Temi Oh - Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

For the first time, he wondered about the person whose destiny he’d stolen. He could not fathom the darkness of a girl who could leap to her death.

What was left of her? This feeble assortment of items, vacuum-packed clothes, a spiral-bound journal with an illustration of a half blown-out dandelion clock on the cover, little seedlings carried on an imaginary wind, off the page. Jesse opened the book and flicked through it. Scrawled dates and doodles looping through margins. Moons. Falling leaves. The rings of Saturn. Thickly-lashed asymmetrical eyes. He turned right to the last page and found a blurred satellite picture of Terra-Two. In my dreams , she had written, I’m already up there .

13.05.12

THERE HAD BEEN NO uncertainty in this arrival. No failed viva or imperfect test score, no lost tournament, not one moment during selection when Harry had questioned if he was talented enough, hard-working enough, deserving enough to make the Beta. He had never looked around at the others and asked, Why me? Why not? It had been his will to succeed, and so he had succeeded. The skill of his hands and the unwavering force of his determination had propelled him towards this moment. The afternoon after the launch, the first day on the ship.

Dinner that night tasted like triumph.

They had docked their shuttle with the Damocles at around 4 p.m. GMT and gathered five hours later in the kitchen for a celebratory meal. The lights in the corridors and common rooms were set to cycle through twelve hours of light and dark, so by the time Harry had showered and headed to the kitchen, the lamps were dim and tinted a dusky indigo. The door slid open. Harry saw that everyone was already gathered in their flight suits. Commander Sheppard at the head of the oval table, Fae and Igor either side of him.

Harry smiled at their commander. His nerves were still jangling from the flight earlier. The engine burn that took the Damocles from its orbit above London, around the globe and out on an interstellar trajectory that led first to Mars, where they would meet Cai, and finally to Terra-Two. Nothing had prepared him for the sight of the entire Earth unspooling below as they dived beneath its perimeter, beneath the jagged summits of mountain ranges, smothered in clouds, below desert and ocean, day then night then day again, faster and faster until they reached escape velocity. Harry had actually yelled in excitement as the Earth sped away, the black expanse of space enveloping them, stars brighter than they had ever been. And now in the kitchen, all of their faces were bathed in the azure glow of their planet, which hung like a pendulum in the window. Every time he glanced at it, it was smaller.

Juno was leafing through the week’s itinerary. Poppy sat on the counter kicking her heels up and chatting happily to Igor Bovarin in Russian.

‘Say hello.’ Poppy nodded at the camera Eliot was holding and then turned to Harry. Harry saw his own eyes reflected in the black lens.

‘You’re filming me?’ he asked, suddenly wary of his hair, which was still damp from his shower and dripping down the back of his flight suit. He ran his hands through it.

‘I will be,’ Eliot said.

‘I thought Poppy was in charge of comms,’ Harry said.

‘It’s a two-person job, Harry.’ Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t hold the camera and present.’

‘Right.’ Harry nodded at Eliot, who was standing close behind him.

Although he was not actively retching, Eliot still looked a little green, and Harry was sure he could smell the bitter scent of bile on his clothes. He noted the ambiguous brown stains around the collar of his uniform, emitting an odour that never failed to repulse. Harry had not vomited involuntarily his entire life, not after the Leavers’ Ball, when he and his friends finished off a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, not during simulated launches, not on the human centrifuge, where he and his classmates were whirled around its fifty-foot arm in order to experience 3, then 4g. The other astronaut candidates would pale with nausea and beg the technicians to stop, but Harry had always roared ‘more,’ the sensation of speed nothing but exhilarating.

Some people were born for this life.

Even now, the artificial gravity on the ship felt as familiar to him as the cockpit of a shuttle, and he took to it as if he had lived amongst the stars his entire life. Fazed by nothing; not the absolute blackness of space, nor the constant ambient noise of the ship, because he was surely right for this voyage. He took his place beside the other astronauts at the table.

‘You’re just in time.’ Commander Sheppard beamed. ‘We go live in ten minutes. Better get your camera face ready.’

The meal was rehydrated beef steak and green vegetables they had brought with them on the shuttle. It reminded Harry of Sunday lunches at Dalton, but he had eaten nothing all day and it was all he could do not to shovel the food into his mouth with grateful abandon. Halfway through the meal, Igor passed around little plastic cups of sparkling white wine and held one above his head to toast.

‘Before we finish eating, I’d just like to say a few words.’ Solomon stood up, and his large body cast a shadow across the table. Everyone put down their forks and waited. ‘These past few months were some of the most trying of my life. I know they must have been for you too. I can tell you this now…’ he looked down for a moment. ‘We lost someone we love on Saturday, and, for a while after, I wasn’t sure I would make it up here at all. Ara’s death is something I know it will be difficult for us to recover from.’ He paused again, swallowing. Harry watched the bubbles in his cup surge to the surface. ‘I’ve been involved in this programme since its conception. I still remember the day I saw a couple of you walking through the school gates at age thirteen, and every time I think about it I remember how far you’ve come. Watching you all at the launch site, waving at the crowd, taking it all in your stride, I realized that you’ve not only become fine astronauts. You’ve become fine adults. This morning, I have to say… I was proud.

‘It’s an honour to be your commander. It’s an honour to be part of this mission. You know, in Greek, the word Damocles means “the glory of the people”, and that’s what this mission will be for our country, insh’Allah.’ He held his cup higher above his head and said, ‘To Britain! To all of Earth!’ and they all echoed him happily, clinking their glasses together and swallowing down the sharp sweet champagne.

‘Okay,’ said Poppy, once Commander Sheppard sat down, ‘my notes from the ground said that they want us to look as natural as possible. I’ll go around the table as you eat your meal. Tell the viewers how excited you are, what a smooth journey it was, et cetera. I’ll start with the Beta and then pass it around to the two seniors and then Commander Sheppard can say goodbye. Are you ready?’

They looked around at each other and nodded, Eliot counted down and then the light on the side of the camera came on and Harry could tell that he was broadcasting live to Earth, because the monitor of the computer perched on the counter said so. Poppy listened to instructions from the ground through her big headphones and then finally gave them the thumbs-up.

‘Welcome aboard the Damocles ,’ she said, addressing the camera. ‘I’m Poppy Lane, head of communications and in-flight correspondent for this mission, which means you’ll be spending a lot of time with me and my colleague, Junior Flight Engineer Eliot Liston. It’s a real privilege to serve on this mission. We’re grateful to the team on the ground, who are supporting our flying, and to you at home for cheering us on.’ Then, for the international audiences, she said some words hastily in French, Russian, Mandarin. ‘ Bienvenue à bord du Damoclès /Menya zovut Poppy Lane/Gǎnxiè nín de zhīchí… ’ The selection committee had been right; like Harry, Poppy was a perfect face for their mission. ‘ Et maintenant, un message du restes des Bêta. ’