Temi Oh - Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘I feel as if I’ve been waiting here all morning…’ Noah said, rubbing a sweaty palm on the side of his jeans. Under his BIS jacket he was wearing an old mission week T-shirt from their school’s Christian Union. Juno knew that it said ‘Dare to Believe’ in bold letters on the back. ‘Is this okay?’ he asked, reaching out for her as if his fingers might burn. ‘You probably won’t catch anything.’

They touched cautiously at first, fingertips brushing. Noah took a quick breath, as if steeling himself to say something. ‘Juno… I wanted to ask you—’ He was interrupted by the public affairs officer, who emerged from the press office and shouted, ‘Juno Juma!’

‘Wait, what about Harry,’ Poppy said, getting up from the ottoman near the front desk. ‘He’s not here.’

‘He wasn’t cleared to leave today.’

‘His white blood cell count was a little low,’ Juno explained.

‘He’s sick?’ Poppy asked, eyes widening in horror.

‘No,’ Juno said, although Harry had gone pale with disappointment when it was announced that morning during their briefing that he would be put in quarantine for twelve hours. ‘I mean, probably not. It could suggest that a viral infection is coming on. So they’ll probably keep him in the sanatorium until T-minus twelve, and monitor him just to make sure he can fly tomorrow.’ Poppy’s brow furrowed. ‘He’ll probably be fine, though,’ Juno added.

‘Well—’ the officer looked down at her iPad. ‘The press have set up in the council room. You can change in the library and then the tree-planting ceremony will take place at one.’ Juno glanced at the clock opposite. They had just over an hour. ‘Plant your tree – I’ve been told by your flight surgeon to make sure that you wear your gloves; just a precaution – plant tree, final interview before the launch, although this one will be a small one, for the Interplanetary Channel and the society’s publications. And then take some pictures. You should be able to leave by three and then your schedules are clear for the rest of the day. Get some sleep. You’ll need it. Obviously.’

As they followed the woman around the main hall, Juno lingered behind to take in some of the displays. An oil painting of the inventor Sir William Congreve that she had encountered before in a History of Space Travel textbook. He was a pioneer of British rocketry and the society’s founder. The date etched under the gilded frame read 1812, 200 years ago. The Congreve rocket was used during the Napoleonic Wars. Juno had always found it amazing that by the end of that century British explorers were rallying expeditions to the summit of Mount Everest, but 100 years later their grandchildren were scaling the mountains of Mars, embarking for Jupiter’s moons and beyond.

Congreve left the bulk of his estate to the society after his death and, in accordance with his wishes, the money was invested and used to fund research into aeronautics and space exploration. Fellows of the BIS had initially conceived of the Off-World Colonization Programme and many of its members were amongst the pantheon of astronauts and scientists employed by the UK or European space agencies.

Juno was humbled by the history of the place. On every wall there was an image that made her shiver with recognition. Sepia-toned portraits of men wearing helmets, mission patches from pioneering flights. There was a Dalton professor – who had delivered a series of lectures on peculiar galaxies – accepting a Nobel Prize. There was the school’s provost, shaking hands with a former prime minster. There were framed letters signed by notable MPs, UN council members, US senators, congratulating the society on its achievements.

‘The girl is dawdling.’ The public affairs officer clicked her fingers from where she stood at the entrance of the library. The acoustics in the main hall were such that the sound was startling as a gunshot. Juno jumped and rushed after the others – her sister Astrid, Ara, Poppy, Eliot and Noah – as they all walked ahead of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as she reached the entrance.

The library was a cathedral of books, shelves of them stretching into dusty infinity. Juno gasped at the exquisitely detailed painting of the solar system on the vaulted ceiling. Space; black as crude oil and awash with stars.

Nine flight suits were folded on one of the tables. ‘Do you want us to get changed now?’ Ara asked the officer. But before the woman could reply her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket in a reflex-quick action.

Sorry, I need to take this , she mouthed, and left the room.

‘What happens if Harry isn’t cleared to fly tomorrow?’ Noah asked, as Poppy sank down into one of the reading chairs.

‘They’ll find – whatshisname? – his replacement from the backup crew,’ Ara said.

‘But that probably won’t happen,’ Juno insisted. ‘They’ll infuse him with synthetic white blood cells and he’ll fight off any infection extra fast. He’ll be completely fine by tonight. Probably.’

They were silent for a while, gazing at the library’s oak door, waiting for it to open again. But after a few minutes, Juno gave in to her curiosity and began to wander around the library, examining the different publications while they waited for the public affairs officer to return. Heading down aisles of identically bound astronomical journals, she ran her hands along the sun-bleached spines of familiar volumes on engineering and space physiology. It was reminiscent of Dalton’s library, except that on top of almost every shelf were tiny models of defunct space shuttles, their hulls gathering dust.

‘That one’s Daedalus ,’ Noah said, pointing to a model as he appeared at her elbow. The strange unmanned craft was unlike any other, surrounded by engine bells that looked like a bundle of silver billiard balls all around its outer hull. It was the interstellar spacecraft that confirmed the existence of Terra-Two and broadcast pictures of it back to Earth.

‘I know,’ she said and smiled at him, her breath condensing on the glass as she stared at the model.

‘You’ll never believe this. Come look,’ Poppy called. She was waving a shiny issue of Vanity Fair she’d found amongst the magazines piled on the rack.

‘What?’ everyone turned to her, gathered round.

‘We’re in it,’ Poppy said.

‘Stop waving it around and keep still,’ Ara said.

When Juno leant over her shoulder she caught sight of the headline: MEET THE BETA: THE YOUNG ASTRONAUTS ALREADY MAKING HISTORY. Their faces stared out from the cover.

‘I didn’t realize that came out this week,’ said Juno, her stomach sinking. Her sister was already flipping through a copy and Poppy handed her a spare.

Under the special issue’s title were the words 2012: TERRA-TWO COLONIZATION BEGINS. Juno flipped to the in-depth article. The text was spattered with their smiling faces, quotes in bold, pictures of Dalton Aerospace Academy captured in unfamiliar perspectives using a wide-angle lens. There was even a timeline of the selection process – the six and a half years it had taken to arrive at this point.

Harry’s quote in bold: ‘It’s great to fly the flag for Team GB.’ Juno stifled a laugh as she stared at his handsome face, blond hair thrown back from his high forehead. But as she flicked through the thin pages, more memories rose like bile. The long day they’d spent showing the reporter around the space centre, then posing for the photographer out near the launch site.

‘Why is Poppy always in the middle?’ Noah asked.

‘Poppy’s the cover girl,’ Astrid said, and nudged Poppy playfully.

The group photo was a two-page spread. The team posing against a black background that looked like the night sky but was actually a canvas sheet clipped to metal railings erected the previous day. Poppy and Harry were positioned in the centre – as always. Half-moons of digitally whitened teeth waxed inside their mouths. The stylists had twisted Poppy’s straight auburn hair into spectacular 1920s style pin-curls, only to discover that whenever she moved they fell out, which was when they would descend upon her again with hairspray and tongs. Harry was standing a little in front of his crewmates in a way that, on the page, made him appear unnaturally large. The photographer had to keep telling him to move back each time he stepped in front of Poppy or Ara, blocking their faces from view.