Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

^{T-MINUS 15 HOURS}

‘DID YOU SUSPECT THAT Ara Shah was suicidal?’ Dr Maggie Millburrow asked in the car on the way back to the space centre. Astrid sat in the back, squeezing her fists into her eye sockets and trying to scrub away the haunting memory of the previous hours.

‘I don’t know,’ she said through tears.

Whenever she closed her eyes, she played the day back. Had Ara appeared nervous? When they danced together in the storm that morning? Ara’s hands had been hot in Astrid’s palms and later she’d discovered her being sick in the bathroom. When they had escaped from the BIS building, her pulse had been throbbing through her fingertips. Had she been suicidal then? Or had it happened later when they skipped along the bridge by the South Bank – had the windswept river called after her? Perhaps she had never made the conscious decision to jump. Perhaps the notion had struck her, lightning-quick like inspiration, impossible to refuse until the dark water closed over her head and invaded all the hollow places in her chest.

‘I don’t know,’ Astrid said again, opening her eyes to find the city disappearing in the rear window.

‘What were you thinking?’ Millburrow asked. ‘Running off like that?’ Astrid had to admit that she didn’t know. She could not explain stepping from the safety of the society building and traipsing into London with the thoughtlessness of a sleepwalker. She’d just followed Ara, as she always had.

Astrid was sick with regret. Over what had happened to Ara but also over the very real threat that hung over her and her crewmates – that they would no longer be cleared to fly. That the launch would be delayed. Or suspended.

The UKSA would find someone responsible for what had happened. And, during the drive back, Astrid could not push away the horrified thought that it would be all her fault, that if the mission was suspended and she was kicked off the programme – Earthbound and disgraced – there would be no forgiveness for her. She had already heard whispers about ‘breach of contract’ and ‘criminal proceedings’…

When she returned to the space centre, Astrid had stepped out of the car to find a small crowd was gathered in the half-light of the drive. Dr Golinsky – Dalton’s lead medical officer – in her white coat, their school’s provost, Professor Stenton, and directors of the astronaut’s office. Astrid’s stomach was heavy with dread as a woman in a grey suit ran towards her. ‘You saw it, didn’t you?’ she asked, the car’s headlights illuminating the gooseflesh along the side of her neck. She peered into Astrid’s eyes as if she thought that if she looked close enough she might be able to see the incident herself.

‘I didn’t exactly…’ Astrid turned her gaze down to her feet. ‘I just saw her body. In the water.’

‘After she fell,’ Professor Stenton said, stepping from the shadow of the doorway, ‘it looked like an accident, didn’t it?’

‘Well, the thing is, I didn’t really see—’

‘But if you had to guess,’ interrupted a man in a lab coat, ‘you’d say she fell. She wasn’t suicidal.’

‘No,’ Astrid said. ‘I didn’t think she was. She seemed happy. And we would have known, right? We’re her friends.’ She shook her head. ‘We would have known if she was unhappy.’

‘Exactly.’ A public affairs officer stabbed a painted fingernail at Astrid. ‘We would have known. We would have detected it. So she must have fallen.’

Astrid nodded. ‘She must have… she fell,’ she said, looking away as if she could see it already. The twist of an ankle, the snap of the railing, Ara’s final look of surprise as her soles left the earth. ‘I think she fell.’ Maybe Ara only realized what happened once her body hit the water.

‘An accident,’ Dr Golinsky said. ‘A tragic accident.’

‘These things happen,’ said a supervisor, his glasses flashing in the headlights. ‘That’s the sad thing.’

These things do happen, they agreed.

They announced this to the shouting reporters gathered at the gates, hurling questions through the bars. It was an accident, they said, even at the press conference a few days later, after it was revealed that Ara’s combat boots had been discovered under a bench on a bridge, pushed neatly together, the laces tied up, neon pink ankle socks scrunched inside like oysters in a shell.

JUNO

^{T-MINUS 12 HOURS}

AFTER JUNO HAD BEEN driven back to the space centre, she and the rest of the crew returned to a different kind of fray. Reporters were gathered at the gates, their cars parked all the way up the street. The driver had to take them around to a side road and up through a shadowed back entrance where directors, police and public relations officers were gathered.

They were ushered immediately into separate rooms. Required first to give a statement to the police, and then the Astronaut Office, the school’s directors and finally to undergo a psychological assessment and mental health screening.