Temi Oh - Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘You,’ Juno said, her eyes wide.

‘Me,’ he said with a happy lazy smile, ‘I made it after all.’

13.05.12

T-MINUS 4 HOURS

FOUR HOURS BEFORE THE launch, Astrid found Harry standing by the window of the dormitory, staring at his reflection in the sun-silvered glass. He turned when he heard her feet on the linoleum outside. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘T-minus four hours,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be down already.’

‘I’m coming in a minute,’ he said, turning back to the window. ‘Just practising my smile for the camera.’ When he raked his fingers through his hair a couple of blond strands stuck to the damp on his forehead. ‘You know, it’s the last they’ll see of us.’

Cars were pulling up outside, and Astrid could hear the rumble of helicopters overhead. It was the kind of cool spring morning with air that is bracing and sweet and promises sunshine. A bright ridge of light peered over the roof and cast across the lawn. The Damocles – the magnificent ship that would take them to Terra-Two – winked overhead. If Astrid squinted she thought she could see it, about 660 kilometres above London. The shuttle they were about to enter would ferry them that short distance, out of Earth’s atmosphere, and to the spinning decks of the Damocles , their new home. From there, they would accelerate out of Earth’s orbit, past Mars and the moons of Jupiter, around Saturn and then out of the solar system.

As Commander Sheppard ushered them into the cars, Astrid realized that the worst part of the wait had begun. The hours before the launch would be the longest as the seconds ticked down to take-off.

When Astrid and her sister were younger, their father made frequent trips to South America and West Africa. A certain melancholy always came over the house in his absence. The kitchen table was joyless without his laughter. His study, just opposite the twins’ bedroom, was unlit and silent and still smelt of him even though a thin layer of dust had settled over his books. Astrid and Juno would come home to their mother stifling tears and wringing her hands over the sink. They were all holding their breath, waiting for his return. And all the while he crowded their dreams, trekking across open savanna, Bible in hand, or baptizing babies in the Niger. Proclaiming, Behold the lamb of God! in bustling marketplaces, the same way he did across their dining-room table.

Astrid and her sister would count the sleeps until his plane touched down. As the day drew nearer she would have to dig her fists into her stomach to wrestle excited butterflies, but the afternoon his plane was scheduled to land, her excitement always curdled into a strange kind of dread. She didn’t know what she was afraid of: that he would come back with a different face, that he might have forgotten her name… that unsettling boundary where long-held dream meets incipient reality.

Waiting in the crowded arrivals lounge next to WHSmith, flowers in hand, Astrid would scan the weather-beaten faces of every man who passed. That was always the longest wait, just before she spotted a dark searching face, brow furrowed, gaze straining over heads in that sweet moment before eyes meet eyes. A smile would break across his face, and when he bent low to hug her she would inhale the familiar scent of his aftershave, and the new faraway smell of dust on his dashiki. It was always impossible, then, to remember what she had been afraid of.

It was the same that morning. As Astrid watched patches of blue break through the clouds she lifted up one of her hands to find that it was shaking. It occurred to her that they had been subjected to countless ‘launch simulations’ in preparation for this exact moment. The moment when her mind flailed into the future for some certainties she could hold onto.

There were a couple. They had visited the launch site seven times, so she was familiar with the way the trees fanned out along the motorway until they reached flat, open grassland, streaked with the shadows of clouds. Soon they would turn off into slip roads until all she could see up ahead were dark armoured cars, travelling in the same direction – towards the unglamorous low-rise buildings near the site.

Terminal Countdown Demonstration Tests – Maggie called them ‘dress rehearsals’. Astrid wondered if Dr Golinsky was the type of person to say something as whimsical. As the technicians helped her into her spacesuit would she remember lacing up the ribbons of ballet slippers with her own nimble fingers? Or would she be thinking about what lay ahead of her? Astrid knew that when she entered the shuttle they would strap her in lying on her back, so tightly that she would only be able to move her head. This time, the eyes of the world would be on her, and after the final countdown her body would begin to rock with the vibrations of the APU, the engine and the solid rocket boosters. The shuttle would be shaking so violently that she would not hear the final snap of shackles as it exploded off the launch pad and filled the eyes of every spectator with light. Everyone who watched from a distance would look up at the trail of smoke blazing against the sky and think about what a special thing it is to be human, to be able to build machines that could soar out of the grip of gravity.

The sound of tyres crunching on the gravel woke her from her reverie. They had arrived. When Commander Sheppard opened the passenger door, a roar crested outside and rolled like thunder from the gathered crowd. The moment Astrid stepped out of the car a camera flash temporarily blinded her. She blinked the spots from her vision, looked around and was met with more people than she had ever seen in one place. A sea of sweaty faces and flailing arms that swept out as far as she could see. They were waving flags and jumping up against the barriers, brandishing phones and calling out for attention. Reporters were snapping cameras held in front of their faces like snouts.

Astrid turned around in wonder to find that there were more people nudging the barriers behind her. Many of them had camped out near to the mission control centre, sleepless but exultant, hoping to catch a glimpse of the astronauts before their feet left the ground. Off at the sides were hundreds of schoolchildren gathered in bleachers or spread out across the sun-scorched grass, craning their necks to see the countdown projected on the giant screen: T-minus 2.5 hours.

She felt as if she were standing on a football pitch during a game, disorientated by the solid wall of sound coming from the crowd. A few metres away, a group of young people were waving hand-painted signs that read, ‘Go Team GB 2012’ and ‘Another World, Another Chance’. One teenage girl was waving a sign that read ‘Harry is Hot’, the A and the O replaced with bubbly pink hearts. Astrid hid a smile and turned to call Poppy’s attention to it. Poppy had already slammed the car door shut behind her and turned her smiling face towards the crowd.

‘It’s Poppy,’ someone shrieked. ‘Over here!’ Poppy was the favourite – that had always been clear. She was winsome and relatable and the tabloids spun her and Harry’s story so they were cast as star-bound lovers. They played it up in front of the cameras; every now and then Poppy would slip her hand into his and the crowds would whoop. Ara had hated it. She thought that the only reason Poppy’s face adorned the covers of every magazine from Astronomer’s Weekly to Seventeen was because her skin was ivory. Her lightly freckled face was English and feminine, her eyes quietly clever and the colour of an overcast sky. Astrid herself had to admit she had felt a twinge of jealousy when Poppy was chosen to light up a screen in Piccadilly Circus, holding a chilled can of Pepsi to her painted lips.