing we have to tell you,’ said Deep, ‘and the second is that, we’re really sorry, but we can’t take you back to Earth. It’s just not possible. Any of you who have been inside the old landing veekle will know that there’s only room inside it for a few people. It’s only meant for three. I’m afraid there will never be a time when more than a few people can go back and forth between Earth and Eden. Even just to get three of us here took the work of tens of thousands of people for tens of years. When we go back to Earth – and that will be soon, I’m afraid – we’ll work hard to get more people to come here again and help you with your lives, but no one is ever going to be able to carry you all back to Earth, though I know many of you have hoped for that for many many years.’

The Earth people looked out at us. You could see how hard this was for them, just the three of them facing so many many disappointed people. As for us Eden folk, well, I guess a lot of us had already half-figured out what they were telling us, but hearing them say it was a completely different thing. When you figure a thing out for yourself you can still hope you’re wrong. They’d taken away any possibility of that.