Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘Is it lame that I’m excited?’ Juno said, with a shy smile. They had grown up with pictures of famous and long-dead astronauts planting trees at the British Interplanetary Society, in the Garden of Flight. Pumpkin-orange in their flight suits, sprinkling dirt over the roots as they might over a lover’s grave. It was a ritual the Brits borrowed from the Russians, who planted saplings in Cosmonauts’ Grove near their launch site in Baikonur. Space enthusiasts still made the pilgrimage to see the 100-year-old oak tree planted by the first man in space. Astrid was excited too. She wondered if, in another century, people might touch the dirt at the roots of her own tree, mouth silent prayers for the other distant Earth that the Beta would be the first to stand on.

‘It feels like graduation, almost,’ Poppy said. ‘Like we’re finally real astronauts.’

‘We are,’ Harry said.

‘We will be tomorrow,’ Juno said, ‘technically.’

‘And,’ Eliot said, ‘the garden will be in town. The BIS is near the Houses of Parliament. We’ll see all of London through the window. So you don’t have to feel like you’re missing anything.’

They all avoided each other’s gaze.

‘I thought I heard singing out here.’ Their flight surgeon, Dr Maggie Millburrow, entered the courtyard, wearing a transparent rain poncho over her lab coat. In the corner of her eye, Astrid thought she saw her crewmates straighten their backs, grow serious. They weren’t sure if they would be in trouble for getting out of their beds so early. But the doctor smiled at them, and ruffled Juno’s hair.

‘We were just talking about the tree-planting ceremony,’ Astrid said.

‘I see.’ Dr Millburrow smiled a little. ‘I’m excited too. The birch I planted died while I was on Luna-Nine. They say it’s bad luck, though the mission was a success. Fingers crossed this time.’

She glanced at her watch. ‘The kitchen staff have told me that there’s been a problem with breakfast.’ A pang of guilty nerves made Astrid’s heart flutter, and the blood burned in her face. She lowered her eyes, hoping that no one would notice. ‘It’s delayed by ninety minutes, so your medical checks have been brought forward to fill the time instead. Good to get them over with before the morning briefing. Commander Sheppard and Igor Bovarin have an engagement and so won’t be there but we’ll see them at 12.30 at the tree-planting ceremony. I have to tell you now though, I’ve been informed that anyone who does not pass the medical check this morning can’t be cleared to travel. Safety precaution. We don’t want to take any risks this close to launch.’

AFTER HER MEDICAL EXAMINATION, Astrid found Ara throwing up in the toilet.

‘Did they clear you?’ she asked, fingering the green ‘cleared’ tag they had just snapped onto her wrist. Peering around the open door of the cubicle, Astrid recoiled at the pungent tang of vomit, clutching her own stomach. ‘Are you sick?’

‘I’m not sick,’ Ara gasped finally, sitting up to wipe the side of her mouth and waving her own green wristband. ‘There were butterflies in my stomach.’ Her eyes flitted back to the toilet as if they were actually in there, the butterflies, sunk in the water. Papery wings dissolving in bile. Ara flushed and then got unsteadily to her feet. Closing the cubicle door behind her, she rinsed her mouth out in the sink.

Astrid caught herself examining Ara’s reflection in the mirror. She looked a little green and the skin under her eyes was dark. Ara smiled at Astrid’s reflection in the glass.

Ara was not beautiful, but had inherited her Indian mother’s thick black hair, which fell in heavy waves past her waist and smelt of the jasmine oil she rubbed into it. She had spent years of her childhood in the North, so her tongue still tripped prettily over words like laugh and grass. In their first year at Dalton, she had told the other students that she could speak to the wind and everyone had believed her or wanted to believe her, because her eyes were black as magic and sometimes when she spoke a gust did pick up, knocking leaves across the field.

Astrid watched as her friend lifted her head and eclipsed the sun, which was beaming through the window behind her. She envied Ara. People who knew her had always been certain that she would be selected for the Beta, that she belonged amongst the constellations, although they’d also been mistakenly sure she would be selected to be their commander-in-training.

‘This is a great day.’ Ara turned to point out the dispersing clouds. ‘Can you feel it too, Astrid? It’s like being in love, you know. So sweet it’s painful, almost … everything is beautiful, but everything hurts.’

‘It’s because we’re saying goodbye all the time now,’ Astrid said. ‘It’s kind of exhausting.’