by Temi Oh
‘I’m not sick,’ Ara gasped finally, sitting up to wipe the side of her mouth and waving her own green wristband. ‘There were butterflies in my stomach.’ Her eyes flitted back to the toilet as if they were actually in there, the butterflies, sunk in the water. Papery wings dissolving in bile. Ara flushed and then got unsteadily to her feet. Closing the cubicle door behind her, she rinsed her mouth out in the sink.
Astrid caught herself examining Ara’s reflection in the mirror. She looked a little green and the skin under her eyes was dark. Ara smiled at Astrid’s reflection in the glass.
Ara was not beautiful, but had inherited her Indian mother’s thick black hair, which fell in heavy waves past her waist and smelt of the jasmine oil she rubbed into it. She had spent years of her childhood in the North, so her tongue still tripped prettily over words like laugh and grass. In their first year at Dalton, she had told the other students that she could speak to the wind and everyone had believed her or wanted to believe her, because her eyes were black as magic and sometimes when she spoke a gust did pick up, knocking leaves across the field.
Astrid watched as her friend lifted her head and eclipsed the sun, which was beaming through the window behind her. She envied Ara. People who knew her had always been certain that she would be selected for the Beta, that she belonged amongst the constellations, although they’d also been mistakenly sure she would be selected to be their commander-in-training.
‘This is a great day.’ Ara turned to point out the dispersing clouds. ‘Can you feel it too, Astrid? It’s like being in love, you know. So sweet it’s painful, almost . . . everything is beautiful, but everything hurts.’
‘It’s because we’re saying goodbye all the time now,’ Astrid said. ‘It’s kind of exhausting.’
Ara turned and leant against the window ledge. ‘When I was younger and I fell asleep on car journeys with my dad, I’d wake up in my bed the next day, sometimes with my shoes on under the duvet, and I’d know that he’d carried me. Which I liked so much that sometimes I’d just pretend to sleep as the car turned into our road, so that I could feel him lift me over his shoulder then put me in my room. One time I opened my eyes when my head hit the pillow and he told me that soon I’d be too old to be carried.
‘It happened less and less until now – obviously – when I fall asleep in the car, he just wakes me up and I walk to my bedroom. Take my own shoes off.’
‘I think that’s pretty normal,’ said Astrid. Their voices echoed slightly in the little room.
‘I know, but the problem is that when I turned twelve I couldn’t remember the last time he carried me. I still can’t. Probably when it happened I just thought that it was another time. The last time I was carried, the last time I saw Brighton Pier, or Trafalgar Square, I didn’t know it was . . .’
‘What would you have done if you had known?’ Astrid asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Ara frowned, her sight turned inwards with thought. Finally, she shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know. Felt it.’
Astrid wasn’t so sure. Some part of her was sick with excitement about taking off in the shuttle tomorrow but the same part of her was gutted by grief. When she had said goodbye to her parents, nine days ago, she had known for sure that she would never hug them again. The knowledge had quickened in her an impossible urge to tell them everything that they meant to her. To thank them for everything. But when the moment came to say it – to thank them for school fees, for her mother’s paper-cut Christmas decorations, for every hot meal for her bones and for her beating heart – she had only waved.
‘You know,’ Astrid said, as Ara climbed off the window ledge, ‘sometimes it’s a good thing. When you don’t know it’s the last time.’
JUNO
T-MINUS 24 HOURS
HER BOYFRIEND, NOAH FLINN, had once shown her a graph of the inverse-square law, and pointed to the curve, force over distance, which decreased rapidly at first and then levelled off, like a playground slide. ‘As you leave the Earth,’ he’d said, ‘the force of gravity halves and halves and halves and halves until there’s barely anything pulling you back.’
Juno imagined that was how she would feel about him as she hurtled out of orbit. First, the keen pierce of heartbreak, but that would dull soon enough into an endurable ache, then again in ever-decreasing increments until she felt nothing, almost nothing, for him at all.
When their cars pulled up outside the British Interplanetary Society, a throng of reporters were gathered on the pavement and the crew lined up to greet them before heading into the building. Juno had only visited the BIS a couple of times before, for school trips and lectures, or to see the Aerospace Museum. The Edwardian building was like a geometric illusion, modest on the outside but vast as an airport hangar on the inside. Her head reeled as they stepped under the soaring glass dome above the foyer.
‘Wow,’ Eliot said with a low whistle, looking up.
An art deco chandelier flung refracted stars of daylight across the black marble floor. Juno admired the effect, stretching out her palms to catch the glimmer on her fingertips as the others moved off. ‘I always forget how big this place is,’ she said, to no one in particular. Through the foyer, the main hall was like the visible edge of an iceberg, arranged in descending mezzanine decks that telescoped down into a dark courtyard, where a life-sized reconstruction of a pre-First World War space shuttle was erected. From where she stood, Juno could almost touch the top of it.
‘It’s six storeys high.’ Juno turned towards the familiar voice, and saw him bounding up the stairs.
‘Noah?’ she said. His head of platinum curls bounced as he walked. It felt like months since Juno had seen him, although it had only been nine days. He had come along with her parents to drop her and Astrid off at the space centre. After their final dinner, he held her hand in the back of the car and mouthed Always, I’ll always, I’ll always love you, as streets ghosted past.
‘How did you know I would be here?’ she asked.
‘You know, you’re kind of famous,’ he said with a smile. ‘My internship doesn’t officially start until next week, but I asked to come in today, at short notice.’ He fingered the society’s blue crest on his shirt. A rocket and three stars: Earth space, near space and deep space. ‘Because I knew you were coming for the tree planting.’
‘That’s right,’ Juno said, ‘I forgot that you might be here.’
‘Well, I didn’t know whether I’d see you, but my manager says that if there’s free time I could show you around a little. Maybe, after the ceremony. I’m guessing you chose your favourite tree.’ When Juno nodded, he continued. ‘You’re in good company, because Annie Tyning, the first British woman in space in . . .’ His blue eyes rolled up in thought, ‘’53 or ’54, chose a wild apple tree as well. It’s one of my favourites. I actually really like sitting down there, in the Flight Garden. And thinking about how almost every GB astronaut has touched the ground under me.’
‘I think I’d probably do that too. If I worked here,’ Juno said.
There was an awkward confusion between Juno and Noah, the kind that comes after saying all your goodbyes once, only to meet again. Their energy was spent and the idea of facing the theatrics of a second goodbye struck Juno as silly now.
‘I feel as if I’ve been waiting here all morning . . .’ Noah said, rubbing a sweaty palm on the side of his jeans. Under his BIS jacket he was wearing an old mission week T-shirt from their school’s Christian Union. Juno knew that it said ‘Dare to Believe’ in bold letters on the back. ‘Is this okay?’ he asked, reaching out for her as if his fingers might burn. ‘You probably won’t catch anything.’
They touched cautiously at first, fingertips brushing. Noah took a quick breath, as if steeling himself to say something. ‘Juno . . . I wanted to ask you—’ He was interrupted by the public affairs officer, who emerged from the press office and shouted, ‘Juno Juma!’
‘Wait, what about Harry,’ Poppy said, getting up from the ottoman near the front
desk. ‘He’s not here.’
‘He wasn’t cleared to leave today.’
‘His white blood cell count was a little low,’ Juno explained.
‘He’s sick?’ Poppy asked, eyes widening in horror.
‘No,’ Juno said, although Harry had gone pale with disappointment when it was announced that morning during their briefing that he would be put in quarantine for twelve hours. ‘I mean, probably not. It could suggest that a viral infection is coming on. So they’ll probably keep him in the sanatorium until T-minus twelve, and monitor him just to make sure he can fly tomorrow.’ Poppy’s brow furrowed. ‘He’ll probably be fine, though,’ Juno added.
‘Well—’ the officer looked down at her iPad. ‘The press have set up in the council room. You can change in the library and then the tree-planting ceremony will take place at one.’ Juno glanced at the clock opposite. They had just over an hour. ‘Plant your tree – I’ve been told by your flight surgeon to make sure that you wear your gloves; just a precaution – plant tree, final interview before the launch, although this one will be a small one, for the Interplanetary Channel and the society’s publications. And then take some pictures. You should be able to leave by three and then your schedules are clear for the rest of the day. Get some sleep. You’ll need it. Obviously.’
As they followed the woman around the main hall, Juno lingered behind to take in some of the displays. An oil painting of the inventor Sir William Congreve that she had encountered before in a History of Space Travel textbook. He was a pioneer of British rocketry and the society’s founder. The date etched under the gilded frame read 1812, 200 years ago. The Congreve rocket was used during the Napoleonic Wars. Juno had always found it amazing that by the end of that century British explorers were rallying expeditions to the summit of Mount Everest, but 100 years later their grandchildren were scaling the mountains of Mars, embarking for Jupiter’s moons and beyond.
Congreve left the bulk of his estate to the society after his death and, in accordance with his wishes, the money was invested and used to fund research into aeronautics and space exploration. Fellows of the BIS had initially conceived of the Off-World Colonization Programme and many of its members were amongst the pantheon of astronauts and scientists employed by the UK or European space agencies.
Juno was humbled by the history of the place. On every wall there was an image that made her shiver with recognition. Sepia-toned portraits of men wearing helmets, mission patches from pioneering flights. There was a Dalton professor – who had delivered a series of lectures on peculiar galaxies – accepting a Nobel Prize. There was the school’s provost, shaking hands with a former prime minster. There were framed letters signed by notable MPs, UN council members, US senators, congratulating the society on its achievements.
‘The girl is dawdling.’ The public affairs officer clicked her fingers from where she stood at the entrance of the library. The acoustics in the main hall were such that the sound was startling as a gunshot. Juno jumped and rushed after the others – her sister Astrid, Ara, Poppy, Eliot and Noah – as they all walked ahead of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as she reached the entrance.
The library was a cathedral of books, shelves of them stretching into dusty infinity. Juno gasped at the exquisitely detailed painting of the solar system on the vaulted ceiling. Space; black as crude oil and awash with stars.
Nine flight suits were folded on one of the tables. ‘Do you want us to get changed now?’ Ara asked the officer. But before the woman could reply her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket in a reflex-quick action.
Sorry, I need to take this, she mouthed, and left the room.
‘What happens if Harry isn’t cleared to fly tomorrow?’ Noah asked, as Poppy sank down into one of the reading chairs.
‘They’ll find – whatshisname? – his replacement from the backup crew,’ Ara said.
‘But that probably won’t happen,’ Juno insisted. ‘They’ll infuse him with synthetic white blood cells and he’ll fight off any infection extra fast. He’ll be completely fine by tonight. Probably.’
They were silent for a while, gazing at the library’s oak door, waiting for it to open again. But after a few minutes, Juno gave in to her curiosity and began to wander around the library, examining the different publications while they waited for the public affairs officer to return. Heading down aisles of identically bound astronomical journals, she ran her hands along the sun-bleached spines of familiar volumes on engineering and space physiology. It was reminiscent of Dalton’s library, except that on top of almost every shelf were tiny models of defunct space shuttles, their hulls gathering dust.
‘That one’s Daedalus,’ Noah said, pointing to a model as he appeared at her elbow. The strange unmanned craft was unlike any other, surrounded by engine bells that looked like a bundle of silver billiard balls all around its outer hull. It was the interstellar spacecraft that confirmed the existence of Terra-Two and broadcast pictures of it back to Earth.
‘I know,’ she said and smiled at him, her breath condensing on the glass as she stared at the model.
‘You’ll never believe this. Come look,’ Poppy called. She was waving a shiny issue of Vanity Fair she’d found amongst the magazines piled on the rack.
‘What?’ everyone turned to her, gathered round.
‘We’re in it,’ Poppy said.
‘Stop waving it around and keep still,’ Ara said.
When Juno leant over her shoulder she caught sight of the headline: MEET THE BETA: THE YOUNG ASTRONAUTS ALREADY MAKING HISTORY. Their faces stared out from the cover.
‘I didn’t realize that came out this week,’ said Juno, her stomach sinking. Her sister was already flipping through a copy and Poppy handed her a spare.
Under the special issue’s title were the words 2012: TERRA-TWO COLONIZATION BEGINS. Juno flipped to the in-depth article. The text was spattered with their smiling faces, quotes in bold, pictures of Dalton Aerospace Academy captured in unfamiliar perspectives using a wide-angle lens. There was even a timeline of the selection process – the six and a half years it had taken to arrive at this point.
Harry’s quote in bold: ‘It’s great to fly the flag for Team GB.’ Juno stifled a laugh as she stared at his handsome face, blond hair thrown back from his high forehead. But as she flicked through the thin pages, more memories rose like bile. The long day they’d spent showing the reporter around the space centre, then posing for the photographer out near the launch site.
‘Why is Poppy always in the middle?’ Noah asked.
‘Poppy’s the cover girl,’ Astrid said, and nudged Poppy playfully.
The group photo was a two-page spread. The team posing against a black background that looked like the night sky but was actually a canvas sheet clipped to metal railings erected the previous day. Poppy and Harry were positioned in the centre – as always. Half-moons of digitally whitened teeth waxed inside their mouths. The stylists had twisted Poppy’s straight auburn hair into spectacular 1920s style pin-curls, only to discover that whenever she moved they fell out, which was when they would descend upon her again with hairspray and tongs. Harry was standing a little in front of his crewmates in a way that, on the page, made him appear unnaturally large. The photographer had to keep telling him to move back each time he stepped in front of Poppy or Ara, blocking their faces from view.
Eliot slumped in the margin of the photo. The make-up artists had managed to conceal the tangle of blue veins usually visible around his temples, although the photographer’s attempt to coax a smile from him had yielded only a pained grimace. Juno flipped to the next page to find that he wore the same twisted expression in another photograph, gazing up at an overcast sky, his pewter eyes giving off an aura of terrestrial melancholy.
‘You look gorgeous,’ said Poppy. ‘Both of you,’ she added for good measure, pointing to the corner of the page where the twins stood beside each other, smiling the same lopsided smile. They had been too hot in their spacesuits and
had been restless by the time that photo was taken. When asked how to tell them apart, Juno had overheard the public affairs officer tell the interviewer that Juno was ‘the slimmer one’. A whispered distinction Juno recognized for the first time that day. She had never noticed the way Astrid’s generous hips and bottom made the material of her suit strain ever so slightly against flesh, while Juno’s bunched like dead skin around her thighs.
The voice of the public affairs officer sounded shrilly through the walls of the library, snapping Juno out of the recollection. When the officer finally returned she announced that two of the senior astronauts, their commander Solomon Sheppard and the flight engineer Igor Bovarin, had both been delayed at the UK Space Agency, and were not expected to arrive until after 1 p.m. The tree-planting ceremony was going to be delayed by at least an hour.
‘What should we do in the meantime?’ Ara asked. The officer cast her gaze around the library, as if hoping she might find an answer amongst the publications rack.
‘Read?’ she suggested.
‘Can we see the garden?’ Astrid asked.
‘Or the museum?’ Eliot asked. ‘It’s just in the next wing over.’
‘I can show them around,’ Noah suggested. ‘I work here. Sort of.’
The woman glanced at her phone, then looked at them nervously. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said.
‘We can’t sit here for hours,’ Ara said. ‘Not when the sun’s coming out. Not when we won’t see the sky again for twenty years.’
The public affairs officer grimaced. ‘Wait here one minute,’ she said, brandishing her mobile. ‘Let me ask your flight surgeon.’ She left the room again, and they listened to the undulations of her voice through the door.
‘We’re never going to see the sky again,’ Poppy said mockingly, flapping an arm in the gesture of a prima donna.