by Temi Oh
She slammed the door shut behind her and said, ‘Doctor? I mean, Fae . . .’ Fae’s head flew up, she lunged towards the radio and jabbed the off button so the music cut out.
Wiping her eyes, she turned to Juno and asked, ‘What now?’
‘Um . . .’ Juno straightened her back and glanced again at her watch. ‘It’s time for our lesson?’ She noticed that none of their books had been set out, and the board had not been wiped clean after yesterday’s lesson on the endocrine system. Juno chewed her lip and looked around awkwardly. ‘Should I come back at a better time?’ And then she added – for courtesy’s sake, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Um . . .’ Fae’s voice was tight, ‘no.’
‘What is it?’ Juno asked. She was not sure which was better; the gift of comfort or the gift of privacy.
‘Do you care?’ Fae asked.
‘Of course . . .’ Juno said. ‘Of course I do.’
Fae exhaled heavily and then reached up to pull the pins out of her hair. In one swift movement, her hair spilled down her back like a stream of molten rock. She was thin as a prepubescent girl, with light little bones, but when she let her hair down the skin around her forehead sank, revealing the lines etched there. Under the V-neck of her jumper her grey skin puckered like crepe paper over the rungs of her sternum.
‘Who’s Moritz?’ Juno asked on an impulse. Fae turned to her, eyes narrowed as if she suspected a trick.
‘You don’t know?’ she said with a frown, then, more to herself, ‘Of course you don’t know.’ She rubbed her liver-spotted hands and said, ‘Moritz is my fiancé.’
Juno’s eyes were drawn to the ring on the doctor’s third finger. Art deco, with a pale topaz set in silver filigree. It glinted in the light, the clinical blue of the doctor’s eyes. Had she always worn it? Juno wondered how she had never noticed such an extravagant piece of jewellry.
‘Y-you’re engaged?’ Juno stammered. She could feel the colour rising in her cheeks. Why had she never asked?
‘Yes,’ Fae said. ‘It happened a week before the launch. Ten days, actually.’
‘Oh,’ said Juno, with dawning realization. ‘When Ara died you had to take Maggie’s place.’ Juno, too, had said goodbye to a boy she thought she might spend her life with, but Fae only had the space of an evening to say her goodbyes, to make her arrangements. Juno wondered if the doctor awoke every morning with regret for the life she chose.
‘Why did you agree to come?’ Juno asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Fae said. ‘I knew there would be a chance I might have to go. That was always the plan if Dr Millburrow couldn’t launch. But as time went on . . . you all loved Maggie so much . . . but it was the night before the launch and . . . I don’t know. There were so many people, so much pressure and they were all looking for someone to blame. I didn’t want it to be my fault if we failed. When we had come so far . . .’ She shrugged. Juno didn’t think she had ever heard Fae say so many words. ‘And we already knew that Moritz couldn’t join the UKSA. He’s not a dual citizen like me. So he joined the running to be part of the Vierzig and we thought—’
‘The Vierzig?’
‘Die Ersten Vierzig,’ Fae said, her accent curling around the words. ‘The First Forty.’
Juno recognized the translation, of course. A German-speaking group who were part of the European Space Agency. For a long time they had been tipped to launch first and to reach Terra before the British. Forty men and women, all post-docs and older than the Beta. Juno guessed that Fae had thought they might reach Terra-Two within a decade of each other and be reunited there. It was a romantic thought, a wedding on the shores of a new planet. ‘It could still happen,’ Juno said, and she could see it herself, for a second; Fae, aged but dressed in white, her hand in his, making promises that were swept up by the wind.
‘No,’ Fae said. ‘It won’t. He didn’t make it into the forty. It looked like he might but . . . I found out today, they released the list of the finalists and his name is not on it.’
Juno’s stomach twisted. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry.’
A few things made sense to Juno now: photographs she’d seen in the back of Fae’s binder, her frequent calls to Earth, the way she presided over the crew with a cold resentment as if they were children she’d never wanted. A swell of silent sympathy came over her, but she fought against it. ‘Maybe something good has come out of this. Surely it has,’ she said. ‘Not everyone made it onto the Damocles. Not everyone has this chance to make history.’
Fae’s shoulders began to shake with suppressed sobs. ‘Don’t you see,’ she said, ‘that it doesn’t matter?’
‘What doesn’t matter?’
‘We’re alone out here. You’re a child.’ The word grated on Juno, but she let it go. ‘I know, though. I know that our chances are slim.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Fae shook her head, drawn again into her own sorrow. She turned away and said to herself, ‘What am I doing here?’
‘Don’t say that.’ Juno’s voice was firmer. She’d had enough self-pity on this voyage. Everyone has their moment of despair.’
‘Moment?’ Fae stood up suddenly, and her chair tipped to the ground. Juno jumped backwards, buzzing with surprise.
‘My whole life is despair.’ Lunging forward, she threw an arm across the table and sent the books flying. Juno jumped back to avoid a glass paperweight, which shattered against the wall. ‘Why did I choose this?’ the doctor asked over the clattering of stationery at their feet. ‘This graveyard voyage. This suicide mission?’
Juno’s heart was pounding. She couldn’t tell if she should comfort Fae or abandon her. Her feet chose for her. She darted from the room, shaking with dread. She didn’t stop running until she reached the crew module and the sound of Fae’s wild sobs was no longer ringing in her ears.
JUNO FINISHED READING THE final chapter on the endocrine system alone, with grim determination. The crew module was deserted – everyone was either in their bedroom or working and, behind the door of the girls’ cabin, Poppy’s radio had hitched onto a station that played melancholy jazz tracks all afternoon.
When Juno finished her work she caught sight of Jupiter again, a little larger in the window, a claret flurry of storms now faintly visible in its atmosphere. A long note rose from a clarinet, echoed across the crew module, and in that moment Juno realized that she was lonely. She had continued – in the only way she knew how – through the tutorials, through the weeks and months, as the excitement of space travel flaked away and living in a confined space with her crewmates began to feel like a bad marriage. Twenty years more of this, Juno thought wearily. Twenty years of Fae’s resentment and Poppy’s self-centred sorrow. Eliot’s broken heart. Harry’s competitiveness. Jesse’s desire. Astrid’s dreams, which no one could share. And the cold, and this loneliness.
She was almost relieved when the bell rang for dinner. But only Harry, Astrid and Commander Sheppard turned up. On the menu that night was one of Juno’s least favourite meals, bitter beef stew and rice with vacuum-packed crackers.
‘You’re not eating,’ Commander Sheppard said.
‘Sorry.’ Juno pushed her sticky rice around the bowl.
‘Well, don’t play with it like that or we can’t recycle it.’
The thought of recycling it for another dinner rotation – which meant that in ten days Juno would be faced with this very same meal again – made her stomach turn. She imagined what might happen if she never ate her beef stew. Would it just pile up and up?
‘Not many people are at dinner,’ she said, in an attempt to change the subject. Harry feigned surprise, looking around at the seats between them as if he’d only just noticed that they were empty.
‘It does begin happening around this stage of the trip,’ Sheppard said. ‘In my experience, by the time we’d been on Mars three, maybe four, months . . . the crew start to get restless and some people get sad. The Russians call it “asthenia”. Low mood, tired
ness, you know . . . it’s best just to wait it out. Happens all the time.’
‘But in the meantime,’ said Astrid, ‘they’re making everyone else miserable.’
‘Yes,’ Juno agreed. ‘Can’t we make them come to dinner? I’m sure they’ll feel cheered up once they’re here.’
‘That might be true.’ Sheppard put down his knife and fork and exhaled slowly before speaking. ‘You see, Juno, that’s a good suggestion. At Dalton you and your crew might have received sanctions for missing a meal or chores. Or worse, of course, some people were excluded from the programme. But that’s not the type of punitive environment I’m looking to cultivate up here. I’m aware, on one hand, that you are the youngest crew I have ever worked with, which poses a few . . . challenges. But on the other hand, you need to learn to build up the good habits and a caring culture between yourselves of your own volition. That’s one of the most important lessons you will learn during this mission. And I’m not sure that I want to stand around trying to make you.’
‘You want us to want to,’ Astrid said, leaning over Juno’s tray to stab her fork into a lump of meat.
Harry looked distracted for a moment, his gaze distant and unfocused. Finally he spoke. ‘Poppy’s party was kind of nice. Doing something together. Maybe we could do more things like that, as a group.’
‘Like a crew meeting?’ Juno suggested.
‘Has no one taught you the meaning of “fun”, lady?’ Harry said.
Commander Sheppard chuckled. ‘Thank you for your suggestion, Harry. I think something recreational might be more enjoyable.’
‘Jesse and I thought that we could have a harvest lunch at Christmas time. By then, a lot of the fruits and veg from the greenhouse will be ready to cook and eat.’ Astrid licked her lips in excitement.
‘Or the Olympics,’ Harry suggested. ‘None of you watched the Olympic opening ceremony with me. It was amazing. James Bond, J. K. Rowling, The Beatles, the NHS.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Juno felt a pang of regret. ‘I missed that.’
‘Well, I have it recorded,’ Harry said. ‘We could all watch it together.’
‘That’s another good idea.’ Sheppard smiled, and then took a long drag from his glass. ‘The thing you have to remember, Juno, is that it helps to be a little forgiving. No one has done this before. With some things, we’ll just have to see how it goes.’
SHEPPARD’S WORDS BOTHERED JUNO even after dinner was over and they had all retired for the evening. She wasn’t sure she liked the thought of venturing out into the void with no role models, nothing to anchor herself.
That evening, she ended up scouring the ship’s data bank on her personal computer, looking for files. She came across the Xiao Lin papers, articles published by the scientist on the Chinese generation ship. Xiao Lin had laid out her ideas about the importance of living in harmony on a closed system like the Shēngmìng. Fellowship and justice, she had written, came above all else. Juno was captivated by the idea. And by Xiao Lin, who seemed to embody a cold brilliance. She’d managed to distil ‘fellowship’ into a few simple rules of human behaviour, and Juno read and reread them so intently that she didn’t notice time passing.
‘You’re still awake.’ Astrid sauntered in a while later, in her pyjamas.
‘It’s not like I have anything else to do,’ Juno muttered, looking up from her screen. The indigo light outside the door indicated night-time and it was a surprise to see.
‘No, not since everyone is angry with you.’ Astrid said it in jest but Juno flinched. Poppy still wasn’t talking to her, and she had not seen Fae all evening.
‘Did you know that Dr Golinsky is engaged?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’ Astrid turned to Juno. ‘Everyone knows that. She had to leave Earth really suddenly and she didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.’
Juno chewed on her lip for a moment. Something about Fae’s breakdown had ruffled her, made her suddenly aware of her own friendlessness. It reminded her of those days during primary school when Astrid was ill and she found herself alone in the playground, the harsh wind licking at her calves, carrying the sounds of other people’s laughter.
‘Do you think all the senior crew are like Golinsky?’ she asked.
‘Like what?’
‘I guess I always imagined that they came on this mission because they had nothing to leave behind. Well, except for Sheppard.’
‘Everyone has something to leave behind. They probably came along for some of the reasons we did, because it would be amazing. Because maybe it’s worth gambling all we have for the promise of a better life.’
‘They must get lonely. Like Cai, spending all day up in the greenhouse, or Igor – I know he left a wife and children and grandchildren behind on Earth,’ Juno said.
‘I never understood why they couldn’t just pair up with each other,’ Astrid said. Juno cringed at the thought, picturing Fae’s stiff body in Commander Sheppard’s arms.
‘Like – what’s his name? – that captain on Orlando, his wife lives on station with him. They’ve been married for thirty years or something.’
‘I guess that’s just luck,’ Juno said. ‘Being put on a mission with someone you grow to love.’
‘Or destiny,’ Astrid said gently.
Juno looked down.
‘You know,’ Astrid said, ‘you act as if we’re all still crew, like we’re all work colleagues doing a job together, but it’s not like that anymore. We’re a family now.’
‘Yes,’ said Juno, looking down at the highlighted pages of the Xiao Lin papers. ‘That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about. Fellowship. We need to engage in team-building—’
‘I don’t know if we need more plans. More rules.’ Astrid rolled her eyes. ‘Maybe we need more friendship.’
Juno thought for a moment. Pictured again the photos she had seen downlinked from the Shēngmìng, three generations in some of them, smiling scientists and their young children, the first hundred, their faces lined but quietly joyful. Juno had found candid shots of the crew gathered in the Shēngmìng’s greenhouse to celebrate the Duanwu Festival, racing mini motorized dragon boats across the reservoir, faces lantern-lit, crew members toasting each other with realgar wine, toddlers on tiptoes grabbing at cherry blossoms.
‘Juno,’ Astrid came to sit beside her, a mischievous smile on her face. ‘Can you do something for me?’
‘Depends,’ she said. ‘What?’
‘I want . . . some tuck.’
‘Astrid—’
‘Just a little. I know you don’t let anyone touch it but I haven’t eaten chocolate in weeks. We all know you have real chocolate hidden away in that cupboard with all the rest of the junk food you were too disciplined to eat. Share some with me? Please . . .’ Her eyes grew wide and pleading.
‘Just a little?’
‘Just a tiny bit,’ Astrid promised, squeezing her finger and thumb together to indicate just how small. Juno sighed.
Her tuck locker was the cupboard full of perishable food from Earth that she’d been allowed to bring with her: hot chocolate, marshmallows, Mars Bars and Pringles all stacked neatly in the kitchen. By their third week in space, the others had eaten through most of their food and were busy trading the dregs. Juno had arranged the food from the back of the cupboard in order of expiry date and written up a timetable in order to preserve it for as long as possible. Commander Sheppard told them tales of the Mars mission where they ran out of coffee and traded favours for sachets of the stuff. ‘You’d be a rich girl,’ he said, ‘if only you’d swap your food for chores.’
Juno opened her locked cupboard. It smelt of preserved sugar, tall stacks of tin cans glinting in the low light. She had only a few chocolate bars left, and didn’t want to spare a whole one, so she picked up a large half-opened Galaxy bar, pushed her finger under the creased gold paper, broke off four squares and surrendered them reluctantly.
Astrid was already licking her lips. ‘Can I eat it now?’ she asked breathlessly.
> ‘Eat it when you like,’ Juno replied, feigning indifference, although, in her position, Juno knew that she would draw the experience out over four days, letting one square each morning melt in her mouth.
Astrid took a bite, then smiled, her front teeth slicked brown with chocolate. ‘I don’t know how you have the control to stare at all that food and not eat it.’
‘Years of practice.’ Juno laughed. ‘Anyway, I’d feel bad if I ate it all. I’d probably be sick.’ Juno remembered what they had been talking about before. ‘The thing is . . .’ she began, retrieving the thread of the conversation, ‘I think that if we just learn from the mistakes we made on Earth, and dedicate ourselves to—’
‘You know, you’re not the boss here, Juno, and you can’t keep telling people how to live their lives. That’s why Poppy still hasn’t forgiven you.’ Juno was taken aback by her sister’s harsh tone. ‘You know what Dad would say . . . what happened to your faith?’
‘Faith in what?’
‘In our destiny. In Terra-Two. You haven’t seen it, like I have. But, Juno, once we get there, all of this,’ she indicated the books Juno had laid out on the table, ‘will be trivial.’
Juno felt her hairs prickle with a flash of irritation. ‘Your dreams, your stupid dreams. A dream is not evidence!’
‘But how can you explain Tessa Dalton and—’
‘Tessa Dalton?’ Juno said. ‘The crazy woman?’
Astrid stared at Juno in furious shock. ‘Take that back!’
‘No,’ said Juno, raising her voice to match her sister’s. ‘I think this whole New Creationist thing is just another way for you to convince yourself that you’re special.’
The blood rose in Astrid’s face as if Juno had just slapped her. ‘You know what? Poppy’s right. You’re bossy and judgemental. You’re impossible to live with. And if you want to spend the next two decades miserable and alone, you’re going about it the right way.’