Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

THEIR FEET FELL INTO a familiar rhythm as Noah led her down the dim corridors and towards the lift that led to the Garden of Flight. The silence was uncomfortable, so Juno scrambled for things to say to him. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘Everyone’s getting really emotional this morning. About the launch. I feel as if I’m the only one who’s excited. They’re only focusing on the things they’re leaving behind but there are so many things I’ll be glad I’ll never see again.’

‘Like what?’ Noah asked, pressing his thumb against the scanner to hail the lift.

‘I don’t know. Traffic jams and hailstones.’ They stepped inside. ‘I’ll probably never have to pay taxes, or stand in line at the post office.’

‘You’ll probably never see all that stuff that supermarkets throw out in those big skips at the end of the day and the people who rummage through them for something to eat,’ Noah added. ‘That makes me sad as hell.’ The floor numbers began at zero and descended into negatives, Noah pressed -7 and the door closed.

‘Greenhouse gases,’ Juno said. Her stomach dropped as they headed to the basement. ‘Civil war. Famine.’

‘All those things might happen on Terra-Two, you know,’ Noah said. ‘Eventually. I mean, war kind of happens everywhere.’

‘No, it won’t,’ Juno said. ‘We’re leaving behind a world where slavery happened. Two world wars. Genocide. A world where people have used atomic bombs. Terra-Two will be different. Better. We will make it better.’

The lift pinged and they stepped out. The Garden of Flight was a dark orchard, densely packed with trees of all different kinds. Lots of silver birches, with bark that peeled like tissue paper. ‘Sheppard had a birch tree,’ she said.

‘All of the Mars Expeditions did. I don’t know why. Look here.’ He led her to a row of them, like pale sentinels, the names of astronauts carved into a marble stone at the foot of each tree. Juno found the names of the veteran astronauts following them on the mission. Igor Bovarin had the most trees; some delicate saplings, others sturdy and flush with leaves, thick roots swelling from the black soil.

Noah led her to the centre of the garden, skipping over an artificial spring, into a luxurious clearing, lit blue with holographic galaxies projected on the ceiling. The air was heavy with pollen, and Juno trod carefully, so as to avoid crushing the flowers. ‘This place is different from the way I imagined,’ she told him, looking around at a patch of bluebells, their stems heavy with flowers. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen a plant, or anything other than titanium and steel and plastic, for over a week.’ Juno laughed. The air smelt deliciously of apple blossom, and juniper, mint and wild sorrel. ‘It’s still spring here,’ Juno said, reaching to break a bunch of cherry blossoms off a branch.

‘It’s something to do with the climate controls I think. They use these LEDs – like the ones they use on space stations, to keep them growing down here. But, for some reason, the seasons start and finish about a month later.’ Flower petals dropped like confetti and gusted across the ground. It looked like the type of wood that she and Astrid used to search for faeries in. Like the wood near Noah’s childhood house where he had first asked Juno to be his girlfriend, his cheeks burning, his eyes defiantly hopeful. Or where she’d met him after a dentist appointment, the first person he smiled for after they fitted him with braces – still ashamed of the cages they’d locked his twisted teeth into.

Dalton was a hostile place for friendships. Few romances lasted longer than a summer, but because Juno and Noah had endured, their union had taken on a kind of mystique. The young, star-bound lovers. But, after Noah had chosen to leave the programme, some of the excitement died. Juno sometimes wondered what kept them together now. The tepid comfort of habit, she supposed.

‘So—’ Noah stopped walking and let her hand drop. ‘I got you a gift.’ He dipped his hand into his pocket and opened his palm. ‘It’s a moon rock,’ he said, ‘in a necklace, so you can’t lose it.’

Juno’s heart fluttered. ‘But that’s yours,’ she said. She had lost count of how many times she’d seen him turning the little stone over in his hands, or slipping it into his pocket before exams. It was small and grey, shot through with silvery flecks. An actual piece of the moon that Noah’s father had left behind when he walked out of his son’s life.

Juno was unable to meet Noah’s gaze.

‘Yes, but I wanted to give it to you. I mean, I know you’re probably going to see so many other things on your way. Nothing so pedestrian as the moon, but—’

‘Thank you,’ Juno said, and kissed him quickly on the cheek. He smelt of sweetened milk and non-bio washing powder. Motes of dust flitted between them, and she memorized his face. His watery eyes, hair like spun sugar.

‘Shall I put it on?’ he asked.