Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

by Temi Oh

  Dinner that night tasted like triumph.

  They had docked their shuttle with the Damocles at around 4 p.m. GMT and gathered five hours later in the kitchen for a celebratory meal. The lights in the corridors and common rooms were set to cycle through twelve hours of light and dark, so by the time Harry had showered and headed to the kitchen, the lamps were dim and tinted a dusky indigo. The door slid open. Harry saw that everyone was already gathered in their flight suits. Commander Sheppard at the head of the oval table, Fae and Igor either side of him.

  Harry smiled at their commander. His nerves were still jangling from the flight earlier. The engine burn that took the Damocles from its orbit above London, around the globe and out on an interstellar trajectory that led first to Mars, where they would meet Cai, and finally to Terra-Two. Nothing had prepared him for the sight of the entire Earth unspooling below as they dived beneath its perimeter, beneath the jagged summits of mountain ranges, smothered in clouds, below desert and ocean, day then night then day again, faster and faster until they reached escape velocity. Harry had actually yelled in excitement as the Earth sped away, the black expanse of space enveloping them, stars brighter than they had ever been. And now in the kitchen, all of their faces were bathed in the azure glow of their planet, which hung like a pendulum in the window. Every time he glanced at it, it was smaller.

  Juno was leafing through the week’s itinerary. Poppy sat on the counter kicking her heels up and chatting happily to Igor Bovarin in Russian.

  ‘Say hello.’ Poppy nodded at the camera Eliot was holding and then turned to Harry. Harry saw his own eyes reflected in the black lens.

  ‘You’re filming me?’ he asked, suddenly wary of his hair, which was still damp from his shower and dripping down the back of his flight suit. He ran his hands through it.

  ‘I will be,’ Eliot said.

  ‘I thought Poppy was in charge of comms,’ Harry said.

  ‘It’s a two-person job, Harry.’ Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t hold the camera and present.’

  ‘Right.’ Harry nodded at Eliot, who was standing close behind him.

  Although he was not actively retching, Eliot still looked a little green, and Harry was sure he could smell the bitter scent of bile on his clothes. He noted the ambiguous brown stains around the collar of his uniform, emitting an odour that never failed to repulse. Harry had not vomited involuntarily his entire life, not after the Leavers’ Ball, when he and his friends finished off a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, not during simulated launches, not on the human centrifuge, where he and his classmates were whirled around its fifty-foot arm in order to experience 3, then 4g. The other astronaut candidates would pale with nausea and beg the technicians to stop, but Harry had always roared ‘more,’ the sensation of speed nothing but exhilarating.

  Some people were born for this life.

  Even now, the artificial gravity on the ship felt as familiar to him as the cockpit of a shuttle, and he took to it as if he had lived amongst the stars his entire life. Fazed by nothing; not the absolute blackness of space, nor the constant ambient noise of the ship, because he was surely right for this voyage. He took his place beside the other astronauts at the table.

  ‘You’re just in time.’ Commander Sheppard beamed. ‘We go live in ten minutes. Better get your camera face ready.’

  The meal was rehydrated beef steak and green vegetables they had brought with them on the shuttle. It reminded Harry of Sunday lunches at Dalton, but he had eaten nothing all day and it was all he could do not to shovel the food into his mouth with grateful abandon. Halfway through the meal, Igor passed around little plastic cups of sparkling white wine and held one above his head to toast.

  ‘Before we finish eating, I’d just like to say a few words.’ Solomon stood up, and his large body cast a shadow across the table. Everyone put down their forks and waited. ‘These past few months were some of the most trying of my life. I know they must have been for you too. I can tell you this now . . .’ he looked down for a moment. ‘We lost someone we love on Saturday, and, for a while after, I wasn’t sure I would make it up here at all. Ara’s death is something I know it will be difficult for us to recover from.’ He paused again, swallowing. Harry watched the bubbles in his cup surge to the surface. ‘I’ve been involved in this programme since its conception. I still remember the day I saw a couple of you walking through the school gates at age thirteen, and every time I think about it I remember how far you’ve come. Watching you all at the launch site, waving at the crowd, taking it all in your stride, I realized that you’ve not only become fine astronauts. You’ve become fine adults. This morning, I have to say . . . I was proud.

  ‘It’s an honour to be your commander. It’s an honour to be part of this mission. You know, in Greek, the word Damocles means “the glory of the people”, and that’s what this mission will be for our country, insh’Allah.’ He held his cup higher above his head and said, ‘To Britain! To all of Earth!’ and they all echoed him happily, clinking their glasses together and swallowing down the sharp sweet champagne.

  ‘Okay,’ said Poppy, once Commander Sheppard sat down, ‘my notes from the ground said that they want us to look as natural as possible. I’ll go around the table as you eat your meal. Tell the viewers how excited you are, what a smooth journey it was, et cetera. I’ll start with the Beta and then pass it around to the two seniors and then Commander Sheppard can say goodbye. Are you ready?’

  They looked around at each other and nodded, Eliot counted down and then the light on the side of the camera came on and Harry could tell that he was broadcasting live to Earth, because the monitor of the computer perched on the counter said so. Poppy listened to instructions from the ground through her big headphones and then finally gave them the thumbs-up.

  ‘Welcome aboard the Damocles,’ she said, addressing the camera. ‘I’m Poppy Lane, head of communications and in-flight correspondent for this mission, which means you’ll be spending a lot of time with me and my colleague, Junior Flight Engineer Eliot Liston. It’s a real privilege to serve on this mission. We’re grateful to the team on the ground, who are supporting our flying, and to you at home for cheering us on.’ Then, for the international audiences, she said some words hastily in French, Russian, Mandarin. ‘Bienvenue à bord du Damoclès/Menya zovut Poppy Lane/Gǎnxiè nín de zhīchí . . .’ The selection committee had been right; like Harry, Poppy was a perfect face for their mission. ‘Et maintenant, un message du restes des Bêta.’

  Poppy handed the microphone to Harry first. ‘So,’ she began, ‘Harrison Bellgrave. As one of the youngest people in space, at the start of this historic mission can you tell the viewers back on Earth how you’re feeling?’ Harry smiled at his own reflection in the lens, his pupils big and dark as singularities. Although, even as he felt it, it was fading from him. That familiar feeling of pride at his accomplishment. The golden shards of sunlight on the arm of the trophy as it was handed to him, the familiar weight of it. The evanescent thrill of victory. He enjoyed the game because he always won. The sound of the crowd, of a million hands clapping just for him, swift and vanishing as a roll of thunder, and what came after this? More years of striving? For what? What now?

  Harry smiled anyway.

  ‘Tonight, I feel like . . . an astronaut.’

  JESSE

  13.05.12

  THE SOUND OF THE siren knifed into his sleep, and Jesse awoke shivering with a primitive kind of fear. He tumbled into an awareness of his surroundings. It was his first night on the ship, and he was in danger.

  His time at Dalton had conditioned him into a Pavlovian response to the master alarm – stop whatever you are doing. Get up. Find the nearest exit. So that is what he did. He shimmied down his bunk and landed on the floor in time for Harry to flip on the lights.

  ‘Do you think it’s a fire?’ Harry asked, his eyes wide with terror.

  Eliot squinted from his bunk. ‘What?’ he croaked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

  ‘Maybe
a meteor?’ Jesse said. He pictured a flying rock searing a hole through the hull of their ship, and then rapid decompression as the oxygen poured out. His back prickled with goosebumps.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Harry said, flinging the door open, and they dashed out into the darkened crew module where Poppy and Astrid were already gathered, blinking in their pyjamas, their faces illuminated by warning lights.

  ‘Maybe it’s a drill,’ Poppy said.

  ‘On the first night?’ said Jesse.

  ‘Drill or not, let’s just do what we’re supposed to.’ Harry fumbled for the hatch. Jesse cast his mind back to training, where they’d slide down the ladder so fast they sustained friction burns, bare feet smacking the lower deck. Then, they were expected to strap themselves into an escape vessel and contact the ground for recommendations.

  But, just as they were about to head down the ladder, Igor’s voice boomed through the speakers. ‘Solar storm. This is not a drill.’ Jesse heard the words with a stab of terror. ‘You have six minutes to get to the shelter.’

  The blood drained from Harry’s face. ‘Okay,’ he said, catching himself. ‘This way.’ The corridors were blazing the fire-engine red of the warning lights in the ceiling. Harry led them back along the corridor and Jesse was at his heels as they sprinted across the bridge that led to the greenhouse. The gravity was lighter here, in the centre of the ship, and Jesse felt it in his knees as he raced to the radiation shelter at the far end in high, flying bounds.

  Harry twisted the lock and the door slid open, revealing a room only slightly larger than the infirmary, with high shelves stacked with medical supplies and tinned food. Jesse couldn’t help but think of civilians in the Second World War ducking inside Anderson shelters to wait out an attack. He sank down, exhaling in relief.

  Radiation from a solar flare was the silent killer in space. Every now and then flaming whips of plasma exploded from the sun’s magnetic field and sent deadly showers of high-energy particles through the blackness of space. Earth was protected from most of the impact but, outside its atmosphere, Jesse and his fellow crew members were as vulnerable as a raft in a storm.

  They were safe inside the reinforced shelter, but outside the alarm was still bawling. If it hadn’t been for the alarm, Jesse would have slept while showers of high-energy particles ghosted through his body. Most of them would have slipped right through but a couple would shred his DNA. Best-case scenario: he would not feel the damage until years later when cancer bloomed in his bones. The worst-case scenario involved vomiting, diarrhoea and hair loss, then death within a few days or weeks. During the early years of Disaster Training, they had been taught to fear solar storms. Unlike an explosion or a collision, this was a disaster they could not see. So, their instructor had said, see this instead. He’d shown them pictures of nuclear accidents, Chernobyl victims, children blistered and bald, black and white photos of flash burns and ulcerated skin. If you see nothing when you hear the alarm, he had said, remember this.

  ‘Lock the door,’ said Igor. ‘We’re looking at an X-3 solar flare.’

  ‘Right now?’ Astrid was wrapped in a towel, her hair still dripping soapy water onto her shoulders from a late-night shower.

  ‘The ground gave us a bit of warning,’ Igor said. He clapped his hands to hurry them up, but they were already in a line by their bunks, and shouting their numbers.

  ‘One,’ said Harry.

  ‘Two,’ said Astrid.

  ‘Three,’ said Eliot, who, like Harry, had had no time to change out of the running shorts he’d fallen asleep in. They both stood near the door, their forearms covered in gooseflesh.

  ‘Four,’ Poppy said.

  Jesse watched them in confusion, unsure where in the line he was supposed to stand, and all the while watching the Geiger counter on the wall tick up and up. There was a moment of silence and everyone looked around in alarm.

  ‘Five?’ Jesse said, guessing that perhaps this was his turn to speak.

  ‘Where’s Juno?’ Poppy asked, ignoring him.

  ‘She wasn’t in our room,’ Astrid said.

  ‘I didn’t see her,’ Jesse said, recalling that he had not spotted the second twin racing through the corridors behind the others.

  ‘Oh no,’ Astrid gasped in horror, ‘she must be outside.’

  ‘You can’t go out there.’ Jesse motioned towards the door as if to block it.

  ‘She’s my sister.’ Astrid lunged at him.

  ‘Well, she has five minutes,’ Igor said, looking at his watch. Once the shelter sealed she would be trapped outside.

  ‘Five minutes?’ Jesse echoed, looking around at the pale faces of the crew. He pictured Juno as she had looked only a few hours ago, unconscious in the infirmary, quiet and helpless. He imagined her panic, being trapped outside the shelter, alone, and his heart jolted.

  ‘I’ll get her,’ Harry said, pushing Jesse aside.

  ‘It’s against protocol,’ Commander Sheppard said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘You won’t have time to get back,’ Eliot said, looking at his watch.

  ‘We can’t just leave her!’ Astrid was frantic, her face streaked with tears. ‘Go! Please!’

  After her panicked imploration, Jesse heard himself say, ‘I’ll go.’ If there was one thing he had always been good at, it was running. So he dashed out the door, glancing at the figures on his watch.

  ‘Get back.’ Harry was gaining speed behind him. ‘We don’t need you getting in the way right now.’

  ‘You take the upper deck,’ Jesse yelled without slowing, as he dashed barefoot across the greenhouse, ‘I’ll go down.’

  Jesse lunged through the hatch and onto the lower deck, landing so hard that the bones in his shins rattled, before running past the rooms in which she was unlikely to be hiding; the cargo bay and the equipment locker. The sound of the alarm squealing bored into his temples like a drill, and Jesse gritted his teeth in irritation. He wondered how it was possible for Juno to ignore such a racket. And then it occurred to him that wherever Juno was, she probably couldn’t hear the alarm. ‘Where?’ he said out loud over the noise.

  He knew that Juno had found Astrid, earlier that day, crouched like a mouse in the warmth of the engine room. It seemed likely that the siren was less audible there, but Jesse could not picture Juno herself seeking out solitude amongst the dim light of Igor’s devices.

  His watch said he had two and a half minutes left, and so he went back on himself around the lower deck. Back up to the middle deck, where the warning lights reflected manically off the walls in a way that made his head spin. As he ran he heard the pounding of Harry’s bare feet behind his.

  Back into the greenhouse. At the opposite end, on the far side from the radiation shelter, was a tiny module called the Atlas. Jesse headed towards it in one last search for the missing crew member. When the hatch slid open, and he stepped in, Jesse found her. Juno was curled up on one of the chairs, and Earth was large in the window. It hung above them in a way that gave Jesse the unsettling sensation of falling. But for a moment his fear vanished, and he was transfixed. He could see the Antarctic, South Africa and the Southern Lights, iridescent curtains of red and green light rising like steam off the hot bubble of the atmosphere. He had never seen them before.

  As the doors closed behind him, the sound of the alarm disappeared like water sucked out of a drain. Jesse leant over to wake Juno, but paused. Her frizzy hair wafted with static electricity, her sleeping face eerily lit by the Aurora Australis. Jesse remembered that he had seen her the night before the launch. Emerging like a shadow from a briar, wearing a thin bathrobe, which, in the dim light, made her look like a visitation. The soft edge of a breast delightfully visible. The cord of her robe cinched tightly around her waist. It was an image that lingered with him.

  Jesse Solloway, she’d mouthed. It had been hard to miss the distant look of disappointment on her face. The same disappointment he’d seen in all the Betas’ eyes when Professor Stenton had introduced him, as if t
hey’d hoped for someone else.

  Me. I made it after all, he’d thought.

  ‘Juno!’ Harry yelled, throwing the hatch open behind them. Juno started awake, her eyes wide and vacant as a recent dreamer. The sound of the alarm crashed like a wave into the small capsule and Jesse realized, to his horror, that they had only thirty seconds. Harry grabbed Juno’s arm and half-dragged her out of her seat. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she cried. They stumbled over each other in their rush to get out. Twenty seconds. The other end of the greenhouse had never seemed so far away.

  Jesse saw Astrid’s terrified face peer from behind the closing door. ‘Hurry!’ she screamed, the fear in her voice sharp as a blade. Jesse bounded towards her, but even as he did the door was sliding closed, the red ‘Lock’ light flashing. Astrid pushed her fingers through the gap in an attempt to keep it open. Jesse’s lungs were on fire. He thought he could make it, but he was a metre away when the door slammed closed and he heard the hiss of mechanics as the hatch locked. It bit Astrid’s finger as it shut and she let out a howl of pain, which, in a moment, was silenced.

  Jesse slowed, panting. Harry and Juno were at his heels. He had never seen Harry look so terrified. Harry reached out to Juno as if to shield her, her thin body sliding into the hollow of his chest, but Jesse knew that the gesture would do little to protect her from the invisible storm of particles that were, even then, tearing through their bodies. He almost thought he could feel the burn, on his exposed skin, in his lungs. Feel his eyes growing cloudy with cataracts.

  This is how it happens, he thought with numbed disbelief. He had escaped Earth only to die here, on the first night. He dropped to the ground, his knees no longer able to hold him.