‘Destinies don’t change,’ he told the silent street. At nineteen years he would leave this world, he had been told.
Jesse took a tentative step forwards. The cars were still as sentinels, catching the moonlight, and the air buzzed with flies. Inside the window of every house families crowded before television and laptop screens, like the night before new year. The launch was predicted to be the most watched television broadcast in history. Tomorrow, if it went according to plan, there would be street parties all across the UK. Jesse could already see the sherbet-coloured bunting strung up between the lamp posts in preparation for the festivities.
He started down the street and towards the main road. It wasn’t until he reached the corner, the unlit shop fronts and blinking traffic lights, that he began to run. His feet knew where to take him.
He was used to running with no destination in mind. The first few minutes always felt like flying, momentum sending his knees careening up in front of him as he neared the city lights. Then his muscles would begin to clench, heart striking at his sternum, lungs burning, sending hot tendrils of pain through him until he was one galloping vessel of flame.
By then, though, Jesse knew some things about pain. He knew that if he just kept running his heart would keep beating. He knew that pain was just a symptom of being, and he would endure it all – savour it even – if he could only live a little bit longer.
His feet striking familiar pavement, Jesse slowed his pace. He knew this quiet street, lined with beech trees, illuminated in the sodium yellow of the streetlamps. He had emerged down the road from Dalton. He took a moment to catch his breath, wiping his wet forehead with the back of his hand.
He should have expected the traffic outside, the crush of reporters, the flickering shutters of cameras. During his time there, it had not been unusual to spot a stray photographer lingering by the entrance or pushing a lens through the bars. And today of all days, footage of the school’s extensive grounds would flicker across every news channel. Jesse dodged past the swinging heads of microphones, towards the entrance.
It was surprising how little time it had taken for the tall iron gates of Dalton Academy to become an eerie relic of his past. It was even stranger to see the provost, standing in the centre of the throng, just below the school’s crest and emblazoned motto: It’s better to fly like a falcon for half a year… She was more hunched over than he remembered. Two security guards were pushing the crowd of shouting reporters back. She poked her glasses up the damp ridge of her nose and read aloud from a piece of paper.
‘All we can confirm at this time is that there has been a tragic accident involving a member of the Beta…’ Had she said accident, or incident? Some reporters had believed that it had been a rusted railing, a twisted ankle, a yelp of surprise. Others, a barefoot dive, a shout of exhilaration before the crash of water.
The only thing that was clear at that point was that one of the Beta was dead. An astronaut had died that afternoon while Jesse had been lying on his back watching the shadows slip down his wall.
‘Professor Stenton,’ one of the reporters shouted, ‘can you or can you not confirm that the launch will be going ahead as planned?’
‘I cannot confirm anything at this moment in time. Our directors are working very hard to—’
‘Will you be looking to replace Ara Shah with a member of the backup team? Will they be mission-ready?’
The moment was here. Jesse saw it illuminated before him.
‘I will be!’ he shouted.
At first only a couple of people around him heard. Jesse leapt into the light, suddenly, horribly, aware that he was still in his pyjamas. Sweat patches were spreading like stains under his arms and as he strained to catch his breath camera flashes blinded him. Jesse leant into the microphone. ‘I’m in the backup crew. My name is Jesse Solloway and I’m here to replace Ara. I’m ready to go to Terra-Two.’
Chapter 7
ASTRID
13.05.12
T-MINUS 6 HOURS
ON THE MORNING OF the launch, Astrid opened her eyes to an empty dormitory, the beds abandoned, the cool sunlight pouring through the window. She was surprised that Maggie wasn’t there, as she usually was, to wake them. Most mornings Astrid leapt out of bed at first bell, and was brushing her teeth in the sink by the time Maggie poked her blonde head around the door to wake the other girls. Astrid sometimes suspected that Poppy and Ara feigned sleep just long enough to feel the back of Maggie’s hand brush the hair from their brows.
The night before, the doctors had given Astrid half a dose of valium to stop her from shaking. She had cried so much that, even after the tears dried up, her throat still contracted with rhythmic little hics. The pills had dragged her so deep down into sleep that she missed the first and second bell, but Maggie had not come in to wake her.
Across the dormitory, Ara’s crumpled duvet was bundled up as if she was hiding under it and if Astrid looked hard enough she could make herself see it rise and fall. She kept remembering that Ara was never coming back. Everything about her was still there: her socks scrunched by the foot of her bed, the air perfused with the smell of jasmine oil and incense, a smudged handprint on the window where she had thrown it open. She couldn’t stay in that room any longer; her eyes kept darting to the door in the vain expectation that Ara might burst through. So Astrid climbed out of bed, pulled on a cardigan and went to sit on the landing outside.
There was so little left to prove what had happened the day before. The bruises forming where her knees had smacked pavement, the soreness and exhaustion that follows a night spent crying, the ache of despair.
‘They’re at breakfast already,’ came a voice. Astrid looked up and was surprised to see Solomon Sheppard, their commander, in civilian clothing, moonfaced from sleep, his afro slightly misshapen.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘No, don’t get up.’ He came up the stairs and stood on the landing in a way that cast a long shadow over her. ‘I was just out there.’ He gestured towards the courtyard.
‘Really, why?’
‘I was…’ He hesitated for a moment, ‘praying.’
‘Oh…’ Astrid looked down, suddenly embarrassed about asking such a private question. ‘I didn’t know you were a—’
‘Sometimes I am. Days like today.’ He paused, glanced away too and then said, ‘I hope you’re feeling better.’
‘Kind of… yesterday was… a nightmare…’ Astrid exhaled heavily, but then remembered herself. ‘I am feeling better, though. Ready for the mission. Of course.’
Sheppard was tall and thin, with skin darker than her father’s but not as deeply lined. Astrid had always liked the soft baritone of his voice, and the way he rarely smiled with his straight white teeth, as if he was keeping them a secret. He had been the youngest man – at twenty-six – to land on Mars, and for the first time it occurred to Astrid that perhaps he was still young. She had only been eleven back then, and so when she’d seen his face on the news he’d seemed astronomically old, just another adult, like her parents.
‘And today?’ he asked. ‘Underneath it. Don’t you feel just a little bit—’
‘Excited?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I always do. Before a launch. Especially the first couple of times. I’d be so excited I couldn’t sit still. As if I was a kid again and it was the night before my birthday.’ He laughed at himself.