Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Now she smiled and leant into the microphone, waiting for the clapping to die down before she said, ‘Thank you. Twenty years ago, when I moved to the UK, I would never have imagined that I would be chosen to play even a small part in this historic mission. And twenty days ago I would not have imagined that I would be chosen to board the shuttle to travel to Terra-Two. But I am greatly honoured.’ Another smattering of applause.

‘Now, we understand that the tragic loss of our crew member Ara Shah yesterday afternoon came as a terrible shock. But the purpose of the Off-World Colonization Programme was to send six young adults to Terra-Two in 2012 to establish a permanent human settlement.

‘Ara’s job on the ship was to assist our hydroponics expert Dr Cai Tsang – who is currently on the International Mars Base – in growing the crops that will come to be the astronauts’ primary food and oxygen source. It’s a vital role. And at this late stage, as many of you may have seen on the eight o’clock news, a member of the reserve crew will be taking her place.’

When Astrid looked around, she saw that the faces of the other crew members were pale. Eliot’s head was in his hands. ‘Who is she…?’ Poppy whispered, as they both struggled to remember who in the reserve crew had been assigned Ara’s job.

‘Please welcome…’ The provost stepped back a little from the microphone to make space. Astrid could feel the blood draining from her face. The crowd parted. For a minute some part of her thought that she would find Ara standing amongst them, smiling her playful smile and flicking the river water out of her long hair. Fooled you, she’d say with a laugh. This entire day, this nightmare, just an elaborate joke.

A tall bronze-skinned boy stepped onto the podium dressed in a flight suit, and applause swept across the gathered crowd like rain. Cheers, whoops of relief. It was all going to be fine. The mission would go ahead. All of that work, all of their hopes, none of them wasted.

Jesse Solloway – Astrid recognized him immediately. The misfit who never made the cut. They couldn’t have chosen anyone less likely than this young man, whose coal-black eyes were distant and dreamy, who braided broken shells and mantled leaves into his waist-length locks. Jesse had always radiated his own kind of lonely cool. Once, in a careers lesson, when asked what he wanted to be, he had said ‘deity’ and the class had tittered nervously. They only took it seriously a few months later, when he didn’t make the Beta and stopped coming to school. Rumours spread that he was going to die.

‘You,’ Juno said, her eyes wide.

‘Me,’ he said with a happy lazy smile, ‘I made it after all.’

Chapter 8 ASTRID

^13.05.12

^{T-MINUS 4 HOURS}

FOUR HOURS BEFORE THE launch, Astrid found Harry standing by the window of the dormitory, staring at his reflection in the sun-silvered glass. He turned when he heard her feet on the linoleum outside. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘T-minus four hours,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be down already.’

‘I’m coming in a minute,’ he said, turning back to the window. ‘Just practising my smile for the camera.’ When he raked his fingers through his hair a couple of blond strands stuck to the damp on his forehead. ‘You know, it’s the last they’ll see of us.’

Cars were pulling up outside, and Astrid could hear the rumble of helicopters overhead. It was the kind of cool spring morning with air that is bracing and sweet and promises sunshine. A bright ridge of light peered over the roof and cast across the lawn. The Damocles – the magnificent ship that would take them to Terra-Two – winked overhead. If Astrid squinted she thought she could see it, about 660 kilometres above London. The shuttle they were about to enter would ferry them that short distance, out of Earth’s atmosphere, and to the spinning decks of the Damocles, their new home. From there, they would accelerate out of Earth’s orbit, past Mars and the moons of Jupiter, around Saturn and then out of the solar system.

As Commander Sheppard ushered them into the cars, Astrid realized that the worst part of the wait had begun. The hours before the launch would be the longest as the seconds ticked down to take-off.