Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘Poppy.’ There was a bang on the door but she wasn’t yet ready to open it. ‘Poppy, love.’

There was something on the bed, a solid parcel with her name written on it. Poppy stood up and held it in her hand for a moment, noticing the telltale signs, the hard ridge of it, the indented edges – it was a book. When she tore it open she wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. A Guide to the Zodiac: Decoding Your Destiny in the Stars. She traced the golden patterns along its thick spine, and then opened the front page, and found the inscription:

I always knew you’d do it, Freckles. You were born to shine. Dad.

She traced her thumb over the word; D. A. D. – her favourite.

‘Poppy.’ Poppy heard the familiar scrape of metal in the lock, which meant her mother was twisting it open with a butter knife. She appeared a moment later on the threshold in her faded dressing gown.

‘Mum, was Dad here?’

‘Is that from your father?’ Her eyes darted to the book in Poppy’s hand.

‘Yeah. I mean, it’s his writing on it. Did he come here to see me? When I was in school maybe?’

Her mother shook her head. ‘That arrived in the mail this morning.’ She sat heavily on the bed, taking the book from her daughter’s hands.

‘Funny thing to get you, eh?’ she said. ‘But then, he never bothered to learn a thing about you. Probably thinks you’re interested in star signs, just like me.’

‘Maybe I am.’ Poppy had always rolled her eyes at her mother’s devotion to astrology. Through the gap in her curtain she could still see a constellation of headlights, bonnets of cars parked in front of their house, idling engines, the rising chatter of onlookers. It was the first inkling she had of quite how different her life would soon be.

‘Don’t go.’ Her mother’s voice was thick and Poppy felt her stomach sink.

‘You knew this might happen.’

‘Did I?’ her mother said. ‘I mean, what were the chances, like one in a million. I know you’re supposed to be clever and you know all those languages but…’

‘Why me?’ Poppy finished for her.

‘Right. And I didn’t think I’d find out from the Channel Four news.’

‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I don’t know.’ Poppy cast her mind back to the strange disbelief that had clouded her thoughts over the past week. ‘I guess I didn’t properly believe it either. Like, maybe they’d made a mistake or something. It was too good to be true.’

‘Too good to be true,’ her mother repeated and then her expression broke and she was sobbing fat ugly tears, her face twisted in misery, nose dripping. When Poppy leant over to hug her she felt guilty as a thief. She had nothing good to say to her mother, whose future life she could see suddenly and horribly. She imagined her mother growing old in her dressing gown in their dirty flat, her cholesterol soaring, hair turning coarse and white. If her heart didn’t kill her, the loneliness would. When she slipped away in the light of the television the reporters and talk-show hosts on-screen would shout at her corpse for two weeks before the smell became so bad that someone came to find her.

Was it possible to save your parents? Poppy wasn’t sure. The only thing worse than watching her mother was becoming her, becoming a woman in that house where despair lurked, waiting to swallow her whole.

‘Hey,’ Poppy leant back as a thought occurred to her. ‘Now I’m in the Beta they’ll take care of you for life. You know that. They’ll pay you. You could move maybe – to a nicer place.’

Her mother choked on her sob. ‘Is that why you’re doing this?’ she asked.

Poppy shrugged. ‘I’m just saying, that’s one thing. At least there’s that.’

‘Yes—’ her mother sniffed. ‘At least there’s that. And will they be writing a cheque for nineteen years of my life as well? Giving me all those hours back. For your red hairs in the bathroom sink? For a child I’ll only watch grow up behind a television screen? Will they pay me for that too?’

Chapter 3 ASTRID

^12.05.12

^{T-MINUS 30 HOURS TO LAUNCH}

THE MORNING BEFORE THE launch, Astrid woke up starving.

She’d had a nightmare about the rocket exploding on the launch pad, and all their bodies roasting in their seats. In the dream, the air smelt of rocket fuel and roasting flesh. Astrid opened her eyes at 5 a.m. longing for meat.

The sun was only just rising behind the space centre, and clouds rolled up the horizon, bringing a storm that was scheduled to pass by lunchtime. Her sister and the other girls were asleep, bundled up in their duvets in quiet heaps at the four corners of the dormitory. Astrid tried to climb out of bed without waking any of them, but as her bare feet hit the floor, Poppy rolled over and her eyes flew open.

‘Sleeping?’ Poppy asked in a whisper. She was wearing her retainer, and her voice was full of metal.

‘No,’ Astrid said, ‘I’m awake.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To the bathroom,’ Astrid lied. Poppy closed her eyes again and turned away.