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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 don’t know what was going on in Tommy’s head – he doesn’t talk much about that kind of thing – but I thought about the kids the two of us would have, and how this place would be their world. And about how, however horrible it might seem, and however much Tommy might prefer not to even think about it, they really might end up having kids with each other. I know that’s not good, but I’m no doctor and I’ve got no real idea what kind of problems it will cause them. All I know is that, whatever happens, we’ll just have to deal with it. If it kills us, it kills us. No point in fretting about it now.

‘Then I got to thinking about what we’d tell the kids. They’d have no school, no media, no one else but us to learn things from. So what information did we need to give them? What would they really need to know? And I thought about all the shit we’ve had in the history of Earth. Idiots claiming that some mouldy old book was the truth about everything, and it was okay to do for people you didn’t like, just because the book said so. Other idiots coming up with fancy arguments to say it’s fine for white people to buy and sell black people, or men to stone women to death for having sex without their permission . . . All that shit, which even a child could see was just nonsense, that gets to be called the truth because it suits some bunch of people, almost always men, who’ve got a bit of power.

‘And I thought, well, one good thing: we can start again here. We can set aside all of that, and teach our kids some sense. This is Eden after all. This is a new Eden. And then I thought, hang on a minute, this is Tommy Schneider we’re talking about here, and he is full of shit. I mean, I guess we all are, to be honest, but he really is. There’s no way I can rely on him not to pass on that old crap all over again. So then I decided to do two things. One, I’m going to do my best to come to an agreement with Tommy about the right things to teach our kids. Two, regardless of what we agree, I’m going to come up with a list of stuff that’s obviously true but seems to keep being forgotten. That black people and white people are as good as each other, for instance. That women are as good as men. That having a lot of stuff doesn’t make you more important than other people, or entitled to more stuff. That you need to watch out for guys who act like the story is all about them . . .’