Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘Why did you agree to come?’ Juno asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Fae said. ‘I knew there would be a chance I might have to go. That was always the plan if Dr Millburrow couldn’t launch. But as time went on… you all loved Maggie so much… but it was the night before the launch and… I don’t know. There were so many people, so much pressure and they were all looking for someone to blame. I didn’t want it to be my fault if we failed. When we had come so far…’ She shrugged. Juno didn’t think she had ever heard Fae say so many words. ‘And we already knew that Moritz couldn’t join the UKSA. He’s not a dual citizen like me. So he joined the running to be part of the Vierzig and we thought—’

‘The Vierzig?’

‘Die Ersten Vierzig,’ Fae said, her accent curling around the words. ‘The First Forty.’

Juno recognized the translation, of course. A German-speaking group who were part of the European Space Agency. For a long time they had been tipped to launch first and to reach Terra before the British. Forty men and women, all post-docs and older than the Beta. Juno guessed that Fae had thought they might reach Terra-Two within a decade of each other and be reunited there. It was a romantic thought, a wedding on the shores of a new planet. ‘It could still happen,’ Juno said, and she could see it herself, for a second; Fae, aged but dressed in white, her hand in his, making promises that were swept up by the wind.

‘No,’ Fae said. ‘It won’t. He didn’t make it into the forty. It looked like he might but… I found out today, they released the list of the finalists and his name is not on it.’

Juno’s stomach twisted. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry.’

A few things made sense to Juno now: photographs she’d seen in the back of Fae’s binder, her frequent calls to Earth, the way she presided over the crew with a cold resentment as if they were children she’d never wanted. A swell of silent sympathy came over her, but she fought against it. ‘Maybe something good has come out of this. Surely it has,’ she said. ‘Not everyone made it onto the Damocles. Not everyone has this chance to make history.’

Fae’s shoulders began to shake with suppressed sobs. ‘Don’t you see,’ she said, ‘that it doesn’t matter?’

‘What doesn’t matter?’

‘We’re alone out here. You’re a child.’ The word grated on Juno, but she let it go. ‘I know, though. I know that our chances are slim.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Fae shook her head, drawn again into her own sorrow. She turned away and said to herself, ‘What am I doing here?’

‘Don’t say that.’ Juno’s voice was firmer. She’d had enough self-pity on this voyage. Everyone has their moment of despair.’

‘Moment?’ Fae stood up suddenly, and her chair tipped to the ground. Juno jumped backwards, buzzing with surprise.

‘My whole life is despair.’ Lunging forward, she threw an arm across the table and sent the books flying. Juno jumped back to avoid a glass paperweight, which shattered against the wall. ‘Why did I choose this?’ the doctor asked over the clattering of stationery at their feet. ‘This graveyard voyage. This suicide mission?’

Juno’s heart was pounding. She couldn’t tell if she should comfort Fae or abandon her. Her feet chose for her. She darted from the room, shaking with dread. She didn’t stop running until she reached the crew module and the sound of Fae’s wild sobs was no longer ringing in her ears.

JUNO FINISHED READING THE final chapter on the endocrine system alone, with grim determination. The crew module was deserted – everyone was either in their bedroom or working and, behind the door of the girls’ cabin, Poppy’s radio had hitched onto a station that played melancholy jazz tracks all afternoon.

When Juno finished her work she caught sight of Jupiter again, a little larger in the window, a claret flurry of storms now faintly visible in its atmosphere. A long note rose from a clarinet, echoed across the crew module, and in that moment Juno realized that she was lonely. She had continued – in the only way she knew how – through the tutorials, through the weeks and months, as the excitement of space travel flaked away and living in a confined space with her crewmates began to feel like a bad marriage. Twenty years more of this, Juno thought wearily. Twenty years of Fae’s resentment and Poppy’s self-centred sorrow. Eliot’s broken heart. Harry’s competitiveness. Jesse’s desire. Astrid’s dreams, which no one could share. And the cold, and this loneliness.

She was almost relieved when the bell rang for dinner. But only Harry, Astrid and Commander Sheppard turned up. On the menu that night was one of Juno’s least favourite meals, bitter beef stew and rice with vacuum-packed crackers.

‘You’re not eating,’ Commander Sheppard said.

‘Sorry.’ Juno pushed her sticky rice around the bowl.

‘Well, don’t play with it like that or we can’t recycle it.’