Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘Exactly. Though that’s hard to remember sometimes.’ He stepped a little closer and Jesse followed behind him. ‘Have you heard of a sensory deprivation chamber?’

‘Yes—’ Jesse began, but Harry continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

‘During training they put us in one to see how long we could stand it. No light, no sound. Most people can’t last fifteen minutes before they begin to see things, begin to panic. They don’t even know what they’re afraid of. Themselves, maybe. In the darkness every fear finds a face. You imagine being buried alive, being paralyzed, and some people can’t handle it.’ Jesse shuddered as he, too, imagined it. He was silently glad this ordeal had been omitted from his training. He tried to picture Harry in the darkness.

‘Do you know how long I managed it?’ Harry was still talking. ‘Seven hours, forty-three minutes. Sounds impossible. Especially for someone like you, who’s afraid of the dark.’

‘I’m not afraid of the dark,’ Jesse said. ‘What kind of astronaut is?’

‘Prove it.’ Harry folded his arms and smiled. Jesse could only see part of Harry’s face in the half-light of the corridor. He was dressed in his uniform, as he usually was during the daytime, clean-shaven, his straight blond hair slicked back from his forehead.

Jesse swallowed, a lie suddenly on his lips. ‘I have a fit-check in five minutes, so maybe another time.’

‘This will only take five minutes.’

Jesse’s heart sank. He had no choice but to step inside the airlock. Harry’s silhouette was backlit on the threshold behind him.

‘Igor will probably tell you that when Russian cosmonauts train they’re put in isolation chambers, for weeks sometimes,’ Harry said. ‘Some of them call it the Chamber of Silence. Can you imagine it, Jesse? Can you imagine what thoughts would be going through your nervous head. There’s more to being an astronaut than just wanting it, you know. You have to prove you can do it.’

He paused, and the dread in Jesse’s stomach grew.

‘The astronaut can’t fear enclosed spaces,’ Harry said, his fingers on the handle. Jesse’s nerves panged. In another moment, Harry would close the hatch and he would be left alone there.

‘No, don’t—’

‘The astronaut can’t fear the darkness.’

Jesse saw Harry’s silhouetted hand lift and realized, too late, that he was letting the airlock close.

‘Harry!’ Jesse rushed towards the door as it shut. ‘No!’

‘The astronaut can’t fear death.’

A hiss of air as the door sealed closed, and Jesse was left alone in the almost total blackness. All sound from the noisy ship disappeared, and he could hear only his own heavy breathing and the sweat prickling on his back. The air was stale and unmoving. How long until it ran out?

‘Harry,’ he called, ‘this isn’t funny.’

I won’t panic, he thought to himself, but still he remained pressed up against the door. Sinister shapes were already beginning to encroach upon him in the darkness. He blinked them away.

‘You said five minutes.’ Five minutes. How long had it been already? One? Thirty seconds? He just had to keep calm for five minutes and then Harry would free him. He tried to distract himself by taking deep breaths, but inhaling the still air only made him more nervous.

Jesse had often thought about what it might feel like to suffocate: the agony of oxygen deprivation and the clenching full body panic that came with it. Getting trapped under ice and drowning. A silent final scream of desperation as he fought to suck air into deflating lungs and instead felt the violation of freezing water rushing into his mouth. His throat sealing shut.

‘Harry!’

Harry’s smiling face lit up the porthole. His voice audible through the intercom on the side. ‘Scared already?’ he asked. What little light there was glinted off his retinas. ‘You’re not much of an astronaut, are you? I knew there was a reason you didn’t make it first time round.’

‘This isn’t funny,’ Jesse called, slamming his hand against the window. It was so thick, two sheets of bolted polycarbonate, that he wasn’t sure that Harry could hear him.

‘Being in the airlock is not half as scary as being in space. While the six of us were cramming for physiology exams, you were probably out smoking weed and contemplating cloud formations, or whatever else it is you did with your abundant free time, so let me fill you in. There is one door separating you from the hard vacuum of space, the void between astronomical bodies, the possibly infinite ocean of mostly nothing-ness. It’s a bit like death. But do you know what would be more like death? Me, out here, turning this handle and watching you float out into space. What would a place like that do to a body like yours?’