Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Teddy eyed her knowingly and said, ‘Thought so. There’s always a difference between what goes on in here and what I hear ’em saying on there. Between you and me, I think someone’s going to get the axe.’ He leant in conspiratorially. ‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t—’

He fell quiet and his eyes darted to the door as the susurration of people coming out of the conference room filled the hall.

Juno looked around in surprise. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be caught hanging around in reception, so she headed quickly back down the corridor and towards the refectory.

‘Juno.’

When she turned, she saw Dr Millburrow.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?’

‘Umm… I was just having dinner.’ Juno’s eyes darted towards the door of the empty refectory.

It was good to see Maggie’s ruddy face. Of all the senior crew charged with looking after them, she was the most like a friend. Juno had been glad when she turned up in her car earlier that day to take them back home and she was glad to see her now.

‘I was just in a meeting with the board of directors and they’ve come to a decision.’ She glanced behind her at the serious-looking men and women in suits who had spilled out into the hall. ‘I thought you better hear this from me.’

Juno felt her stomach drop with a jangled swoop of alarm. Maggie was about to tell her that she was no longer on the mission. That tonight they would all pay for Ara’s actions with their future.

And then, all of a sudden, a quiet kind of abandon came over her. The kind she had felt in the three horrible hours after Astrid discovered she’d made it into the Beta and before Juno had. In those moments, a colourless life beneath the stars and away from her sister extended before her. Now she felt it again. Juno experienced the dim resignation that sometimes came over her in the split second she realized she was about to drop something; the swollen moment after the shift in weight registers and just before the crash.

‘The mission will be going ahead as planned but someone will have to replace Ara. You do realize that, right?’ Juno stared at Maggie dumbfounded. Could it be? Could it be that God had smiled mercifully upon her?

‘We’re going to launch,’ she said, and her throat tightened.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m going to space?’

‘Yes, that’s what the board has agreed.’

‘Oh…’ Juno let out a long breath, leant against the wall to steady herself.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes…’ she gasped. ‘Just… relieved.’

Maggie put a hand on Juno’s shoulder and her eyes softened. ‘It’s been a long day, JJ.’ Juno nodded. ‘Why don’t you go up there and get some sleep?’ She nodded again.

Maggie leant forward and kissed her on the forehead. For a moment Juno’s nose was filled with the sweet lavender scent of her perfume and she exhaled another shaky breath.

‘If I don’t see you in the morning…’

‘You’re supposed to wake us up.’ Maggie nodded as if she had forgotten that fact. Juno had grown used to seeing her silhouette in the doorway in the morning, just after the bell rang. She always smelt sweet as fresh bread and woke them all up by leaning down and stroking their cheeks. Like a mother, almost. Whenever Juno pictured waking up in space she imagined Maggie standing in the doorway and saying, wakie wakie, girls, her own eyes bright and ready to face the day.

‘Sure thing,’ she said with a smile that wilted a little into a grimace. ‘I’m proud of you.’ Maggie added it as an afterthought, when Juno had already taken a couple of steps down the corridor. She stopped and turned back.

‘For what?’

Chapter 5 JESSE

^{11.0 5.12}

^{T-MINUS 36 HOURS}

TWO NIGHTS BEFORE THE launch, Jesse was lying on his bedroom floor listening to news reports from mission control. His sister was speaking to him about attachment, but Jesse was only half listening. He was thinking about the rocket. She kept repeating herself: ‘The thing about attachment,’ she was saying, crossing her legs in front of her, ‘it’s not about not caring, it’s about not clinging.’ The word rang in her throat as if it was a little dirty. ‘You know, the way you hold your breath for just a second when you are given something little and beautiful, in the immediate anticipation of losing it. Which – of course – you will.’ She said this with a flippant wave of her hand. ‘You can’t cling on to anything in this life; money, possessions, other people, even the cherry blossoms dry up and drop away. Loving anything is bound to the pain of losing it. Which is why clinging causes suffering.’

‘You should write that on a bumper sticker.’

‘Are you listening?’

‘Mostly,’ Jesse said. ‘I just don’t see what this has to do with me.’ His sister rolled her eyes.