Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

by Temi Oh

  Everyone cheered, startling Juno out of her reverie. Igor had entered with two bottles of champagne. Solomon stood up at the head of the table. ‘I would just like to say that I could not have picked a better crew to spend Christmas with. Sure, there have been a few growing pains. But I feel really privileged to watch you all mature, so here’s to the first of many great Christmases.’ He raised his glass, and so did everyone else. They whooped and swallowed down the sweet cold wine. Juno thought that she could feel the bubbles rush straight to her head.

  Then they tore through their presents at the same time, in a silence that was punctuated by shouts of surprise or gratitude. Juno’s was a heavy edition of Gray’s Anatomy. She gasped, running her fingers along the bent spine.

  ‘It’s second-hand,’ said Fae, apologetically. On the first page, Juno found a name written in exquisite handwriting, Fae Golinsky, and the date, thirty years ago. In the margin next to the contents page, she had practised writing her name again and again, with the title she’d studied for. ‘DOCTOR Friederike Golinsky’, ‘DOCTOR Friederike Golinsky’, she’d scribbled over and over, and Juno imagined a time she had been hunched over her books, Juno’s age, in medical school.

  ‘Thank you . . .’ she said in breathless surprise, and Fae’s lips tightened into something like a smile.

  There were other lovely gifts too. Juno knew that Poppy had given Harry a scarf. Cai had given Jesse a couple of tiny paper bags of seeds. ‘You can have a plot, only a metre or two, I cleared one for you. You can grow whatever you like there,’ he’d said brusquely.

  Astrid had given Solomon a dream catcher, a delicate, feathered thing she’d bought on holiday once. ‘Now you can dream of Terra as well,’ she told him, and he smiled graciously.

  ‘Off we go,’ Poppy called out at the end of the meal. Everyone piled out of the room and up the ladder to the greenhouse, where Cai had dimmed the halogen bulbs. The garden had begun to flourish, patches of once sterile ground now covered in bright-green plants, with leaves that seemed to float in the lower gravity. Vines curled up the glass spires, waxy leaves shivering as they passed. Wicker baskets hung along the paths, vivid and lush flowers spilling over the edges.

  They followed Jesse and Cai to the centre of the greenhouse, past Cai’s office, to stand before the cleared patch of land where the tallest tree had been planted. A spruce tree. Jesse had covered it in fairy-lights and some of Poppy’s paper snowflakes. Juno looked around at the faces of the crew bathed in the soft light, everyone clutching their champagne and smiling.

  At the top of the tree was no plastic star or gaudy angel. Jesse had painted over a bauble with the blue of seas and lime patches of land. Their gaze was drawn up the makeshift Christmas tree to the little replica of one Earth, or another, that floated above it.

  JESSE

  25.12.12

  AFTER CHRISTMAS LUNCH JESSE, and the rest of the Beta gathered in the crew module to watch movies. They were halfway through the opening credits of an action film when Juno strode in and pressed the pause button on the monitor screen.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. Harry groaned and folded his arms.

  ‘If you’re going to demand that we do chores today of all days —’

  ‘Nothing like that.’ Juno stepped in front of the screen so that her hair buzzed with static.

  ‘I’ve been thinking for a while, actually, about what we’re going to do when we land. You see, all the training that we’ve received has been focused on the technical aspect of our role as pioneers. Gathering data, finding water sources, building the settlement in preparation for the next set of astronauts. But it occurs to me now that there has been one gaping hole in our education.

  ‘What kind of society do we want to be? What will our name be? What will our flag look like? What kind of leadership model will we adhere to? Will we have a monarchy, a president? ’

  ‘A monarchy.’ Harry smiled. ‘I like the sound of that.’

  ‘King Harry?’ Poppy said, rolling her eyes. ‘Ruler of five people?’

  ‘It will only be five people at first. Then more will land, and we’ll tell them what’s what. If you’re good you can be a concubine.’

  Juno did not look amused.

  ‘There are laws already. This debate has already been settled by the British Interplanetary Society and the government,’ Jesse said. ‘I mean, as far as I understand it, we’re sort of governed by British laws, conventions and acts of parliament. Like a colony. Like America was.’

  ‘Because that turned out so well,’ Juno said.

  ‘I guess we do need a name, at least,’ Astrid agreed. ‘Surely we can decide that. New . . . something that already exists?’

  ‘That’s too obvious,’ said Eliot, but Astrid continued to list them anyway.

  ‘Like, New Earth or New London or New—wait, no, that already exists. New-New-something-or-other . . . New-New-England. New Paris—’

  Poppy giggled. ‘That just sounds silly.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Juno said. ‘I don’t want a new version of an old place. I want a better place, a—’

  ‘—utopia.’ Jesse finished her sentence, and Juno’s face lit up.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ Eliot said.

  ‘But it will be a utopia,’ Astrid said. ‘I believe it. Freedom. Peace. Lands flowing with milk and honey, caves glutted with diamonds. Just talking about it makes me excited.’

  ‘To that end,’ Juno said, tapping a button on her tablet, ‘I’ve been doing some research. Commander Sheppard said something interesting – that there’s no working model of this little civilization we have now. So I thought I’d look to the past for some examples. Take America—’ she tapped another button on her tablet – ‘I took the liberty of drafting a constitution, and I’d be grateful for your feedback.’

  ‘A constitution,’ Astrid said, laughing. ‘It’s so like you to focus on rules and laws. Do you want to go ahead and draft a friendship agreement for us all to sign? Do we need a sisterhood treaty?’

  ‘I thought Britain had a constitution?’ Poppy said. ‘Why can’t we use that one?’

  Harry smacked his head. ‘Poppy, this is fundamental. We don’t have one.’

  ‘We kind of do,’ Eliot said. ‘It’s just not written down.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s been eight hundred years since Magna Carta,’ said Harry. ‘And that whole time we’ve just been waiting for Juno to draft one for us.’

  ‘You laugh now,’ Juno said, ‘but imagine this scenario: we land on Terra-Two, in our great patch of land. We live happily for a while, with each other, with our way of doing things. But then another group lands. A group with their own leaders and social structure – likely bigger than ours. Then the birth mothers, young women brought over in cryogenic transporters, and everyone will have a different idea about how things should be. They want our land. They want our resources – how do we divide things fairly? How do we settle disputes? How do we punish wrong-doers, people who murder or rape?’

  Poppy shuddered. ‘Way to turn that into a horror story.’

  ‘It’s not a story,’ Juno said, the volume of her voice rising with passion. ‘It’s history. This is how wars start. So I think we should decide now on our rules of law, our underlying philosophies. I’ve drafted a start. It’s called the Damocles Document. “We, the foremothers and forefathers, the first on Terra-Two. Have penned this document in the gladsome hope of the city we are to build . . .’

  ‘The Damocles Document,’ Jesse said, and heard the admiration in his own voice.

  ‘Yes . . .’ Juno smiled, clearly pleased to find an ally. ‘In future generations, we might be tempted to forget this time. This time that we spent labouring in the darkness. We might forget that the land beneath our feet, the sky, the trees, the whole of the Earth that we’ve discovered is a gift. Is sacred. So one of the fundamental tenets of our society will be to take care of it.’

  ‘To live sustainably,’ Jesse said and Juno nodded.

  ‘We also
need to remember that we left our family and country behind on the old Earth. When we arrive on Terra-two, we are all brothers and sisters. Including all the settlers who will come after us. I’ve realized on this ship that we can only live happily if we’re all committed to a common aim—’

  ‘But—’ Harry began to interrupt, but Jesse shh-ed him violently.

  ‘In the spirit of fellowship and charity I think that everyone in our country should have enough resources to flourish. By that I mean that no one should ever be homeless. Education, healthcare and free food. We will be a society that cares for the sick and for the disabled – although for a few generations only the healthy will be selected by the UKSA for colonization. Money is only for the practical purposes of sharing resources and cannot be hoarded. Every three years, all debts are cleared. And no one can own the land. We are simply jointly responsible custodians of the new world we’ve been given. We have to take care of it.’

  ‘So where will we live?’ Harry asked.

  ‘In hab-labs, of course. At first.’ Juno replied.

  ‘But we don’t own them?’

  ‘Of course we don’t own them. They were built by space agencies on Earth, we just look after—’

  ‘No.’ Harry shook his head. ‘I’m not sure I like this at all. What if we find our nice patch of land, you know, water, good view etcetera, and the next group of people land, the Gamma or the European group, and try to take it from us?’

  ‘That’s exactly the point I’m making here,’ Juno said. ‘They will have to adhere to the law of the country they have entered.’

  ‘And the law says that nothing belongs to anyone,’ Harry said.

  ‘The law says that we will allocate according to need. And then reallocate. No inheritance. No property.’

  “ ‘To each, according to his needs”?’ Eliot said. ‘So we’re Marxists?’

  Juno was beginning to get flustered. Jesse could tell by the way that she kept switching her weight from foot to foot, taking deep breaths.

  ‘Don’t you see, you guys,’ she implored, ‘don’t you realize what a gift we have here? All the way through human history our behaviour falls into predictable patterns. Civil war, tribal divides, deforestation. We have a chance. Think about all the times on Earth when you thought, What would I do, if I could do things differently? What if we could start again, learning from all those mistakes? The experiment of Earth has been tried and failed. Now is the time for Earth 2.0.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Eliot.

  ‘Can I just say,’ said Poppy, ‘that I never do think that.’

  ‘I think that we’re not about to elect Juno the fascist dictator of our society,’ said Harry.

  Jesse could see that his words had stung. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘leave her alone.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Harry. ‘You’re going to paint me as the bad guy this time too? We already have a Bill of Rights and British laws. You’re telling me we’re just going to abandon eight hundred years of progress for her nutjob idea?’

  ‘Yes!’ Jesse surprised even himself with his fervour. ‘This is progress. Moving forwards. I think that Juno’s a genius. She’s going to make history.’ Juno’s face softened, and she blushed.

  ‘Okay,’ said Harry, ‘you’re clearly saying that because you want to get into her pants.’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Poppy smugly.

  A wave of shame and embarrassment came over Jesse and he saw the mortified look on Juno’s face too.

  ‘N-no . . .’ she began.

  ‘Well,’ said Harry, ‘I don’t think he’s much of a catch either. Must have been a real turn-off finding him in the airlock, wetting his pants.’

  He’d had enough. Something inside Jesse, a taut wire of patience and self-control, snapped. He flew at Harry. He couldn’t even tell where he’d hit him, just that he felt the impacts in his wrists, heard the soft pounding of flesh. He got about three blows in before Harry turned on him with the full force of his weight and threw him onto the ground, so hard that Jesse saw stars. Then came a punch to the solar plexus that left Jesse retching violently in pain. Another to his stomach that made his throat close, turned his lungs into a vacuum. Jesse suddenly became aware that Harry could kill him. He could taste his own blood in his mouth, hear distant screams of horror.

  Harry grabbed the lamp off the stand nearby and Poppy lunged in front of him, snatching his arm. Harry was panting. He froze as if he’d woken from a dream. He dropped the lamp, letting the bulb shatter on the floor. Jesse scrambled back, his head spinning, hands sliding through a pool of blood and saliva.

  JUNO

  26.12.12

  WHEN JUNO WOKE UP on Boxing Day, her head was pounding. She rolled out of bed, pulled on her dressing gown and climbed up to the infirmary to see if she could find some aspirin. Her nerves were frayed from the night before, horrifying flashes of Harry’s face and Jesse’s cries of pain. Underneath it, the sour taste of guilt. It was her fault. The argument had erupted over her Damocles Document. And Jesse had been injured defending her.

  Juno found Fae seated at her desk in the infirmary, poring over a pile of documents, her reading glasses glinting in the lamplight. She pulled them off and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Good morning, Doctor,’ said Juno.

  ‘Good afternoon, Juno,’ Fae said, then she lifted up a chart. ‘You are just the person I wanted to talk to. Did you know that you seem to be losing weight?’ Even in her stern voice, the words gave Juno a thrill. ‘Are you eating all your rations?’

  ‘Of course,’ she lied.

  Fae frowned. ‘I’m going to recalculate your calorie requirements. You have been doing a lot of exercise.’ That meant more food. Juno tried not to shudder. She normally drank at least a litre of water before the weigh-ins but she suspected that Fae was catching on – perhaps that was why she had scheduled this medical check so early in the morning.

  Eating disorders had been a problem at Dalton. Despite the rigorous psychological testing and careful monitoring the students underwent, they were almost primed to develop them. Dalton was a perfect storm of stress and competition, intense exercise and emphasis on healthy eating. The young Type-A perfectionists who were likely to be selected for the programme lived in close quarters, girls and boys casting razor-sharp teenage eyes into each other’s flesh. They had monthly weigh-ins and meetings with the psychological teams that were supposed to identify those suffering, but Juno had learned years ago how to get around them, rehearsed answers, water before weigh-ins, socks filled with rice, weights sewn into the lining of her knickers.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, rubbing her forehead. ‘I have kind of a headache . . .’

  ‘It’s not good.’ Fae ignored her diversion. ‘Your sister weighs two and a half stone more than you.’

  ‘Astrid’s always weighed more than me.’

  ‘You need to eat more.’ Fae said it like an order, her cool eyes unblinking. ‘If you keep losing weight like this we will need to begin supervised mealtimes.’ Juno had heard about this, students who were not allowed to leave the table until they’d eaten all of their food. ‘And you may be relieved of some of your duties if you are not able to physically handle—’

  ‘I can handle them,’ Juno interrupted.

  ‘I have a nutrition guide around here, actually . . .’ Fae turned around to open a drawer and began rifling through her things, sifting through paper-clipped sheets of paper and files. ‘I know I have it somewhere. You were probably given one when you arrived, but maybe you need a quick reminder; about what artificial gravity does to your joints, about the importance of protein and fish oils . . .’ She huffed out a frustrated breath, and scratched her head. ‘I was sure it was here. I was meaning to put it up in the kitchen, actually. Perhaps I left it in my room.’ Opening a final drawer, then slamming it shut, Fae said, ‘I might go see if I can find it. Wait here a moment,’ and then walked out.

  Juno sat alone on the gurney, swinging her legs, when her eyes caught a pile of laminated folders Fae
had left splayed across her desk. Juno glanced at the closed door and then, on a surprising impulse, slid off the gurney and grabbed one. Names were printed across them in Fae’s neat hand. Juno’s fingers found the thickest one, the one with Igor’s name written atop most of the sheets. There were dense pages of text, letters signed off by several different doctors, charts, measurements, blood pressure readings. A glossy leaf slipped out onto the desk in front of her, and she caught it. A chest x-ray. She recognized the ivory cage of his lungs, the pale mass of a heart on the right-hand side, and held it up to the fluorescent light.

  Something had been circled in green marker and, leaning in to examine it, she noticed a chalky smudge of white that filled the top left corner of the image of his lungs.

  The sound of footsteps in the corridor made her heart leap. If Fae caught her looking over someone else’s notes she would be furious. She might even dismiss Juno from training with her. As the door flew open, she jumped back and the papers fluttered across the desk.

  ‘You?’ Harry stood on the threshold, looking just as startled. Juno exhaled, scrabbling to put the files back in order.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked as she pushed the x-ray back into the folder and tucked the whole thing under the file marked Jesse Solloway.

  ‘None of your business.’ She could tell that her flushing cheeks had given her away, so she added, ‘Fae asked me to find something for her, that’s all.’

  When she turned again, she realized that Harry wasn’t really listening. He was looking back at the door in alarm. ‘Hey . . . er—’ he lowered his voice. ‘You know, I’m glad you’re here actually.’ As he stepped further from the shadow of the doorway, she saw how terrible he looked. A brown crust of dried blood was still visible under his nose and the skin on his face was starting to swell. The colour and texture of butchered meat.

  Juno opened her mouth but Harry held up a hand, quickly. ‘Look, I know what you’re going to say.’ Her impulse had been to tell him to go away but his shoulders slumped.