Tonight, however, his eyes were bloodshot with fatigue.
‘Nowhere I can touch,’ Poppy said quietly.
‘Eliot was hurt.’ Juno suddenly realized that the last she had seen of Eliot had been in the police car parked on the Embankment.
‘He has been treated for the injuries he sustained by the medical officers, and he’s currently undergoing a psychological assessment to ensure he can be cleared to fly. As will you, Astrid.’
Poppy nodded, then asked quietly, ‘Are we in trouble?’ They all looked up. Sheppard’s face darkened.
‘Yes. A terrible thing happened today. We lost one of our own. I don’t think I need to tell you that regulations are set down to keep you all safe. When I heard the news that you left the Interplanetary Society, I was beyond disappointed in every one of you. But all I can think is that this has been a trying couple of months for everybody, even for the senior members of the crew who have served on missions before. You’re all so…’ he bit back on a word, ‘it’s easy to forget that you’re just young people.
‘I don’t know what the directors will decide. But if you are certified to fly on the mission after all, I need to know that a breakdown of order like this will never ever happen again. Our mission is about teamwork and responsibility. We need to be able to trust each other, because out there we’ve only got each other. Our lives depend on everyone following the code of conduct strictly.’
Juno nodded. A heavy knot of shame twisted in her stomach and none of them could look up to meet his eye.
‘Anyway, you all have somewhere to be. Astrid, you’re late for your medical inspection. Poppy and Juno, dinner has been prepared for you in the refectory. From this moment on I want to know where each of you is, from now until launch tomorrow. The freedom you had here – which you abused today, with tragic consequences – was a privilege and not a right.’
With that, their commander left, and Juno watched as her sister followed him up the stairs, leaving her and Poppy alone in miserable silence. Poppy was clearly as frightened as she; shadows dark as bruises were spreading under her eyes. She was shivering in her bathrobe and her feet were bare.
‘What do you think will happen to him?’ Poppy asked. She was still whispering as they made their way out of the echoing stairwell and towards the refectory. Juno had to lean in to hear her.
‘Eliot? I don’t know,’ Juno said finally, after a moment’s consideration.
‘He’s being interviewed right now, I think.’
‘It’s not like we know what will happen to any of us at this point.’
‘Well, I’m pretty sure he’s a goner,’ Poppy said.
Juno cringed at the word. ‘Why?’
‘Well, his best friend slash girlfriend just jumped into a river.’
‘It wasn’t his fault.’
‘I’m not saying it is, just…’ Poppy lowered her voice conspiratorially, ‘everyone thinks he had something to do with it. Him and—’ she cut herself off with a startled glance at Juno.
‘My sister.’ Juno finished the sentence with bitterness in the back of her mouth.
When they reached the edge of the refectory, smells of food, of roasting meat and warm bread, reminded Juno of the emptiness in her stomach. And yet, once she entered, she couldn’t bring herself to eat any of it.
‘No one is like Eliot,’ Juno said, thinking of the way he had looked earlier that day, in the back of an ambulance, river water pooled around his Converse trainers. His eyes shiny and vacant. He was the only member of the Beta that the UKSA had personally head-hunted; it struck Juno as unlikely that he would be kicked off the programme at this late stage.
‘But Astrid…?’ Poppy asked quietly. They shared a frightened look. ‘Why do you think she did it? Ran off like that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Juno looked down at her plate. Dinner that night was supposed to be a treat. The kind they served for school dinners on Fridays or at the end of term. Burgers smothered in ketchup with a side of thinly sliced fries. ‘All I can think is that Ara must have just convinced her to go. You know that way Ara has…’
‘She can convince anyone to do anything.’ Poppy put a chip in her mouth. ‘There’s a word for it in French,’ she said. Juno sighed. There had never been an evening that she was less interested in Poppy’s linguistic musings. ‘Folie à deux. Madness shared by two. Like, infectious madness. The kind that makes you make a terrible decision and not think twice about it at the time. Only, all three of them escaped, so folie à trois, or folie à plusieurs – madness of many—’
‘Poppy.’ Juno’s eyes narrowed with a quick pinch of irritation.
‘Would you go without her?’
Juno couldn’t even imagine it, going to Terra-Two without Astrid. ‘There is no thought more horrible,’ she said. They lapsed into a grim silence, like defendants waiting for the jury to return, listening to the sounds of cars pulling up and leaving outside and footsteps in the corridor.
Finally, Poppy flung down her cutlery. Juno watched it clatter across the table. When she looked up, Poppy’s face was wet as she shoved her chair back and rushed away.
‘Poppy?’ Juno called after her.
‘Maybe this is just what she wanted,’ Poppy shouted back. ‘To ruin everything. Did Ara have to do it this way? Did she have to take all of us down with her?’
LEFT ALONE IN THE refectory, Juno let her meal grow cold before abandoning it and walking over to the glass doors at the far end of the room. Moths were flinging themselves at her reflection, attracted to the bright lights of the dining room, which seeped out into the unlit grounds and across the dim stretches of land they had skipped across that morning. Through the gloom, Juno thought she could see her own laughing self, dancing with Ara that morning in the rain.
She pulled the door open and stepped outside. The grass, which had baked under the sun all day, filled the air with a hot earthy smell that Juno inhaled deeply, and then she closed her eyes to pray.
Would you go without her?
It was possible that Astrid might not be cleared in a medical inspection. Juno knew that the incubation time of a virus could be anything from one day to a couple of years. Even as she stood in the garden, tiny strands of genetic code could be hijacking her sister’s cells or slithering into her bones to lie dormant for months. Rhinoviruses – such as the common cold – could live up to forty-eight hours on touchable surfaces, such as handrails and doorknobs, lift buttons and light switches, counters and coins passed from one hand to another. What lived in London’s rivers? Juno rubbed down the goosebumps on her arms and decided silently that if Astrid couldn’t go then she would not either.
A helicopter beat in the air above her head and Juno squinted up at the navy sky, drawn from her worry with a jolt of recollection. The world outside was astir. Everyone in the country was waiting to see if the launch would go ahead.
Juno headed out onto the gravel path behind the space centre, just glad to feel a tepid breeze at her back. As she turned the corner of the building, floodlights exploded behind her and the ground rumbled. Juno spun around in alarm to find herself in the path of an oncoming car, the tyres spinning so fast they skipped sharp little rocks at her ankles. Diving out of the way, Juno tumbled into a darkened patch of shrubbery beside the driveway.