Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

It was then that Jesse became aware of the whine of the oxygen alarm. ‘I said, put your mask on,’ Harry barked at him. Jesse’s fingers were too stiff with cold to find it above his seat. The O₂ was dropping, the monitor on the dashboard reading 60 per cent, 55 per cent, 40… ticking down. Jesse’s vision began to tunnel and he slipped down in his seat. Harry swore, scrabbled around, then found the mask and pressed it to Jesse’s face. He felt the relief of it in his lungs, and Harry laughed. ‘We better not lose you now,’ his voice came over the com. ‘You crazy fucking genius. You – we… did it.’ He collapsed back in the pilot’s seat, his hands shaking violently, and Jesse thought he could see tears in his eyes.

Europa’s icy surface was receding from view when Jesse finally allowed himself to believe that they were out of danger. His body was gripped in a vice of pain. Whiplash, concussion, exhaustion. The weight of his limbs in this gravity was almost more than he could bear. But in a few hours, he knew, they would return to the Damocles. As he and Harry flew back, Jesse imagined them all. In his mind, Fae, Jesse, Cai and the twins were all bathed in the cool light of the monitors and when he emerged, they were all clapping. Clapping for him.

Chapter 38 HARRY

^{5 P.M.}

HARRY HAD ALMOST DIED once before. During a joyride with Jack Redcliffe, his roommate. They had been friends for years, had attended the same exclusive prep school before they’d both been selected for Dalton. They shared the same birthday and, the night before they both turned seventeen, Jack had convinced Harry to sneak off the grounds for the first and only time during his school career. Harry would have said no if Jack had not showed him the new car his Californian uncle had bought as a birthday gift. A dark green Cadillac, the most beautiful piece of machinery Harry had ever seen.

Command School was situated far out of London, past the M25, in the middle of open fields with not even a post office for miles. He and Jack pushed the car to its limits along the deserted roads, unlit tarmac curving before them like a black river. Jack turned the radio up and screamed under the vibrato trill of a rock guitar. It felt almost as good as flying: the solitude, the speed, the strange exhilaration that came from breaking the rules. Where were they going? He had no idea. In his mind, they would just keep driving, the road as infinite and inviting as space; they could skate right off the flat edge of the Earth and he’d still be laughing so much that his face hurt.

They didn’t see the truck until it swung around the corner. Headlights exploded in Harry’s face. ‘Jack! Watch out!’ he screamed, thinking This is how I die. His friend lunged at the steering wheel, throwing them off the road. Burning smell of rubber. Roar of brakes. Pain. This is how it happens. I die like this. Now I know. Harry hit his head so hard that he blacked out.

When he came to, his face was covered in blood. The driver’s seat was deserted. Jack had crawled from the car and was lying on his back beside the road.

Is this how it feels? Everything hurt. When Harry pulled himself out of the car, his mouth tasted of metal. Jack was grinning like a maniac, his nose twisted – later they would discover that the airbag had broken it – lips and teeth brown with blood.

‘I thought we were going to die,’ Harry said, his voice trembling.

‘No shit!’ Jack laughed, sitting up with some difficulty. Harry knelt down so that they were eye-level.

‘Hey,’ Harry said. ‘You idiot. Get off the road.’

‘Haha!’ Jack turned to him. ‘You’re crying.’ Harry touched his face to find that it was wet. Not with blood. ‘You’re alive.’

Harry nodded. He could not remember the last time he had cried, but even as he rested on his knees by the side of the road, more tears blurred his vision, seared his corneas. Soon his breath was ragged with sobs. ‘We’re alive.’ The blood was like fire in his veins, his heartbeat a battle cry. You’re alive, it thundered in his chest. He thought he would never feel this way again. That the stars would never be this bright again. He would never be this young again. You’re alive. Never so alive again.

THE ORLANDO HAD EXPLODED and Harry had never been so terrified. He did not believe in God or destiny. He had only ever believed in himself and in hard work, and that this life – this life as an astronaut – had always been his to snatch. But, the second of the explosion, Harry really did think he saw his life flash before his eyes. Saw Jack Redcliffe in his car, moonlight glittering on blood-spattered asphalt. The swing-set his grand father had built in the Bellgrave orchard. Himself and his brothers barefoot on the sun-warmed deck of their uncle’s boat. London. Dalton. Whatever other life he could have had with his feet on solid ground, the world below him.