‘And I also want you to remember…’
But Commander Wren’s words were curiously obliterated for Jocasta, as a sudden sickening pain spread across her temples, blocking out all other senses. She grabbed onto Ed’s arm to stop herself collapsing onto the floor and closed her eyes in an attempt to ease the intense flashing lights that punctured her vision.
‘Are you ok?’ Ed’s concerned voice rang softly in her ears as the intensity of the throbbing ceased and her eyes regained their focus.
‘Think so,’ she managed to mumble back, wondering how many other people had noticed her distress.
‘Well that’s all for now.’ Lt. Wing Commander Wren’s calm tones brought her back to attention. ‘You may all take the rest of the evening, until your next briefing, to settle in and explore the facilities open to you.
‘Please behave sensibly and do not enter the restricted zones, unless specifically advised to do so by the space hotel staff. Remember you are members of a very special section in the AIR Unit; so please conduct yourselves in an exemplary fashion.’
With these words she made her way towards the exit, pausing briefly to diplomatically ask if Jocasta had recovered form her discomfort.
‘Thank you Commander. Just slightly dizzy, I think.’
Reassured, Lt. Wing Commander Wren briskly left the room, leaving a buzz of anticipation behind her.
*
Once Jocasta had convinced herself and Ed that she was fine after her brief spell of ‘post-space flight trauma’, they decided to explore the space hotel together. First they made their way to their separate dormitory-like rooms to off-load their overnight bags and check on the safe carriage of the rest of their belongings. Jocasta chose a bed in the corner of the room and after a quick conversation with some of the other girls sharing the room, she left them to find Ed waiting a little further along the corridor, outside the boys’ quarters.
He cupped her elbow in his hand and guided her through the different zones of the hotel, with surprising ease.
‘You seem to know your way around here rather well,’ Jocasta remarked with a teasing smile.
‘Oh, I’ve been here loads of times,’ replied Ed. ‘Where do you want to go first? Observation room, space-sports complex, zero gravity room? Though that’s a bit tame unless you try out the ‘fly like a bird’ sessions.’
Jocasta had the feeling that Ed liked to be in charge, and was quite happy to let him take the lead, for the time being. After all, it was really quite good being in the company of someone who knew where to go; it certainly beat having to stand and ask the computer for directions or press the activated screens for info-location.
‘Hey, I know,’ he said, with sudden inspiration. ‘What about the low G swimming facilities? It’s recently been upgraded and the new pool is meant to be the best in the world, well… solar system really.’ He chuckled at his own pun as Jocasta poked him in the ribs. ‘We’ll have to go through a ten minute instruction course, but it’ll be worth it… great fun.’
‘Okay,’ said Jocasta, not wanting to sound too enthusiastic, but thinking how good it would feel to get back in the water again. ‘But there’s one slight problem, Ed.’
He looked at her quizzically.
‘Swimsuits, stupid,’ she said, with mock exasperation.
‘Oh, that’s ok.’ Ed paused momentarily. ‘We don’t need them.’ Seeing the look of horror on her face he quickly explained. ‘No, silly, we don’t go skinny dipping here- all the gear’s provided: costumes, goggles and towels too, if you want them.’
Jocasta felt her face colour up at the thought of skinny dipping, but she soon composed herself. Besides, the opportunity of diving into a low gravity pool and being able to enjoy the sensation of freedom that swimming always gave her, was, she supposed, a small price to pay for a bit of embarrassment about swimsuits.
‘Come on then, lead the way. Sounds like your best idea so far!’ She plucked at Ed’s sleeve and headed in what she hoped was the right direction for the water complex.
They spent an hour of fun in the swimming room, which was the complete diameter of the space hotel’s central core. Jocasta marvelled at how the gentle rotation of the section kept the water in its place at the curved sides and found that once she got used to ducking the luminescent water bombs that Ed kept throwing at her- which shattered into the most amazing light filled pieces as they hit the surface -she could swim and dive with real ease.
When the time buzzer sounded Jocasta reluctantly made her way out, wishing they had longer at the Space Hotel so that she could return to the pool; she somehow doubted that they would have anything like it on Mars.
Shaking her damp hair around her shoulders and trying not to wriggle about too much in her Elite uniform, which wasn’t nearly so comfortable against the clamminess of her not-quite dry skin- perhaps the towel would more efficient than the full-length hot-air dryer, after all- she rejoined Ed at the entrance. She was just about to ask him about eating facilities, when Nikki appeared around the corner with a group of girls.
‘Hey, Casta!’ she exclaimed, sounding full of excitement. ‘Have you been to the trampoline room? It’s absolutely brilliant!’ She continued without waiting for a reply, ‘You must go there!’
‘Perhaps later,’ Jocasta tried to smile, but found that she was suddenly too tired to work up much enthusiasm for any more energetic activities. ‘We’ve just had the most amazing time in the pool.’ She spoke quickly, trying to ignore the exchange of looks and curious smiles that the rest of the girls were throwing at her and Ed. ‘I’m totally exhausted and absolutely ravenous. Does anybody know of a good place to eat?’
‘Oh, I’m sure your friend does,’ said a tall, bronzed girl, with an immaculate hairstyle, and flashed her perfectly polished teeth at Ed in a coy smile. Which, much to Jocasta’s annoyance, made her feel slightly uncomfortable as she became aware of her own flushed face and dishevelled hair.
Ed seemed oblivious to the apparent whispering that was going on and replied in a loud voice that echoed down the corridor.
‘Sure do, I think I know just the place; it has an excellent cuisine and a view that will take your breath away.’ After this declaration, the small group made its way, snakelike, along the passageways, with Ed shouting instructions from the rear, to turn this way and that until they reached the restaurant on the outer rim of the hotel. Their numbers had increased to twenty or more, as whenever they passed another hungry cadet or two, Ed invited them to join their group, with tales of delicious food and inspiring remarks about the view of both the Earth and Moon. Jocasta couldn’t help but wonder if Ed was planning a career as a tour guide.
They filled their rumbling stomachs with plenty of choices made from the buffet selection; there was something to suit all palettes, and everyone was mesmerised by the incredible sight of the two glowing orbs hanging low in the sky; their very own home planet and resident moon.
*
‘First visit is it?’ a waiter asked them as they sat gazing out of the large, long windows. ‘It took me a while to tear my eyes away from that spectacle when I first started working here. Had a few tumbles over chairs and tables, I can tell you, when I wasn’t looking where I was going. And a few rows from Chef for my clumsiness,’ he added with an amused smile. ‘But you make the most of it while you can; you’re going to be busy little bees when you get to Mars, you mark my words,’ he called over his shoulder as he moved onto the next table.
‘It must be time to try to find our way back to sleeping quarters,’ somebody mumbled through a half stifled yawn. With a few nods of the head and slowly pushed back chairs the tired group made their way back to the hotel’s maze of corridors.
After a several wrong turns and abrupt stops, as invisible barriers stopped them from entering the restricted zones, they managed to navigate a path back to their respective quarters.
‘It’s a shame we can’t stay here a bit longer to enjoy all the activities,’ Nikki said to Jocasta as they parted
at the door to her room.
‘Too right,’ replied Jocasta. ‘And if that waiter’s right, we’re going to be too busy to enjoy ourselves at all.’
‘Oh, there’ll always be time to enjoy ourselves,’ replied Nikki, ‘we’ll just have to be inventive.’ She winked at Jocasta with a sly expression on her face and Jocasta wasn’t sure, but she thought that for just a moment Nikki’s eyes had the look of a fox about them.
Things were certainly going to be interesting, she thought to herself as she snuggled down into her bed. Having new friends with special talents might take some getting used to…
Chapter Ten
After manoeuvring away from the orbiting hotel it took just a few hours to travel to the space station, where they would make the final launch to Mars. A huge imposing bulk of grey metal, over 30 kilometres long and intersected by dozens of loading bays, it made the numerous spaceships waiting to dock seem like small insects in comparison.
This time though they wouldn’t have any time to explore as they were due to take off again within the hour. As soon as they had they been scrutinised by the in-house robots they were accompanied by the space station security staff to the highly guarded launching pad. The security robots stood, sentry like, immobile. Only their eyes moved slowly backwards and forwards, scanning the cadets as they filed past, noting and monitoring every twitch and scratch as they passed along the line.
Jocasta felt uncomfortable under their scrutiny and was relieved that their few training days had taken place on the space hotel rather than here on the space station. She imagined that their comparatively easy going existence there would have been in sharp contrast to the discipline that would have been expected of them on a military controlled establishment.
Their space ship was ready to allow them on board. From the information they had received Jocasta knew that it would look and feel very different from the other spacecraft they had travelled on. It would by all accounts resemble an old fashioned sailing boat that used to travel the oceans and seas back on Earth. She recalled the gentle bobbing of the yachts in the bay at Woodbridge and wondered what her family and friends were doing at that moment in time. She found she couldn’t calculate the differing time systems in her head, so she had no idea whether it was day or night back in the UK. She was brought back to the reality and excitement of space travel when pictures of their space ship appeared on the inner panels of the ship’s thick walls. The sails on their craft, of course, would be beyond the wildest imagination of the seafarers who had risked their lives centuries ago, on journeys perhaps just as dangerous, but infinitely less distant then they were going to travel over the next few days.
Each student was given a numbered seat and instructed on how to use the emergency air supply, should the need arise. They were still all kitted out in their Elite spacesuits and instructed to place their inner helmets over their heads as a precautionary measure. The hard outer helmets were to be placed under their seats, easily accessible if they needed them.
‘Hopefully not,’ Jocasta’s companion, to her right, spoke in a nervous high pitched voice.
‘We’ll be fine,’ she replied, sounding much more confident than she felt.
She could see the back of Ed’s head a couple of rows ahead and Nikki was seated at the end of her row and gave a small smile as their eyes met. For one disturbing moment Jocasta wondered what would happen if Nikki turned into an animal on their journey. Would she still be protected in her spacesuit- would it still fit? She quickly banished the thought from her mind and scanned the seats for David or Felipe; but she couldn’t locate them in her immediate vicinity. Rather disappointed at this, she hoped they were both coping with the stresses and strains of the spaceflight.
The spaceship was widely arced, and if she arched her head back far enough, Jocasta could glimpse, through a tiny slither of window, the folded sails that would soon unfurl to gather the sun’s rays and give them the vital energy to sail through space at the speed needed to reach Mars in their allocated time span.
The great expanse of aluminized material slowly unfolded and stretched out to its furthest limit. Supported by inflated tubes, the huge mass of billowing sail finally took on the shape of an octagon. Miles and miles of it stretched out and away from their protected spaceship or ‘banana boat’, as the cadets named it. There were three ships leaving at carefully co-ordinated times, all destined for Mars and all taking advantage of the limited period when Mars orbit was closest to the Earth so that their journeys would be as short as possible. The Elite Spaceship was the first to be given clearance, followed by a large supply vessel and then a security spaceship, which nobody seemed to know very much about.
It was going to be a long journey, even with the advantage of solar sails, and Jocasta began to wonder if it was all going to be worth it. All this travelling is becoming rather tedious, she thought, as she tried to find the most comfortable position in the slightly reclined, yet rigid seat.
She tried to rekindle her initial excitement and picture herself enjoying her new life as an Elite cadet, in what she presumed would be in the high tech surroundings of one of the Mars cities. She reminded herself that Imogen would be itching with excitement to hear all the latest news and she didn’t want to disappoint her younger sister by telling her it was all a bit boring. She could just picture the look of disgust on Imogen’s face, if she let on that was how she felt. And so it was, with a benevolent smile on her face, thinking of her younger sister that Jocasta found herself struggling, impossibly, to keep her eyes open as she relaxed into the stasis mode.
The journey through space proved uneventful. They had to take it in turns to be woken every few days to exercise and eat. On previous trips space crews had discovered that the best way to keep reasonable muscle tone and maintain mental agility was to allow the body to be in torpor for no longer than ten days. Jocasta discovered that she was one of the luckier ones, who didn’t seem to suffer from the cramps nearly as much as everyone else, and the feeling of light-headedness that accompanied each waking passed in a matter of minutes. The vigorous exercise routine however, was decidedly hellish and although their group protested on more than one occasion, their instructor told them it was for their own good and that they would thank him for it when they arrived on Mars with bodies still capable of walking to the cities and ‘not crawling along on your stomachs like the vermin you are clearly trying to emulate!’
‘Hope he isn’t one of our Elite instructors,’ Nikki hissed under her breath, during one particularly brutal session. ‘The man’s a miscreant and should be sacked.’
Unluckily for Nikki, her remarks didn’t go unnoticed and she was given an extra five circuits to complete at the end of that particular period, which left her red in the face with exertion as well as anger. After that she kept her thoughts to herself, but everyone agreed with her sentiments.
The only real excitement happened during their fourth waking when a solar flare set off a radiation scare. Everyone had to be woken and samgees awkwardly inflated in the confined area, so that every individual could surround themselves in their protection suits. It was a curious sight as different coloured balloon type samgees grew to the size of the owner and then closed around them with a whoosh of air being expelled to fit each person like a second skin. It was just as well that they had practised this manoeuvre several times at the Space Hotel, as to be encased from top to toe in a hybrid of radiation expelling, elasticised synthetic resin and feel its clammy substance blocking every pore was one of the most unpleasant feelings Jocasta had ever encountered. Even with the masks that covered their eyes, noses and mouth it wasn’t an experience she wanted to repeat, ever.
The descent to Mars took longer than expected as there was a problem with the backlog of spaceships waiting to lock into the new docking system. Tempers were beginning to grow jagged as the eager anticipation turned to frustration amongst the cadets. It seemed they had waited so long for this final part of the journey that any delay was magnified in th
eir minds and seen as a deliberate ploy to test their nerve.
Their spacecraft orbited the red planet for several more hours, with each rotation taking it ever lower. This gave a few lucky ones with seats next to a window a spectacular view of Earth’s neighbouring planet. A vast orange desert, stark against the oppressive black of cold space, pock-marked and pitted from asteroids; huge craggy mountains that looked not much more than small pleats in a frozen landscape of rock and dust.
Jocasta’s neighbour, despite becoming increasingly irritable with what he termed ‘a laughable lack of efficiency’, could not help but marvel at the vista that was on show below them. He pointed out one of the four cities that, to Jocasta, looked nothing like the sprawling affairs that covered Earth; teeming with people and harbouring imperfections at every corner. No, this city was the height of efficiency; compact, sleek metal lines and –was that glass? A strange angular shaped building, with smaller dwellings nestled safely under the huge, widely domed cover. Two watchtowers, standing on each side of the city, outside the dome, sported satellites which were lazily following the slow rotation of some unseen object.
Once the backlog of ships had dispersed, the cadets’ spaceship finally came to rest on the surface of Mars. At last they were through the security checks and being packed into their separate coaches to be transferred to the first city on Mars: Mackenzie City.
‘Do not attempt to loosen your suits,’ a com gen voice echoed in their individual ear pieces. ‘These must be kept in place until you are all safely deposited in the domed cover of the city of Mackenzie.’
Deposited, Jocasta thought, wriggling uncomfortably in the overused suit. Makes us sound like a load of unwanted luggage.
‘Exactly my thoughts too,’ came the reply. Jocasta paused, wondering if she’d actually heard that or if it had been in her mind.
Deborah Hockney Page 8
