Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

by Temi Oh

  But, Jesse observed, Harry couldn’t tolerate surprises. When a fuel tank exploded, his sudden impulsive jerk of the controller sent him veering off in the wrong direction, losing power too soon to complete his mission. When a rogue ship careened past, Harry was too surprised to prevent a collision. He seemed to lack the cunning or creativity to improvise at higher levels.

  After the fuel tank explosion, Jesse said, ‘Hey, you know if you switch from the damaged fuel tanks to the secondary rocket boosters you’ll be able to land without too much excess drag.’ Harry had said nothing. ‘Also, it’s all about the angle of entry,’ Jesse added, ‘right now you’re going in too steep. That’s why you keep—’

  Harry interrupted by switching off the simulator and yanking off his goggles.

  ‘Hey, Jesse,’ he said, ‘do you want to see something?’

  ‘See what?’

  Harry spun round in his seat and leapt off with a little chuckle. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘That would ruin the fun.’

  ‘No, I’m fine here I think.’

  ‘Really? You don’t have a minute or two for a little competition?’

  Jesse’s immediate desire was to shrug his shoulders and remain in the comfort of the games room. But it was the way Harry always said the word ‘competition’ that piqued something inside Jesse, something like curiosity and determination.

  So he followed him into the half-lit corridor where, instead of climbing up the ladder as Jesse had expected, Harry slid towards the store rooms. Jesse had only ever gone down that way a few times, during that first night when they were all moving in, or when Cai requested extra cartons of stock solutions to mix more fertilizer.

  Further down the hall was the round door he’d never touched.

  ‘The airlock,’ Jesse said.

  ‘That’s right. So they taught you something about the ship during your midnight astronaut crash course.’

  A quick flame of annoyance sparked inside Jesse, but he didn’t want to give Harry the satisfaction of seeing him ruffled. ‘I’m just as trained as you,’ he said.

  ‘Actually, you’re about half as trained as me.’

  Jesse had expected this, sooner or later. Each time he asked a question in their tutorials about something he had not been taught he could almost feel the sneer on Harry’s lips. It made him sheepish and embarrassed, keen to hide his deficiencies but certain everyone was taking note of them. Jesse said what Commander Sheppard kept repeating to him: ‘Everything else I need to know I can learn on this ship.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Harry’s eyes glittered. ‘Like how the airlock works.’

  ‘I know how the airlock works. It allows entry or exit without compromising the environment inside the ship.’

  ‘Good. How does it do that?’

  ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘How does it do that, Jesse?’

  ‘Two doors – well, two pressure-sealed hatches – and a space in between; one opens out into space, the other into the ship. If someone is leaving, the compartment between depressurizes. The opposite if they are entering.’

  They were standing before it; the round door with the fat metal latches. Jesse peered at his reflection in the airlock’s porthole as Harry found the gearbox mounted on the side of the wall and twisted the handle. The hinge mechanism groaned and then, with a low hiss of air, the hatch swung open.

  The airlock was about the size of their tiny bathroom. Two spacesuits were charging, hooked to either wall, and they stared out at Jesse like astronauts with darkness for eyes. On the far end was a window to space.

  ‘You scared?’ Harry asked,

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared of.’

  ‘Exactly. Though that’s hard to remember sometimes.’ He stepped a little closer and Jesse followed behind him. ‘Have you heard of a sensory deprivation chamber?’

  ‘Yes—’ Jesse began, but Harry continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

  ‘During training they put us in one to see how long we could stand it. No light, no sound. Most people can’t last fifteen minutes before they begin to see things, begin to panic. They don’t even know what they’re afraid of. Themselves, maybe. In the darkness every fear finds a face. You imagine being buried alive, being paralyzed, and some people can’t handle it.’ Jesse shuddered as he, too, imagined it. He was silently glad this ordeal had been omitted from his training. He tried to picture Harry in the darkness.

  ‘Do you know how long I managed it?’ Harry was still talking. ‘Seven hours, forty-three minutes. Sounds impossible. Especially for someone like you, who’s afraid of the dark.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of the dark,’ Jesse said. ‘What kind of astronaut is?’

  ‘Prove it.’ Harry folded his arms and smiled. Jesse could only see part of Harry’s face in the half-light of the corridor. He was dressed in his uniform, as he usually was during the daytime, clean-shaven, his straight blond hair slicked back from his forehead.

  Jesse swallowed, a lie suddenly on his lips. ‘I have a fit-check in five minutes, so maybe another time.’

  ‘This will only take five minutes.’

  Jesse’s heart sank. He had no choice but to step inside the airlock. Harry’s silhouette was backlit on the threshold behind him.

  ‘Igor will probably tell you that when Russian cosmonauts train they’re put in isolation chambers, for weeks sometimes,’ Harry said. ‘Some of them call it the Chamber of Silence. Can you imagine it, Jesse? Can you imagine what thoughts would be going through your nervous head. There’s more to being an astronaut than just wanting it, you know. You have to prove you can do it.’

  He paused, and the dread in Jesse’s stomach grew.

  ‘The astronaut can’t fear enclosed spaces,’ Harry said, his fingers on the handle. Jesse’s nerves panged. In another moment, Harry would close the hatch and he would be left alone there.

  ‘No, don’t—’

  ‘The astronaut can’t fear the darkness.’

  Jesse saw Harry’s silhouetted hand lift and realized, too late, that he was letting the airlock close.

  ‘Harry!’ Jesse rushed towards the door as it shut. ‘No!’

  ‘The astronaut can’t fear death.’

  A hiss of air as the door sealed closed, and Jesse was left alone in the almost total blackness. All sound from the noisy ship disappeared, and he could hear only his own heavy breathing and the sweat prickling on his back. The air was stale and unmoving. How long until it ran out?

  ‘Harry,’ he called, ‘this isn’t funny.’

  I won’t panic, he thought to himself, but still he remained pressed up against the door. Sinister shapes were already beginning to encroach upon him in the darkness. He blinked them away.

  ‘You said five minutes.’ Five minutes. How long had it been already? One? Thirty seconds? He just had to keep calm for five minutes and then Harry would free him. He tried to distract himself by taking deep breaths, but inhaling the still air only made him more nervous.

  Jesse had often thought about what it might feel like to suffocate: the agony of oxygen deprivation and the clenching full body panic that came with it. Getting trapped under ice and drowning. A silent final scream of desperation as he fought to suck air into deflating lungs and instead felt the violation of freezing water rushing into his mouth. His throat sealing shut.

  ‘Harry!’

  Harry’s smiling face lit up the porthole. His voice audible through the intercom on the side. ‘Scared already?’ he asked. What little light there was glinted off his retinas. ‘You’re not much of an astronaut, are you? I knew there was a reason you didn’t make it first time round.’

  ‘This isn’t funny,’ Jesse called, slamming his hand against the window. It was so thick, two sheets of bolted polycarbonate, that he wasn’t sure that Harry could hear him.

  ‘Being in the airlock is not half as scary as being in space. While the six of us were cramming for physiology exams, you were probably out smoking weed and contemplating cloud formations, or whate
ver else it is you did with your abundant free time, so let me fill you in. There is one door separating you from the hard vacuum of space, the void between astronomical bodies, the possibly infinite ocean of mostly nothing-ness. It’s a bit like death. But do you know what would be more like death? Me, out here, turning this handle and watching you float out into space. What would a place like that do to a body like yours?’

  Jesse’s mouth went dry as he imagined it. The latches unbuckling, the airlock depressurizing, the door swinging open. This was the closest to the emptiness of space he had ever been. If he pressed his hand against the icy surface of the hatch he might even feel it, something of the coldness of space – around -270°C – but instead he was running his trembling fingers along the edges of the door, looking for an emergency button or loose seal – an escape.

  ‘Want to know a little something about surviving in space?’ Harry asked. ‘When I open the airlock and all the oxygen rushes out, try not to hold your breath. If you do, the air in your chest expands, your lungs will rupture and bubbles will spill out into your bloodstream, so your girlish scream of terror might just be the thing that saves your life. For a minute. And, out there – of course – no one will be able to hear you.

  ‘You’ll collapse after about fifteen seconds and begin to turn blue, although you look pretty blue to me already. No pressure in space means that, despite the sub-zero temperatures, all the water in your eyes and mouth will actually boil. Oh, and your body will swell to twice the size. Are you listening?’

  Jesse was screaming for help now, banging his sweaty palms against the door hoping that someone, anyone, might hear him. His heart kicked against his chest. The air in the room was smothering.

  ‘One comforting thought is that a human can survive over a minute out in space before he dies. So if Dr G hauled your bloated body back inside the ship and injected you with pressurized oxygen before your heart gave up entirely, you might just make it. I mean, you’d be in excruciating pain, but you’d be alive. Let’s see for ourselves, shall we?’

  The moment Jesse saw Harry’s face in the window, he knew that he was actually going to do it. Harry reached out and twisted the equalization valve. As he did so, Jesse heard the hiss as the airlock depressurized by venting air out into space. He almost thought he could see white plumes of gas bulge out into the blackness.

  ‘Five seconds,’ Harry called out. The little hand of the pressure gauge slid down.

  Jesse clawed at the inner hatch. In four seconds the outer airlock would unlatch and he would be ripped out of the safety of the ship. This was it, he realized with a dizzying rush of dread. He was going to die.

  ‘Stop, please!’ Jesse screamed. He wasn’t ashamed to beg for his life. ‘Please!’

  Harry’s eyes flashed, his blond lashes translucent.

  ‘Three . . .’

  ‘No—’ Tears filled Jesse’s eyes, and he scraped at the solid metal of the door so hard that blood bubbled under his fingernails.

  ‘Two . . .’

  The edges of his vision blackened, and the muscles in his legs crumpled. He had escaped the gravity of Earth only to die in the darkness here.

  ‘One . . .’

  JUNO

  29.08.12

  WHEN JUNO AND ELIOT climbed down to the lower deck, the first thing Juno heard was Harry’s laughter echoing along the narrow corridors. Perhaps that was the reason she chose to head towards the store rooms, instead of the simulation room where she had expected to find the two boys.

  Over the sound of Harry’s laughter, Juno thought she could hear the high-pitched whistle of air escaping vents. A terrifying noise that turned her blood to ice. Without a backwards glance at Eliot she began to run. The ceilings were low nearer the airlock, and she had to crouch down a little to save from knocking her head. At the end of the corridor, Harry was bent in front of the gearbox, shaking with laughter. The window into the airlock was dark, but the digital readout on the side of the wall was ticking down.

  ‘Five . . .’ Harry shouted.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Juno yelled. Although as she said it she knew that the airlock was decompressing. Harry was laughing so much he had to suck in air just to speak.

  He said, ‘Four . . . It’s just some fun, Juma.’

  ‘Is someone in there?’ Juno yelled. A hand smacked against the porthole – from inside the airlock. Juno screamed.

  ‘Three . . .’ Harry continued. Juno lunged for the gearbox, knocking Harry out of the way with strength that surprised even her, and grabbed the handle of the equalization control. The gauge was sliding down as oxygen hissed out of the vents. If the pressure reached zero, whoever was inside would suffocate – or worse, once the doors opened they would be dragged out into the hard vacuum of space. Juno heaved the handle in the opposite direction and watched as the pressure began, again, to climb.

  ‘Two . . .’ Harry shouted, his face flushed. Juno grabbed the lever that controlled the inner hatch door and yanked it towards her, just in time to hear the locking mechanism release.

  ‘One . . .’ The hatch swung open, sucking air in such a violent slipstream that both Juno and Harry were almost knocked off their feet, and two displays tore off the wall.

  The lights in the airlock activated.

  ‘Where is he?’ Harry’s face fell as they looked around the small compartment. Juno had never entered this airlock chamber. It was set up for spacewalks, with spacesuits plugged into ports on the walls. It was a tangle of wires and equipment, with only enough space to comfortably fit two astronauts at any one time.

  Jesse was curled in a dark heap in the corner. When Juno approached him, his lips were blue and he was gaping like a fish, sweat soaking his shirt. ‘Jesse?’

  Instead of replying, Jesse clutched at his chest as if he was choking, knocking one of the boneless spacesuits mounted on the wall hard enough to detach it. Juno’s heart pounded with panic. She turned on Harry. ‘What did you do to him?’

  ‘I-I . . .’ Harry stammered, all traces of hilarity draining from his face as he leant into the airlock chamber, holding the hatch open like a car boot. ‘I don’t know.’

  When Juno pressed a palm against Jesse’s chest, she felt that his heart was fluttering shallowly.

  ‘Jess . . .’ She squeezed his damp hand and peered into his tiny pupils. ‘It’s okay . . . you’re safe.’ She tested his pulse, counted his staccato breaths.

  ‘Is it asthma or something?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No, you idiot,’ Juno snapped. ‘He’s having a panic attack.’ Juno remembered what she had been taught the afternoon their instructors had hauled Poppy’s shaking body out of the sensory deprivation tank. She instructed Jesse to take deep breaths.

  Eliot’s pale face appeared in the doorway. ‘Should I get Fae?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Yeah, do that.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Jesse managed to gasp, but Eliot had already disappeared. Jesse dropped his head into his hands. Juno was pleased to see he was breathing more evenly now. ‘I’m fine. Jesus Christ . . .’ he gasped. ‘I feel so stupid.’ His hands were still shaking. He clenched them into fists. ‘I really am fine. Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘You’re okay,’ Juno said, trying to comfort him with a smile, smoothing the sweat-soaked baby hairs from his forehead. ‘You will be.’

  A few minutes later, Eliot and Dr Golinsky appeared in the corridor, and they helped Jesse up to the infirmary. Although some of the colour had returned to his face, he still needed to lean on both of them to stand, the muscles in his thighs twitching uncontrollably.

  Harry stood silently the whole time, pressed up against the wall near the gearbox, his face blank. Once Juno heard the sound of their footsteps fade away, she climbed to her feet and faced him. As she did, she noticed the spots of blood on the inside of the porthole where Jesse had tried to claw his way out, a greasy handprint against the polycarbonate. Rage boiled up inside her so suddenly that she flew at Harry before she could calm herself and slammed him against t
he wall.

  ‘You sadist. What were you thinking?’ Although she’d taken Harry by surprise, he was a lot stronger than she was and even in that moment Juno could feel the bulk of his muscles flex beneath his flight suit.

  ‘It was just a game, you know . . . I didn’t know he would freak out like that.’

  ‘You were going to throw him out of the airlock. You were going to kill him. Of course he “freaked out”.’

  ‘I wouldn’t actually have done it.’ Harry shrugged Juno off easily. He was twice her size, and – not for the first time – Juno resented his power over her and the rest of the Beta. The authority he’d been given under Sheppard.

  ‘I guess we’ll never know that,’ she said, stepping back.

  ‘Never know if I’m capable of killing a person?’ Harry smiled wryly. ‘Don’t be dramatic, Juma. I was just teaching him a lesson, that’s all.’

  ‘What lesson?’ she asked, her body still tight with fury.

  ‘That it takes some nerve to do what we have to do. That you have to deserve to be here.’

  ‘He does deserve to be here,’ Juno said. ‘And what gives you the right to—’

  ‘I’m the commander. Or have you forgotten?’ They stood in silence for a moment, Juno’s fists clenched.