Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

The thought of recycling it for another dinner rotation – which meant that in ten days Juno would be faced with this very same meal again – made her stomach turn. She imagined what might happen if she never ate her beef stew. Would it just pile up and up?

‘Not many people are at dinner,’ she said, in an attempt to change the subject. Harry feigned surprise, looking around at the seats between them as if he’d only just noticed that they were empty.

‘It does begin happening around this stage of the trip,’ Sheppard said. ‘In my experience, by the time we’d been on Mars three, maybe four, months… the crew start to get restless and some people get sad. The Russians call it “asthenia”. Low mood, tiredness, you know… it’s best just to wait it out. Happens all the time.’

‘But in the meantime,’ said Astrid, ‘they’re making everyone else miserable.’

‘Yes,’ Juno agreed. ‘Can’t we make them come to dinner? I’m sure they’ll feel cheered up once they’re here.’

‘That might be true.’ Sheppard put down his knife and fork and exhaled slowly before speaking. ‘You see, Juno, that’s a good suggestion. At Dalton you and your crew might have received sanctions for missing a meal or chores. Or worse, of course, some people were excluded from the programme. But that’s not the type of punitive environment I’m looking to cultivate up here. I’m aware, on one hand, that you are the youngest crew I have ever worked with, which poses a few… challenges. But on the other hand, you need to learn to build up the good habits and a caring culture between yourselves of your own volition. That’s one of the most important lessons you will learn during this mission. And I’m not sure that I want to stand around trying to make you.’

‘You want us to want to,’ Astrid said, leaning over Juno’s tray to stab her fork into a lump of meat.

Harry looked distracted for a moment, his gaze distant and unfocused. Finally he spoke. ‘Poppy’s party was kind of nice. Doing something together. Maybe we could do more things like that, as a group.’

‘Like a crew meeting?’ Juno suggested.

‘Has no one taught you the meaning of “fun”, lady?’ Harry said.

Commander Sheppard chuckled. ‘Thank you for your suggestion, Harry. I think something recreational might be more enjoyable.’

‘Jesse and I thought that we could have a harvest lunch at Christmas time. By then, a lot of the fruits and veg from the greenhouse will be ready to cook and eat.’ Astrid licked her lips in excitement.

‘Or the Olympics,’ Harry suggested. ‘None of you watched the Olympic opening ceremony with me. It was amazing. James Bond, J. K. Rowling, The Beatles, the NHS.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Juno felt a pang of regret. ‘I missed that.’

‘Well, I have it recorded,’ Harry said. ‘We could all watch it together.’

‘That’s another good idea.’ Sheppard smiled, and then took a long drag from his glass. ‘The thing you have to remember, Juno, is that it helps to be a little forgiving. No one has done this before. With some things, we’ll just have to see how it goes.’

SHEPPARD’S WORDS BOTHERED JUNO even after dinner was over and they had all retired for the evening. She wasn’t sure she liked the thought of venturing out into the void with no role models, nothing to anchor herself.

That evening, she ended up scouring the ship’s data bank on her personal computer, looking for files. She came across the Xiao Lin papers, articles published by the scientist on the Chinese generation ship. Xiao Lin had laid out her ideas about the importance of living in harmony on a closed system like the Shēngmìng. Fellowship and justice, she had written, came above all else. Juno was captivated by the idea. And by Xiao Lin, who seemed to embody a cold brilliance. She’d managed to distil ‘fellowship’ into a few simple rules of human behaviour, and Juno read and reread them so intently that she didn’t notice time passing.

‘You’re still awake.’ Astrid sauntered in a while later, in her pyjamas.

‘It’s not like I have anything else to do,’ Juno muttered, looking up from her screen. The indigo light outside the door indicated night-time and it was a surprise to see.

‘No, not since everyone is angry with you.’ Astrid said it in jest but Juno flinched. Poppy still wasn’t talking to her, and she had not seen Fae all evening.

‘Did you know that Dr Golinsky is engaged?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’ Astrid turned to Juno. ‘Everyone knows that. She had to leave Earth really suddenly and she didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.’

Juno chewed on her lip for a moment. Something about Fae’s breakdown had ruffled her, made her suddenly aware of her own friendlessness. It reminded her of those days during primary school when Astrid was ill and she found herself alone in the playground, the harsh wind licking at her calves, carrying the sounds of other people’s laughter.

‘Do you think all the senior crew are like Golinsky?’ she asked.

‘Like what?’

‘I guess I always imagined that they came on this mission because they had nothing to leave behind. Well, except for Sheppard.’