Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

The corridor was still dark and the master alarm sounded with the kind of urgent wail that told Astrid exactly what danger she was in. They were losing pressure fast this time, but she could not figure out where from. Her amateur dressing had been torn off the porthole, and cracks spread like spiders’ webs across the borosilicate. She thought that she could see the air pouring out, oxygen illuminated by the sinister light of Europa.

‘Astrid!’ Juno scrambled down the hatch and hit the floor with a thud that she must have felt in her shins. ‘We have decompression.’

Astrid’s gaze was still fixed on the porthole. The pressure inside the corridor was slamming like a battering ram against its cracked surface. How long until it shattered?

‘Astrid, get up.’ Juno was above her now, her face a rictus of panic. Astrid grabbed her hand and struggled to her feet, although every bone in her battered body protested against her weight.

‘We should try to fix it,’ Astrid gasped, gesturing at the porthole.

‘There’s no time,’ Juno yelled, dragging Astrid in the opposite direction from the way she had come, away from the hatch that would lead them to the middle deck and the crew module, past the porthole, down the corridor towards the bridge that led to the greenhouse.

‘The other way’s faster,’ Astrid said.

‘We need to get to the radiation shelter,’ said Juno. ‘It’s the safest place right now.’ Astrid knew that the radiation shelter, which was tucked in at the far end of the greenhouse, had a reinforced shell and twenty-four hours of oxygen – buying them enough time to wait for the rest of the crew to arrive. But then what?

The illumination of the flashing emergency lights was dizzying, sending their shadows spiralling up and down the walls in a way that made the floor feel as if it was rocking under them. Under the caterwaul of the alarm, Astrid thought she could hear the most terrifying sound – the tea-kettle whistle of the air escaping into space, a sound that few astronauts had lived through to describe.

A faulty hab-lab on a Mars mission had caused such sudden decompression of the crew module that all the astronauts died instantaneously. Their remains were discovered six months later, computers still running, feet and hands covered in the red dust of that planet. They had smiles on their faces. Apparently, death had come too suddenly for them to tremble at the sight of it.

‘This way.’ Juno hurried Astrid along, towards the shelter.

Everything that was not sealed down was whipping through the air: medical wipes, vacuum-packed bandages, eye dressings and a bag of safety pins from the first aid box, flying as if propelled by a strong gust of wind. A coldpack shot at Juno’s head but she ducked and turned to find it shatter against a wall panel. They had about thirty seconds.

‘Hurry up!’ Juno screamed, but her voice had taken on a strange distant wail as the air between them vanished.

Astrid’s awareness split as she looked around at the water vapour condensing into mist, and the crack spreading across the window, and she came to a dark understanding of the danger they were in. But some part of her was light with euphoria. She felt laughter bubble up in her diaphragm. Why run? she wondered.

‘Astrid,’ Juno shouted. ‘Concentrate!’ Her sister dragged her down the corridor towards the emergency hatch that led to the bridge – the narrow passageway that connected the lower and the upper deck. Eliot was standing in it with an O₂ mask strapped to his face. He motioned for them to hurry, but by the time they reached the hatch, Astrid couldn’t feel her feet, her vision was narrowing into a tunnel and once they were through the hatch she collapsed on the ground inside the bridge.

Behind her, Juno was struggling to close the hatch, her body illuminated only in the red of the emergency light. ‘It’s not closing,’ she cried, but Astrid could barely hear over the pain in her head. Her eardrums were expanding out like balloons as the pressure fell. The pain was more than she could bear, starbursts of agony through her head and jaw. Voices around her fluted into a distant whine. ‘There’s something caught in the door. Wires, I think. I need you to get something to cut them with… Astrid?’

Astrid heard her name through the fog of pain and light-headedness. Juno and Eliot were struggling with the hatch, which was blocked by a dozen ventilation tubes and cables. Eliot scrambled to unplug every wire he could find; all the while his shaggy hair was whipping around his head as if in a hurricane. Astrid knew she only had a few seconds of useful consciousness left. She crawled through the bridge, where the ground under her palms was cold as ice, blood pounding behind her eyes. On the other side was the greenhouse, where leaves were being torn off their vines. She forced herself to focus, looked around for something to cut the wire with. Something sharp.