Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Later in the day, she would stretch out under the mottled shade of the trees to rest. Next week, in her position as Terra’s first astrobiologist, she would lead an expedition further into the forest with the hope of making it all the way to the peaks of the mountains beyond. She would slip into the healing water of the lagoons, which the ship’s navigator told her lay several miles east. After a year or two, voyagers from the Gamma, Delta and epsilon missions would people this Earth, filling the air with hybrid languages and native songs. They would invent new, thoughtful customs, celebrate their arrival, tell each other again and again the story of the journey. When her hair began to silver, Astrid would wrap the first new baby in her arms and say, ‘Everything good is happening at the same time.’

There was so much ahead. There was so much to discover that Astrid would never have her fill of wonder.

Someone was calling her name.

Astrid’s eyes followed the footprints along the shore and she was surprised to find her sister standing in the sand, one hand on her hip and the other shielding her eyes from the sun. She called Astrid’s name again. Behind her was a hand-painted flag. It cracked in the wind and swayed on a flagpole twice her height.

‘Astrid!’

The whites of Juno’s eyes were visible in the darkness of the dormitory. She leant up on her elbows and scowled.

‘Astrid, your alarm is ringing.’ Astrid became aware of the persistent buzz of the clock on her bedside table, and the tight edge in her sister’s voice.

‘Switch it off.’

As she fumbled for the button, Juno wriggled back under her duvet. ‘Don’t set it so early if you can’t wake up for it.’

‘I am awake,’ Astrid said, rubbing her eyes.

She thought she could still feel the sand of Terra-Two between her toes.

‘Juno?’

‘What?’

‘Have you ever dreamt of Terra-Two?’

‘Not really.’ She yawned and rolled over. ‘We’ve never been there. What would I dream about?’

‘I—’

‘It’s five a.m., Astrid. It’s too early to chat.’

Swinging her legs from under the duvet, Astrid climbed out of bed. The cycling lights in the corridor were turning the tepid amber of a sunrise. The crew module was quiet; everyone was still asleep. In an hour and a half the morning alarm would ring, the lights above her would brighten to mimic the vivid blue of a morning sky, the thunder of the crew’s footsteps would roll down the halls. They had been on the ship for two weeks now, and Astrid was surprised to find that the routine was not so different from the one they had fallen into at the space centre. They would gather around the same time in the kitchen and jostle for the coffee machine or trail sticky crumbs across the counter. At 7.30 they sat together around the kitchen table for the Daily Planning Conference. Commander Sheppard would read out a list of duties for that day, and any notices that had been uplinked from ground control the night before, then they would disperse and join the senior crew for their individual tutorials before regrouping for lunch.

That morning, Astrid thought that she might make a late start on some tutorial work that Igor had set them before their lesson later that day. She headed to the upper deck and around to the kitchen.

On her way, she passed the open door to Cai’s bedroom. The hydroponics expert was expected to arrive on a shuttle the following day. Whenever Astrid imagined him, she pictured his skin – would it be gun-metal grey from lack of sunlight? Would his bones be long and thin, distorted by the low gravity of Mars?

Further along the corridor she was distracted by the sound of a child’s voice. It was a young boy’s, filtering thinly through the open hatch by the flight deck. ‘…Daddy? When are you coming home?’

‘Stop asking him,’ said a woman.

‘I told you.’ Solomon Sheppard’s voice was still rough from sleep, undulating the way adults tended to when speaking to a child. ‘When you get a little older, you’ll come up here and live with me. In the place I’m going. Everyone will.’

‘Mummy too?’

‘Don’t put ideas into his head,’ said the woman. ‘Can you just sing. He won’t go to sleep if…’

Astrid stepped a little closer. The control deck was like an arcade, a wonder of maps, dials and spinning gauges, hundreds of colour-coded buttons lit up on different dashboards. A vast array of glowing monitors displaying the status of key components of the ship, close-circuit television screens, hand controls like joysticks.