Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘I guess so…’ he began, but as soon as he said it, the memories flooded back. The cardiac plunge he’d experienced when he’d looked in Harry’s eyes and realized that he really was about to die at his hands. The violence of his final moments, thrashing at the sealed door, the bruises around his elbows where pinpricks of blood had burst out of his capillaries. Juno had been the one to save him. He recalled, with a visceral shame, his own begging howls, the tears that had come to his eyes, the way she had looked when the airlock opened, a floodlit nimbus about her face, the fleeting moment of wonder at her touch. All of a sudden, Jesse wished she would leave.

‘I’m fine. I’m really fine,’ he said, trying with some effort to sit up. ‘You can go. You probably have something to be doing.’

She shrugged. ‘I have an excuse to miss dinner, which, today, I’m glad about. I think if I see Harry again today there’s a real danger I might stab him with my fork. Eliot and I are going to tell Sheppard tonight.’

For a moment Jesse was sick with fear and embarrassment. He imagined trying to explain what had happened. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Please. It’ll only make things worse.’

Juno shook her head doubtfully. ‘Sheppard should know. Fae already knows you had a panic attack—’ Jesse grimaced at the word. ‘But she doesn’t know what Harry did to you. The senior crew should know that Harry’s dangerous. Possibly insane.’

‘Don’t be dramatic. It just got out of hand, that’s all.’ Jesse tried to swallow, though his throat was tight. A flash of Harry’s grinning face came to him and he turned cold with rage. ‘I don’t want to talk about it again. To anyone.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ Jesse said darkly.

‘That was a terrible thing he did. I can’t actually believe…’ Juno trailed off, shaking her head in puzzlement.

‘Can’t you?’ Jesse asked. ‘Everyone acts like it’s a surprise whenever Harry does a bad thing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just because he’s been chosen to be here and is a good pilot doesn’t mean that he’s a good person. He’s going to be our commander when Sheppard is gone but he’s nothing like Solomon Sheppard. He’s not quiet and humble, or wise and good. He’s cruel. Just because he’s a talented pilot, just because he’s good at sports and handsome and shagged half the girls in our year, doesn’t make him a leader.’

‘I guess you’re right.’ Juno looked down. ‘There were always those things he did, like pranks and mean jokes that I thought he just did because, I don’t know, he’s a teenage boy. But now I wonder if that’s just the person he is. The person he’s become.’

They sat in silence for a moment. Then Jesse revealed something he hadn’t admitted before. ‘You know…’ He searched Juno’s face for a sign she would understand. ‘I’ve been thinking… I think I, kind of, hate Harry.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Juno frowned. ‘You’re just angry, that’s all. I am too. But we’re a team. And we’re supposed to be a family.’

‘A family.’ Jesse snorted. ‘Some dysfunctional family that I’m sure as hell not part of.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Juno was getting upset. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you don’t actually have to do everything that Harry says.’

‘Of course I know that,’ Jesse snapped.

‘Then why do you always go along with his games? You follow him around like—’ she paused. ‘Like you admire him. Almost like you want to be him. You watch him at dinner, you laugh at his jokes, you sit in the games room and just watch him while he plays on the simulator. For hours.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Jesse said.

‘No, I don’t.’

For a moment he hated them all. All the members of the Beta. They were grossly entitled and self-absorbed. He hated the way they had swanned through the school in the final days, crowds parting in awed enchanted waves before them. The way they had emerged before the entire world, that day before the launch, as if they were crowned in laurel, the whole country chanting their names when only a week later they’d been absorbed again in their little problems.

Most of all he hated them for hating him, for the way they had all closed ranks against him as if he had pushed Ara into the river and then slung her ghost like an albatross around his neck. He needed to be alone.

‘Get lost,’ he said to Juno.

She looked stung for just a moment but then stood up. ‘Whatever.’ She pushed her chair back under the desk. ‘You think you have it so much harder than everyone else, don’t you?’

‘You don’t have to apologize for being here,’ he shouted.

‘Neither do you.’ She headed for the door and before she slammed it behind her she said, ‘And – when you’re not feeling so damned sorry for yourself – I’m glad you are here.’

AS SOON AS JESSE was feeling better, he headed down to the games room and spent the rest of the evening using the flight simulator. Harry was already at the ninth level, and his high score glittered on the screen every time Jesse loaded the programme.