by Temi Oh
Even with his new, more intuitive, understanding of the games, Jesse would still get stalled for a week on a single level, unable to master the delicate manoeuvres required to steer through a cloud of accelerating space junk, or to rendezvous with another craft. During those times, the task would plague him. His frazzled mind projected planets, darkly visible in the foreground, particles of dust suddenly and momentarily iridescent before a careening asteroid knocked him abruptly back into consciousness.
One fine night, by some miracle of dexterity, Jesse managed to skate through every challenge. Though the hull of his ship was fairly dented, it remained unbreached. He dodged debris and space junk and avoided sudden death by decompression. His heart pounding and palms sweating, Jesse’s mind narrowed into a corridor of exhausted focus. But he stayed true. He met every challenge with triumph, the sticky frustrating levels – eight, eleven, thirteen – he ascended them all.
How had it happened? Was it that keen blinkered attention which arose from weeks of sleep deprivation and determination? Was it that his exhaustion made him reckless and bold? Perhaps he had run the simulation so many times that something of the computer’s underlying logic had seeped into his consciousness.
Experts said it took around 200 hours of flying to become a space pilot, and, at five- or six-hour stretches every night, Jesse had managed at least that since Christmas.
Finally, here he was, on the last level, at the final leg of the challenge. Landing. He reached a half-familiar green and blue planet. Lapis coastlines and snow-white whorls of gorgeous sky. Home? was the message that flickered on his screen. ‘I hope so,’ he said to himself out loud. Hands shaking as his cockpit filled with cobalt light from the little planet. The challenge was to land at just the right angle, at just the right speed, in the thick atmosphere. But Jesse had an intuition for it now; he’d decelerated through atmospheres as thick as Venus’s – ninety times thicker than Earth’s and obscured by sulphuric acid clouds – and survived. This was easy. This was joyful. He slid down into the temperate embrace of the troposphere and brought his lander shuddering to solid ground. He climbed out, his avatar stumbling in the gravity, and stared, for the first time, at an ocean.
The screen went blank.
Jesse had been gripping the controllers so tightly that he could feel the blood throbbing in his fingertips. The words SIMULATION COMPLETE dazzled against the static.
Jesse had finished the game at 6 a.m., just as the alarm in his bunk would be going off. He’d played since dinner ended the night before, at 8 p.m. In game time, he had travelled for half a century.
As he sat back in the mock commander’s chair, Jesse realized that this was the moment he had been waiting for. He had spent almost a year struggling to catch up with the other members of the Beta. He had been cowed and intimidated by their learning and by Harry’s formidable skill as a pilot. But, according to this single metric, he had far surpassed them all. He knew everything there was to know about flying. Everything the computer could teach him. Peeling his hands off the controller, he shouted in delight. He had beaten Harry, at last, in the only game that really mattered.
WHEN JESSE AWOKE, HIS heart still full of his victory, he was not surprised to see Juno standing above him. In his half-dreaming haze, he was like a gladiator. A hero. Odysseus returning to claim Penelope. He could have kissed her she was so beautiful, crowned in fluorescent light. But she was clearly upset. ‘Oh,’ she said, wiping one eye, tears dripping off her thick lashes, ‘you’re here.’ She sounded a little disappointed.
‘I’m always here,’ Jesse said, sitting up from the semi-recumbent commander’s chair. His muscles were stiff, eyes itchy with sleep-grit, and he pulled his sweaty goggles off and snapped them like a rubber band against the floor.
‘You are,’ she said. Juno sat opposite him and exhaled. She looked as if she’d only just woken up. Dressed in blue paisley pyjamas, her hair still tucked under a satin scarf.
‘What’s the matter?’ Jesse felt miserably inclined to ask, although what he wanted to do was to show her his high score.
‘Solomon says he’s calling a meeting in the next twenty minutes, and I think . . . I think he’s going to tell us that Igor is sick.’
‘What?’ Jesse asked.
Juno nodded, and rubbed her red eyes. ‘I think he has cancer.’ Even the word gave Jesse goosebumps.
‘How do you know?’ he asked.
‘I saw it on an x-ray. A mass in his lungs.’
‘We have an x-ray machine here?’
‘No.’ Juno rolled her eyes. ‘It was taken on Earth.’
‘So, you mean that Igor had cancer on Earth and he didn’t tell us.’
‘Yes.’
Jesse swore under his breath. ‘How long have you known?’
‘A little while,’ Juno admitted, lowering her gaze. ‘Since Christmas, actually. But I’m not the only one. I mean, I saw it in his file, so the seniors, Fae at least and probably Commander Sheppard too, must have known since before the launch.’
‘What?’
‘Yes.’ Juno leant forward. ‘They lied to us, Jesse.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Jesse was already beginning to feel his sleepless night. ‘How could they let a dying man come to space?’
‘That’s what I want to know,’ Juno said. ‘Especially when you consider that some candidates were excluded from the programme because they were flat-footed.’
‘They’re planning to tell us now?’
‘I think they were planning to tell us after we reached Saturn. Once they know we can’t decide to come back.’
‘So why is Solomon telling us today?’
‘Because of Astrid.’ Juno gritted her teeth with the anger she reserved for her sister. ‘Astrid and her stupid dreams. She said she’s been having dreams that Igor is dying. She told Fae, who accused her of accessing restricted medical files. Fae was furious, that’s what all the shouting over breakfast was about.’
Jesse hadn’t heard it.
‘Astrid looked at private files? That doesn’t sound like her.’
‘I don’t know . . . I never know how Astrid knows the things she knows.’ Juno’s eyes drifted away for a moment at a memory. ‘You know people in our old church used to say that she had the gift of prophecy.’
Jesse frowned. ‘Like Moses and Ezekiel?’
‘Kind of,’ Juno said. ‘But we grew up in a charismatic church.’ She caught his blank look. ‘You know. Groups of people speaking in tongues and laying hands on each other.’
Jesse imagined it something like the humid churches his parents had visited in India, young girls speaking in tongues, hot airless rooms, hectic crowds trembling and singing. ‘Do you believe in that stuff?’ Jesse asked. ‘Prophecies, miracles, that kind of thing?’
Juno shrugged. ‘I believe that my sister is an attention-seeker. She’d swoon during worship and everyone would treat her like a movie star. I thought it might be different, going to a school where there wasn’t much of a place for that – you know, Dalton was not religious at all – but, in some ways, she’s worse now. You know that she really believes in the New Creationists. I used to think the best thing was not to encourage her.’ She turned to Jesse. ‘Does that make me sound mean?’
Jesse shook his head.
‘Do you believe in that stuff?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I know you don’t believe in God, but prophecies and miracles and stuff.’ Jesse gazed at the leaping static on the simulator screen. He thought about the prophecy spoken over his life almost a decade ago, the man who told him he wouldn’t reach twenty. The prophecy that had led him here, into the belly of a ship soaring through space. Thought about his own sister, who had defied all expectations and survived malaria. The head-scratching doctors who had never been able to explain it. The way her heart had really stopped for a minute and then begun again. And even the mystery of space itself, the vast ocean of things interstellar bodies could never explore or explain. But instead of saying any of that, he said, ‘No.�
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Juno held out her hand to him and pulled him out of the commander’s seat. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to be late for the meeting.’
30.01.13
IT WAS WORSE THAN any of them had imagined. Fae told them that Igor was sick. An aggressive form of cancer that had begun in his lungs but had spread into his bones, his spinal cord. Fae didn’t say that he was dying, but it was in everything that she said. Astrid and Poppy began to cry. Commander Sheppard looked away. Eliot twisted in his seat, cracking his knuckles and fidgeting. Harry was bone-white. The seniors were in their own kind of pain, because this announcement somehow made the dismal diagnosis more true. They had all known Igor for years. Commander Sheppard shared his dry sense of humour and called him, jokingly, comrade. And now not only was Igor facing death, but the crew had to watch him die. Even sitting across from the old cosmonaut, Jesse could hear the wet rasp of mucus in his lungs, the shuddery way that every breath came, a quiet struggle. The thought of losing a teacher and mentor, the most vital link to the past and the life they were leaving behind, made Jesse feel strangely orphaned.
‘I don’t understand why any of us weren’t told this before,’ Juno said, gritting her teeth.
‘We’re telling you now,’ Commander Sheppard replied with a curt nod. He was the only one standing, at the far end of the table.
‘And frankly,’ said Fae, ‘if it was only my decision I would have waited until a better time.’
‘A better time?’ Juno snorted. ‘What would be a good time to tell us our crewmate is dying? After the funeral?’ Everyone’s eyes flitted to the other end of the room, where Igor was perched on a stool near the breakfast counter.
Jesse stared at him, noticing, only then, the skeletal lines of his hands, the slight quiver in his thumbs. He broke the silence by asking, sheepishly, ‘How far along are you? Is it – I mean – stage . . . ?’
‘Stage three,’ Igor said.
‘I don’t remember what that means,’ Poppy said, ‘Does that mean it’s too late for treatment? Radiation or chemotherapy? Our neighbour downstairs got breast cancer but they operated on her and she got better. That happens right? Cancer’s not an automatic death-sentence.’
‘True . . .’ Fae lowered her gaze.
Jesse remembered something he’d read in a textbook. ‘Survival rates with lung cancer are amongst the lowest of all cancers.’ He lay awake at nights imagining metastasis, little fingerlings of cancer burrowing into his chest like worms in the cool flesh of an apple. ‘Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths.’ By the time you had a cough, there was rarely anything anyone could do.
‘Would you shut up?’ said Harry, his knuckles white.
‘What Jesse says is true,’ said Igor. ‘It’s one of the reasons I have chosen not to seek treatment, and opted only for palliative care.’ There was a soft intake of breath across the table. Juno sat up suddenly, almost sending a cold mug of black coffee toppling.
‘But, I’m not dead yet!’ Igor continued, cheerfully. ‘For the most part my symptoms have not affected my ability to do my job. Just a cough, loss of appetite.’ He shrugged as if it was a small thing, as if none of them had noticed the yellow tinge of his anaemic skin. The way he leant heavily against the wall sometimes to catch his breath. ‘With pain control, I will make it to Saturn and launch the drive, and then . . .’
‘And then . . . ?’ Astrid’s eyes were glassy and she was shaking.
‘And then my mission will be complete,’ said Igor. ‘It took the hard work and sacrifice of thousands of people to get you this far. I’m just honoured to be one of them.’
The statement made Jesse feel a little queasy. His stomach ached with pity.
‘How long have you known?’ Juno asked.
‘A long time now.’
‘There was concern amongst the leadership team,’ said Commander Sheppard, ‘and the psychological support team on the ground, that this news could negatively impact crew morale.’
‘That was undesirable considering the upcoming mission to Europa,’ Fae said. ‘So we decided to share the news after we passed by Saturn.’
Poppy stifled another sob, burying her face in the scuffed sleeve of her dressing gown.
‘But we found out,’ Juno said. ‘We found out because we’re not children. You can’t keep things like this from us. We’re teammates, crewmates. We have to trust each other. That’s what you always say, and now, once Igor is . . . once we’re past Saturn, the most qualified engineer on this ship will be Eliot. What happens if something goes wrong?’
‘We’ll still be receiving some messages from our highly competent team of engineers. They can provide additional support.’
‘Yeah, through email,’ Juno said. ‘What about when we lose contact with Ground completely?’
‘Commander Sheppard worked on several Mars missions as an engineer,’ Fae said.
‘Don’t you understand?’ Eliot’s voice was tight, his eyes glistening from behind his mop of black hair. ‘They don’t tell us anything. No one talks about anything, they just watch and stare and wait to see what we’ll do. There’s someone out there.’ He threw an arm out to indicate the darkness behind the window. ‘Someone is dying out there. We all know it, and no one is talking about it.’
Everyone glanced around in confusion.
‘Okay.’ Commander Sheppard held up his hands. ‘We need to calm down. We know this is difficult news to hear – everyone needs time to take it all in. I am cancelling tutorials today – everyone take the day to reflect, absorb this news and think about how we can support each other moving forward.’
Eliot let out a howl of frustration and kicked his chair over, causing Astrid to leap back in surprise. ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ he said, before racing from the room, leaving the others in a shocked silence.
Fae exhaled heavily and put her head in her hands.
‘Don’t you think he’s been acting . . . erratically?’ Harry asked.
‘Leave him alone,’ said Cai. ‘He’s been through a lot.’
Solomon dropped a soggy teabag into the disposal and set his mug down firmly. He turned to address the Beta. ‘If you have any questions don’t hesitate to speak to any one of us about what’s happening and how you’re feeling. The senior crew have been aware of Igor’s prognosis since before we left Earth. We’re prepared and the mission to Terra-Two will continue uninterrupted.
‘I know this is very upsetting to consider, but the reason we have such high expectations of all of you is because this mission is actually about you and not us. None of us really wants to think about it, but the UKSA opted to begin this colonization mission with young people because Fae, Cai and I will also not live as long as the six of you. And some day in the future you will have to deal with all of us passing away. But you’ll be lucky to have each other to rely on.’
Jesse’s stomach twisted at the thought of it. Commander Sheppard folded his arms. ‘The best thing to do when you receive troubling news is to put your head down, work hard, focus on the future. And when you’re finished you’ll feel a lot better. I promise.’
IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS, Jesse watched as the news of Igor’s sickness affected the Beta members differently. Both Harry and Eliot seemed to become acutely aware of how much they still needed to learn from the senior crew. Harry spent sleepless nights on the control deck or on the simulator, practising manoeuvres again and again. Eliot took to furiously recording everything that Igor said during their tutorials, always interrogating his responses further: ‘But how will I know when there’s a problem with the injector . . . ?’ Trailing off without adding what they were all thinking, How will I know when you’re gone?
Poppy volunteered to take over most of Igor’s chores in addition to her own. An act that endeared her to Juno who, in her spare time, requested every document in the ship’s database about cancer and could be found in the kitchen reading them. Jesse discovered her furiously underlining passages in The Emperor of
All Maladies, her nails bitten to the quick.
‘Cancer is just a word,’ Astrid told them once over lunch.
‘Right, a word that describes a biological reality,’ Juno said.
Astrid rolled her eyes. ‘You think everything is so simple.’ Astrid was suddenly full of stories about people whose conditions defeated medical understanding but had recovered: the friend of a friend or the daughter of a pastor whose tumours disappeared, who defied death for decades in spite of a terminal diagnosis. She looked around the table and announced, ‘We will, all of us, make it to Terra-Two.’
Jesse threw himself into work, as their commander had suggested. Pruning the long weeds that curled around the spires in the greenhouse, documenting the new shoots that seemed to be sprouting curly heads overnight, everywhere, as if the garden had suddenly chosen to wake up. Jesse had been delighted to find that the fruits were finally growing. His heart leapt with excitement when he noticed the first head of a tomato bursting from a vine, and fat strawberries, still sour. It felt like springtime, everything lush and blossoming. Jesse and Cai had toiled over long vats of hydroponic liquids and the shallow trays of soil for almost a year and now here they were, coming to their reward. In only a few weeks they would have harvested enough crops for the crew to subsist almost solely on fruits and vegetables reared in the darkness of space and yet tasting deliciously of home. Jesse could not wait.
Even as he worked, Jupiter cast its eerie amber light through the domed ceiling. He’d orbited it before; in the game, narrowly avoiding being tugged into the planet’s fierce gravity a hundred times. It was more dazzling in real life, of course. Those furious red rings, whorls and flurries surging and descending on convection currents across its gaseous surface.
What would it be like to see Saturn from this vantage? When he’d been young, Jesse had imagined the texture of each of Saturn’s rings was spiral-grooved, like a vinyl record. That he could roller-skate across their flat surface, taking in the heavens. In Dalton, he’d learned that the rings were actually made of millions of shards of ice and rock, some of them small as a grain of sand and others large as a car.