Amazon Cloud, lost referenced files

I have Aperture set up to import photos to my hard drive, and I edit using referenced images. I uploaded all my 3* and above rated photos to Amazon Cloud Drive. All those photos/referenced images now have disappeared from my Aperture library - both the smart albums that filtered for 3* and above, and the Photos/Projects available through the library. Amazon tell me that their cloud drive does not transfer photos out of my hard drive, but just takes a copy (all of which are just a few hundred kb, rather than the c. 8-20mb photo sizes of the referenced originals).

If I upload back from Amazon, all that comes back are the small preview files, so I've lost the ability to link back to the original master that was in my library/hard drive. It feels like I've therefore lost the ability to work with my favourite photos going back 10 years! Please help... Thanks in anticipation.

I don't have a vault. I do have the whole Mac backed up by TimeMachine, but this is a few weeks out of date, so I'm hoping for a fix within Aperture itself - its perfectly possible I'm missing something easy.