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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

And one thing I’ve found out is that I feel at home with Mary and she feels at home with me. We kiss and cuddle sometimes now as well, and give each other some pleasure in that way. ‘You used to think I was too ugly for this, didn’t you?’ I sometimes say to her, and she just laughs and says, ‘Well, you are ugly, Angie. You are ugly ugly. But I can’t help loving you anyway.’ Funnily enough I kind of like that. It feels more comfortable somehow, more secure, than when she told me that first time I was beautiful. It’s not so hard to live up to, I guess.

None of that changes the fact that the most perfect moment in all my life was when the veekle came down in front of me in Circle Clearing and I met Gaia. I dream about it often. She comes back and speaks to me, her voice close close, like Gela’s voice speaking from those screens.

I also dream often about Trueheart, good brave Trueheart, far far away across the stars, walking and talking in that strange pale place with its drowned houses and its sky that’s sometimes white and sometimes pink and sometimes black like ours. Every single waking, I remind myself that she really is there on Earth right at this moment, alive and seeing and breathing: someone I know, someone I’ve held in my arms, a daughter of Eden like me. It makes Earth seem much much nearer and Eden seem much less alone. (And we really aren’t so alone, are we – we really aren’t – now we’re certain that Earth knows where to find us?) I often stop and wonder what Trueheart’s doing there right now, and whether she understands science yet as well as Marius, and if I’d even know her with that new face that the Earth people will have sewn for her with those fine metal needles of theirs. I won’t ever see her again, I’m sure, and nor will her mum and dad, but I like to think her sisters and brothers will, and so will my own kids.