Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

When she left the infirmary, the monitors in the control room and service module indicated that the oxygen levels had fallen to 65 per cent that of sea level. Which meant they were now all suffering from some form of altitude sickness. Harry, Jesse and Juno all complained of headaches so bad that during their morning conferences they would lean over the table, barely able to see for the pain. A few of them had developed a dry cough and they all stood at the top of the ladder, dizzy and winded with exhaustion from the effort of pulling their own weight up. Astrid woke often in the middle of the night in a sudden horror that she had stopped breathing. Cold sweat freezing the damp cotton between her legs, feet numb with cold even under two pairs of socks.

Astrid heard that while she had been in confinement, the rest of the crew had been attempting to trudge through some semblance of routine, eating silent meals in the kitchen, watching films together in the crew module. Astrid could not help suspecting that whatever positive feelings any of her crewmates might once have harboured for her had well and truly eroded. She’d sentenced them to this fate. In tearful corridor conversations, Astrid overheard them saying as much. There had been no messages from the Russian expedition that was apparently coming to their rescue, but Astrid kept running up to the Atlas module to search the skies for a sight of their shuttle, with the desperate regularity of a sailor waiting for landfall. Each time, she found nothing but the void.

One horrible morning, Juno did not wake at the sound of the bell. She was still in her bed after breakfast and when Astrid went to find her and pulled her duvet down, she saw that the side of her face was wet with vomit, only the whites of her eyes visible, lips purple.

Astrid cried out, panic darkening her vision. Stabbing her fingers under her sister’s jaw, she detected a slow pulse. She scooped Juno into her arms, never mind the nail-varnish smell of her bile, and carried her to the infirmary. Juno was light as a bird, maybe seven stone or less, Astrid saw now, and it broke her heart. The hard edges of her pelvis pushed insistently above the band of her pyjamas. All this time, her sister had needed her help and Astrid had been too preoccupied to see it.

When she reached the infirmary, Fae looked down at Juno with a sad expression of inevitability, as if she was watching a vase topple from a great height, the predictable crack. She’d been waiting for this – knew it was only a matter of time before the low oxygen made one of them seriously sick.

She explained that it was likely Juno was suffering from high-altitude cerebral oedema, which occurs when a lack of oxygen causes swelling of the brain tissue. She tied an oxygen mask to Juno’s face and gave her a dose of a drug to ease the swelling, but Fae didn’t pull any punches when she gave Astrid the prognosis.

‘People die of this,’ she said, her voice grim. ‘I’ve seen it in healthy men and women who climb mountains. Young people. They get a headache and then as the air gets thinner they get sicker and sicker. Many fall into a coma and do not wake up. I’m not going to lie to you. She could be dead in hours.’

Astrid could barely think through the steel vice of her own headache. She stumbled down the halls of the ship, fighting tears. Everything her sister had said about her had been right. Astrid had made this selfish, reckless choice, sentenced everyone to this death. The realization made her sick with self-loathing.

For the first time in her life the foundations of her hope began to crumble. For the past few years Terra-Two had been so wondrously close, so certainly in her future. And, today, she saw it receding from her even as she clutched desperately and foolishly for it. She felt like Tessa Dalton, dying alone at the edge of that fountain, the cold creeping in, her mad eyes fixed on the distant star where the planet spun, still believing that if she could just grasp a little further she could get there eventually.

That had been over a century ago, and here was Astrid – fool that she was! – doing the same thing.

When she entered the control room, Igor was there. Astrid began to cry. ‘I’ve killed them all,’ she said. Igor looked at her silently. ‘My sister. All my friends. This is my fault, everything that’s happened.’

“ ‘Regretting the past is like chasing wind”,’ Igor said. ‘Something we say in Norilsk. This is the situation we are in now.’