Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

IT WAS WORSE THAN any of them had imagined. Fae told them that Igor was sick. An aggressive form of cancer that had begun in his lungs but had spread into his bones, his spinal cord. Fae didn’t say that he was dying, but it was in everything that she said. Astrid and Poppy began to cry. Commander Sheppard looked away. Eliot twisted in his seat, cracking his knuckles and fidgeting. Harry was bone-white. The seniors were in their own kind of pain, because this announcement somehow made the dismal diagnosis more true. They had all known Igor for years. Commander Sheppard shared his dry sense of humour and called him, jokingly, comrade. And now not only was Igor facing death, but the crew had to watch him die. Even sitting across from the old cosmonaut, Jesse could hear the wet rasp of mucus in his lungs, the shuddery way that every breath came, a quiet struggle. The thought of losing a teacher and mentor, the most vital link to the past and the life they were leaving behind, made Jesse feel strangely orphaned.

‘I don’t understand why any of us weren’t told this before,’ Juno said, gritting her teeth.

‘We’re telling you now,’ Commander Sheppard replied with a curt nod. He was the only one standing, at the far end of the table.

‘And frankly,’ said Fae, ‘if it was only my decision I would have waited until a better time.’

‘A better time?’ Juno snorted. ‘What would be a good time to tell us our crewmate is dying? After the funeral?’ Everyone’s eyes flitted to the other end of the room, where Igor was perched on a stool near the breakfast counter.

Jesse stared at him, noticing, only then, the skeletal lines of his hands, the slight quiver in his thumbs. He broke the silence by asking, sheepishly, ‘How far along are you? Is it – I mean – stage…?’

‘Stage three,’ Igor said.

‘I don’t remember what that means,’ Poppy said, ‘Does that mean it’s too late for treatment? Radiation or chemotherapy? Our neighbour downstairs got breast cancer but they operated on her and she got better. That happens right? Cancer’s not an automatic death-sentence.’

‘True…’ Fae lowered her gaze.

Jesse remembered something he’d read in a textbook. ‘Survival rates with lung cancer are amongst the lowest of all cancers.’ He lay awake at nights imagining metastasis, little fingerlings of cancer burrowing into his chest like worms in the cool flesh of an apple. ‘Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths.’ By the time you had a cough, there was rarely anything anyone could do.

‘Would you shut up?’ said Harry, his knuckles white.

‘What Jesse says is true,’ said Igor. ‘It’s one of the reasons I have chosen not to seek treatment, and opted only for palliative care.’ There was a soft intake of breath across the table. Juno sat up suddenly, almost sending a cold mug of black coffee toppling.

‘But, I’m not dead yet!’ Igor continued, cheerfully. ‘For the most part my symptoms have not affected my ability to do my job. Just a cough, loss of appetite.’ He shrugged as if it was a small thing, as if none of them had noticed the yellow tinge of his anaemic skin. The way he leant heavily against the wall sometimes to catch his breath. ‘With pain control, I will make it to Saturn and launch the drive, and then…’

‘And then…?’ Astrid’s eyes were glassy and she was shaking.

‘And then my mission will be complete,’ said Igor. ‘It took the hard work and sacrifice of thousands of people to get you this far. I’m just honoured to be one of them.’

The statement made Jesse feel a little queasy. His stomach ached with pity.

‘How long have you known?’ Juno asked.

‘A long time now.’

‘There was concern amongst the leadership team,’ said Commander Sheppard, ‘and the psychological support team on the ground, that this news could negatively impact crew morale.’

‘That was undesirable considering the upcoming mission to Europa,’ Fae said. ‘So we decided to share the news after we passed by Saturn.’

Poppy stifled another sob, burying her face in the scuffed sleeve of her dressing gown.

‘But we found out,’ Juno said. ‘We found out because we’re not children. You can’t keep things like this from us. We’re teammates, crewmates. We have to trust each other. That’s what you always say, and now, once Igor is… once we’re past Saturn, the most qualified engineer on this ship will be Eliot. What happens if something goes wrong?’

‘We’ll still be receiving some messages from our highly competent team of engineers. They can provide additional support.’

‘Yeah, through email,’ Juno said. ‘What about when we lose contact with Ground completely?’

‘Commander Sheppard worked on several Mars missions as an engineer,’ Fae said.