‘T-the air is here,’ he stammered, the words thick on his frozen lips.
Juno took off her jumper and wrapped it around him. She had learned about hypothermia before, so she already knew about the confusion that set in after core body temperature began to drop.
‘Come on. Let’s go back to the crew module. You need to warm up.’ He wouldn’t move, so Juno tried to roll him, but her own limbs were so heavy with exhaustion that she sighed and stopped. ‘Please. I’m not strong enough to carry you. You’ve got to help me. What are you doing?’
‘P-practising,’ he said.
‘Practising what?’
Jesse opened his hand. In the dim light it was difficult to see what he was holding. At first it looked as if he was bleeding, as if he’d squeezed a broken piece of glass, but then she realized that the shredded skin clumping in the lines of his palm was the slick flesh of crushed berries. The pulp ran down his wrists like blood. Near his head was the thin seedling. Half the stems had snapped off and around the roots, the water had frozen into silver veins of ice.
‘Dying,’ he said. ‘When it happens it won’t be so bad. It’ll be quick. Once the oxygen’s low enough.’ Juno pictured it, the trauma of suffocation, the tide of black horror that came with it, and suddenly the walls felt as if they were closing in on her. She had to lean back to steady herself. ‘There’s no alarm response,’ he continued. ‘You just fall asleep. It’s okay, apparently, it’s… euphoric.’
‘Jesse—’ she was shaking. ‘Please stop.’
His eyes rolled up to find hers.
‘Anyway,’ she knelt down beside him, ‘it’s all going to be okay. Tomorrow Igor and Eliot and maybe Astrid – since Sheppard is still sick – will do a spacewalk and fix the broken service module. Then we’ll be okay.’
‘You really think that?’ Jesse asked.
‘You don’t?’
‘What about all this?’ He looked around at the garden. ‘How will we fix this?’
‘It will take a while but… we’ll find a way,’ Juno said, although the words rang hollow in her ears.
‘I thought I was going to die out there,’ Jesse said.
‘But you didn’t. Apparently your flying was amazing, that’s what Harry says.’
‘Yeah. I don’t know how I did it. At first I thought it was all that practising that I did on the simulator, but just now I realized what happened to me: I’m not frightened anymore. It happened when Harry pushed me into the airlock.’
‘It took Harry’s stupid prank to teach you that?’ Juno said.
‘Yes, because when I stepped out of it, all I felt was grateful for every damned thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve seen an orbital sunrise, I’ve seen the curvature of the Earth, I’ve been close enough to touch Jupiter’s moons, I’ve lived for months in this garden in the stars… and I realized that if I only get to live one life, then I’m glad it’s been this one.’
When Juno opened her mouth the sobs came out. ‘Jesse,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid.’
He took her into his arms then and it was a good feeling, his beating heart, the smell of him.
‘You know,’ said Jesse, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry.’
‘I try not to,’ Juno said. Her eyes were still hot with tears, falling fast. She didn’t wipe them away.
He looked gentle in the dim light. His pupils flamed amber, and his lashes cast long shadows on his cheeks. ‘What would you do?’ she asked. ‘If you could go back?’
Jesse thought for a moment. ‘Say goodbye to my sister, Morrigan. The last night I talked to her she was trying to comfort me, about the launch and… I wasn’t in a great place then… I don’t think I ever properly said goodbye to her. I just ran out of the house. I think about her all the time, still sitting cross-legged in her pyjamas, where she was when I left her almost a year ago.’
Juno had never seen Jesse’s sister but she liked to imagine she had the same sharp features, the same full lips and easy smile, only she was bald and beautiful. Juno had heard that since the launch she’d dropped out of university to run a vegan crêperie in Camden. Maybe when people asked she told them, ‘I used to have a brother, but he went to space.’
‘I don’t know if you remember,’ said Juno, ‘but after your fight with Harry, when I met you in the games room and helped you with your wounds… you said—’
‘That I loved you.’ Juno felt her stomach leap, just hearing the words again.
‘That was the first time,’ she said.
‘Yeah…’ His voice was thoughtful. ‘I guess it must have been.’
‘Why?’ she asked, and then, annoyed by how pathetic that sounded, ‘I mean, why do you love me?’
‘I can’t give you reasons. What do you want, a list?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I can’t do that, Juno. I can’t tell you if you deserve it. Just like no one can tell me if I deserved to make it here or why Ara died. Or why an accident means that the lives of the crew on Orlando were snuffed out in an instant but our hearts are still beating. Do we deserve any of it? To live? To be loved? It’s a gift, Juno. Don’t you see that? You don’t earn it or lose it.’
‘Can I tell you a secret?’ Juno asked.
‘Okay.’
‘I don’t deserve to be here either,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking recently about whether or not I was ever even supposed to go to Terra-Two. It’s Astrid who’s always wanted to. It’s Astrid who’s dreamt about it. I did well in the tests but she scored more highly in the interviews and the personality quizzes when we were back in Dalton. I realized, one night, that it was very possible that one of us could make it into the Beta while the other one… was left behind. So we made a pact. We cheated.’
‘What?’ said Jesse. ‘How?’
‘Well, Astrid took my personality tests, and she went to the interviews with my name badge on. I did all the academics, the engineering, computing and astrophysics. We did that for a whole year.’ Jesse exhaled as if the wind had been knocked from him.
‘I wish you’d told me that earlier,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve spent almost a year here, feeling guilty. Feeling as if I have stolen my seat on this shuttle from a dead girl.’
‘I couldn’t,’ said Juno. ‘I guess I was ashamed. I think that’s why I worked so hard on the Damocles Document and on being a good member of the crew. Maybe I thought I could carve out a purpose for myself, and really earn it. Deserve it.’
‘Well,’ said Jesse, ‘I guess everyone makes mistakes.’
‘But that’s the other thing,’ said Juno. ‘It wasn’t really a mistake. I’m glad I’m here. With you.’
There was a laid-back joy that came with letting go of her secret. It had been easy. Easy like letting her feet go limp on the pedals of her bike, speeding down a hill just to feel how good it was, her heart in her throat, the wind in her ears.
She leant over and kissed him. He was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted. All night, fear and starvation had filled her mouth with the bitter taste of blood and metal, but Jesse was like glacé cherries. It was as if he had never kissed a girl before. He pulled away from her in surprise, tiny beads of sweat erupting from his fingertips.
‘Your heart is beating so fast,’ she said, laughing, although she could feel her own pulse throbbing in her veins. They smiled at each other, Jesse’s tooth caught on his bottom lip. Juno leant in to kiss him again, this time savouring everything, the warmth that spread through her, the way his hair felt through her fingers, like spiders’ silk. For the first time in a while, she was joyfully grateful for her whole body.
He told her that he thought she was beautiful and even before it happened, Juno could tell that he was already picturing it; the caution lights splashing her skin amber and rose, strands of her hair fluoresced chrome green, the arc of her spine and the backs of her thighs a study in electric blue.