Temi Oh - Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘You can’t let them see you like this,’ Poppy hissed. Her eyes kept darting over the banister and down to the exit, as if she was worried that one of the police officers stalking the grounds might throw open the door at any moment.

‘You didn’t see her,’ Astrid wailed, making no effort to wipe away the tears skidding down her cheeks. ‘The way she looked when we got her out of the water. She wasn’t breathing. We were holding her. And I think she broke something, her arm was all bent back at the elbow, like it—’

‘Please stop.’ Juno shuddered. Her voice came out louder than expected, every sound amplified up the long stairwell, and both the girls let out a yelp of surprise.

‘I’m sorry.’ Juno lowered her voice a little and stepped forward. The lights in the hall were motion sensitive and the bulbs on the wall beside her came on with a clink. ‘But it’s bad enough without you telling us—’

‘Bad enough for you?’ Astrid glared up at her sister, her eyes bloodshot and unforgiving. ‘Where were you, Juno? Where the hell were you?’ The last words reverberated off the walls.

‘I was…’ Juno bit her lip. She didn’t want to tell anyone about her experience in the Flight Garden with Noah.

‘Hey, you left us ,’ Poppy said. ‘Juno and Noah and me. You and Ara just ran off. I was wandering around the museum on my own looking for all of you before the PA officer told me there’d been an accident and it involved you three. I thought you’d been run over. I was terrified.’

‘Okay.’ Juno took a deep breath. ‘Look, you guys, this isn’t the time. We have to do what we have to do.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Astrid’s eyes were raw and swollen from rubbing them dry.

‘You know,’ Juno said, ‘when we practise emergencies in the simulator and eight different things are going on at once and we’re sweating bullets… the only way to get through it is to think about the next thing. The thing right in front of you. Not what we could have or shouldn’t have done. This is an emergency. And we’ve lost someone. But if we don’t pull it together we’re not going anywhere tomorrow.’

‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ said Poppy. ‘If they see Astrid in this state there’s no way they’ll clear her to fly tomorrow.’

Juno chewed on her lip. ‘Has she had her interview yet?’ she asked.

Poppy nodded. ‘It went on really long, apparently. They really ripped into her.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Juno said.

‘That’s not even the worst of it,’ Astrid said. ‘It was like they didn’t even care. They just want to know who’s to blame.’

‘That’s what I’m saying.’ Poppy lowered her voice. ‘She has to get it together or we’re all in trouble.’ Her eyes darted nervously up and down the staircases. ‘We have to say we had nothing to do with it.’ Poppy swallowed and turned to Astrid. ‘Say it was all Ara’s idea.’

‘It was all her idea,’ Astrid said.

‘So… you just went along with it. Ara always had a way, a weird way of getting people to do what she wanted.’ Poppy’s use of the past tense was jarring.

‘How can you even think about this stuff?’ Astrid began to cry again, and wiped the back of her hand against her nose, spreading a shiny trail of snot from her wrist to her index finger.

‘Juno – please.’ When Poppy looked up, Juno saw that she was on the edge of breaking down as well. ‘I don’t want to get into trouble for this. I don’t want to be prosecuted or forced to stay.’

‘Forced to stay where?’ Juno asked tentatively, but Poppy’s eyes spilled over.

‘Here! On this planet. In this country. I thought I did, but I don’t. My life isn’t like yours. I don’t have picture-perfect parents to go back to. I have things. Things I thought I’d leave behind—’

The whine of the door opening echoed loudly up the stairwell and all the girls froze. Juno’s breath caught in her mouth as she heard the sound of heavy shoes coming up the steps.

‘Hello?’ called a voice. ‘Who’s there?’

She saw the top of his head first, his frizzy dark hair, and then he came up to the second landing and spotted Astrid and Poppy huddled like frightened children. ‘Girls?’

‘Commander Sheppard,’ Poppy said with the breathlessness of a schoolgirl.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked

It was still strange to see their commander in civilian clothing. Juno was used to seeing Solomon Sheppard wearing a spacesuit or the navy and red uniform jumpsuit of the UK Space Agency. He was a quiet but imposing astronaut, a former child prodigy and then the youngest man to travel to Mars, where he had scaled Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in the solar system, with an international team. When he returned they made a movie about his life. The first time Juno had met him was at a scholars’ dinner when she was sixteen. Sheppard had returned that summer from another nineteen-month mission and when he’d abandoned his knife and fork at the end of the meal, a couple of the girls squabbled over them like drumsticks tossed out after a concert.

Tonight, however, his eyes were bloodshot with fatigue.

‘Nowhere I can touch,’ Poppy said quietly.

‘Eliot was hurt.’ Juno suddenly realized that the last she had seen of Eliot had been in the police car parked on the Embankment.

‘He has been treated for the injuries he sustained by the medical officers, and he’s currently undergoing a psychological assessment to ensure he can be cleared to fly. As will you, Astrid.’

Poppy nodded, then asked quietly, ‘Are we in trouble?’ They all looked up. Sheppard’s face darkened.

‘Yes. A terrible thing happened today. We lost one of our own. I don’t think I need to tell you that regulations are set down to keep you all safe. When I heard the news that you left the Interplanetary Society, I was beyond disappointed in every one of you. But all I can think is that this has been a trying couple of months for everybody, even for the senior members of the crew who have served on missions before. You’re all so…’ he bit back on a word, ‘it’s easy to forget that you’re just young people.

‘I don’t know what the directors will decide. But if you are certified to fly on the mission after all, I need to know that a breakdown of order like this will never ever happen again. Our mission is about teamwork and responsibility. We need to be able to trust each other, because out there we’ve only got each other. Our lives depend on everyone following the code of conduct strictly.’

Juno nodded. A heavy knot of shame twisted in her stomach and none of them could look up to meet his eye.

‘Anyway, you all have somewhere to be. Astrid, you’re late for your medical inspection. Poppy and Juno, dinner has been prepared for you in the refectory. From this moment on I want to know where each of you is, from now until launch tomorrow. The freedom you had here – which you abused today, with tragic consequences – was a privilege and not a right.’

With that, their commander left, and Juno watched as her sister followed him up the stairs, leaving her and Poppy alone in miserable silence. Poppy was clearly as frightened as she; shadows dark as bruises were spreading under her eyes. She was shivering in her bathrobe and her feet were bare.

‘What do you think will happen to him?’ Poppy asked. She was still whispering as they made their way out of the echoing stairwell and towards the refectory. Juno had to lean in to hear her.

‘Eliot? I don’t know,’ Juno said finally, after a moment’s consideration.

‘He’s being interviewed right now, I think.’

‘It’s not like we know what will happen to any of us at this point.’