Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘So I thought… I wouldn’t want to be alone.’ She took off her glove and grabbed Juno’s hand. Juno’s breath was watery, as if her lungs were filling with fluid, coming in long, laboured gasps. And with every gap in between, Jesse wondered if she would take another breath, glanced at his watch, wondered if this was the moment.

‘My grandma told me a phrase for that way she’s breathing.’ Astrid nodded towards Juno. ‘They call it “climbing the mountain of death” in her language. They say that once you start to climb…’

‘Do you believe in miracles?’ he said. Astrid wiped an eye with the back of her wrist so that she wouldn’t have to let go of her sister.

‘You know that I do,’ she said. ‘I’ve been praying and praying but… maybe our luck’s run out.’

Jesse looked at Juno’s heartbeat on the monitor, blood pressure, oxygen saturation. Astrid’s head was blocking the lamplight so she was a dark shadow, slightly painful to look at.

‘Maybe…’ said Jesse. He was thinking of the prayers of thanksgiving that the doctors had offered up to a merciful God. ‘Maybe you can’t just ask. You have to give.’

Astrid looked up at Jesse quizzically. ‘Like, make a deal?’

‘Like, make a sacrifice.’ Jesse didn’t believe in Astrid’s God, but he believed in sacrifice. Remembered the Sunday school class in which he learned about Abraham and the son he took up a mountain to murder.

Astrid looked at her sister. ‘You know, my mum once told me never to make a deal with God. It was the strangest thing she ever told me. She said that it’s dangerous. That you should only make promises that you can keep.’

The thought frightened Jesse just a little. Reminded him that Astrid believed that God was not only the kindly father of her Sunday school songs, the one who held them lovingly in his hands, waiting in eager expectation for the moment that they would turn their faces towards him. To her, He was also the bringer of storms, the sharp hand of justice, an awesome force.

‘What would you give up, Astrid? If you had to. What do you love the most? What would you sacrifice to save your sister?’

THEY AWOKE TO THE SOUND of the oxygen alarm. Jesse’s eyes were too blurred to see the figures on the monitor but he knew what it meant. ‘Astrid?’ She’d been asleep too, but she started awake with a gasp.

‘No…’ she cried, her voice light with horror. But Juno’s mouth was hanging open and she was not breathing. Jesse pushed his hands under her neck to check for a pulse but couldn’t find one. Astrid screamed, dropped to her knees, tears pouring from her eyes. Jesse stepped back, his entire body numb, ears ringing, fingers trembling.

Then the ship was filled with the thunder of running feet, others rushing up the ladder. Fae dashed into the room, still in her dressing gown, and took in the scene. Poppy ran to embrace Eliot and a wailing Astrid, Harry and Cai lingered by the threshold.

‘Poppy.’ Fae pointed to Astrid. ‘I can’t work with this noise.’ She opened a box and pulled out her stethoscope, pushed it against Juno’s chest and said, ‘Quiet.’

Jesse watched the concentration in her eyes, the way she frowned, shrinking away from the whine of the oxygen alarm. She was still for a long while, and then looked up at the monitor, pressed a button on the side and held it for a moment. It went blank, and in the silence all Jesse could hear was the sound of the blood throbbing in his eardrums.

‘Juno…’ Fae pulled off her stethoscope and switched on the main lights so they all blinked in the brightness.

The monitor in the corner of the room beeped, and then beeped again, then again, in the stiff regular rhythm of a heartbeat.

Juno opened her eyes, as if she’d just surfaced from deep water, dragging uncertain gulps of air and shaking all over.

Chapter 56 POPPY

^24.02.13

TEMPERATURE: -18°C

O₂: 59% SEA LEVEL

WEEKS UNTIL RESCUE: 5

SHE HAD TAKEN TO sleeping on the control deck, wrapped in duvet covers, sitting in the pilot’s seat and watching through the wide window for any sign of the service shuttle. Sometimes she fell asleep and imagined it twinkling in the distance, but then opened her eyes fully and realized it was only her reflection in the glass. She set the radio to tune and tune, the way Eliot had showed her, and finally, one afternoon, a voice broke through the static.

‘Mission Control, Damocles, comm check.’ Poppy leapt to her feet on a floor slicked with ice.

‘I’m here,’ she told them, rubbing her numb cheeks. ‘We’re here.’

‘This is Commander Sheppard?’

‘No…’ Poppy said. ‘It’s Poppy Lane. I’m from the Beta.’

‘We received your distress call two weeks ago and my service team is on its way.’

‘Right.’

‘We’ll prepare to rendezvous in five days.’