by Ruth Morgan
That afternoon, I climbed the steps and entered through the great bronze doors with their spiky flower heads. In the cool marble hall, I could have climbed either set of stairs to the upper galleries, but as usual, I headed straight on through the double doors, to Origins of Earth. Here I could lose myself for hours, though I rarely had time to do so. Sometimes I would sit in the dark and watch the looping presentations describe the rise and decline of the motherplanet and the earliest history of our first pioneers. The exhibits I loved best were the ancient rocks, minerals and fossils that had actually been brought from the Earth Museum. I loved the sounds of the names: ammonite, trilobite, Jurassic, Cambrian, Ordovician… I’d wander around saying them over and over to myself, as long as no one else was about.
My visit that day was different because I kept thinking about Grace’s presentation. Halley was right: we were tremendously lucky to be going on what would probably be one of the last archaeological expeditions to Earth. Surely I was the luckiest of all to have sneaked on to it, almost like a stowaway. When I thought about the four of us: brainy Robeen, brainy and pushy Nisien, sporty Halley, I couldn’t come up with any impressive adjective for my own name.
Why had they chosen me?
But I couldn’t start thinking that way again, I had to try and stay positive. Although Grace’s presentation had shocked us all, this was still the biggest chance of my life. Professor Eisenhaur must have spotted my talent for Empathy and I’d been selected to add balance to the group. That’s why I’d been chosen, surely…
There was no time to be negative. Days and weeks sped past in a blur and by mid October (B), all four of us were undeniably fitter, stronger and faster physically and mentally, thanks to the intensive SSO astronaut training programme. An early start each morning in the gym was followed by team-building tasks and puzzles I found I enjoyed, especially when I was partnered with Halley. Each afternoon we attended lessons on the tasks we would be engaged in on Earth, such as cleaning and classifying archaeological finds, and there was a lot more to this than I’d imagined. We also found out more about the dragomansk, a lot more.
Genetically engineered by Earth humans as the ultimate weapon in their many vicious wars, in mankind’s absence they had overrun the planet. It had proved impossible to eradicate them for one sinister reason: the dragomansk was in constant flight, it even slept on the wing. If it died or was just still for more than a few seconds, its DNA – its genetic code – would randomly encrypt itself. Short of capturing a live one, which no one had succeeded in doing, although several had died trying, it was impossible to study its genetic make-up. Impossible to find:
a) a way of destroying the whole species, though the technology to do this existed if the code could be discovered, or
b) an antidote to its deadly acid poison, its main weapon.
Effective ways of poisoning them in great numbers had yet to be found and picking them off one by one was impossible, they were too prolific. More worrying still, they would swarm in large groups known as a ‘metamansk’. We were all trained to use sauroters, anti-dragomansk weapons, and every day we had shooting practice.
Before long, all the doubts I’d had about being selected seemed ridiculous. Of course I deserved my place, of course I fitted right in with the other three, and if it took me a little longer to arrive at a correct answer, well, I got there in the end. I was a better team player than Nisien or Robeen and that had to count for something. On the rare occasions I returned to school, I couldn’t help enjoying the way Catti and my other friends reacted. They didn’t need to say anything, I could see in their eyes how impressed they were by my new confidence.
The only thing I missed about school was Empathy, the subject I’d always enjoyed so much. To make up for it, on a Thursday afternoon after training and before going home, I visited the Museum. Several times I’d been on the point of asking Halley if he wanted to go with me, but I always stopped myself. That magic, stolen hour on a Thursday was so precious; a time when I could be utterly by myself to be myself,and I was afraid he might spoil it without meaning to. He might think it boring, or worse, think I was boring.
The Museum was normally winding down, as the parties of schoolchildren left, so I had the luxury of roaming the low-lit exhibition spaces undisturbed. Sometimes I felt inspired to write scraps of poems, but I was equally content to simply daydream. Would Halley have understood my desire to sit there amongst the ammonites and trilobites? I doubted it.
Gneiss, the oldest rock
From the Acasta River
Burnished with a dark grey shimmer…
Polished crinoidal limestone,
Pale feathery segments of flower beasts
Darting through Silurian reefs…
Black mirror anthracite
Secrets of fern forests within.
Peacock Vein, Gwaun Cae Gurwen
The descriptions of the rocks and fossils were like little poems in themselves: fossiliferous limestone … garnet-bearing metamorphosed basalt … stromatolite in banded iron formation… I rolled the words over and over my tongue like a kind of meditation. I was relieved to find I still felt the same way about the Museum. In fact, knowing that its larger relative on Earth was slowly sliding into ruins gave me a strange romantic ache. I kind of liked it.
As the weeks went by, the tension within the SSO building began to mount. You could feel it just walking in there of a morning, a palpable, fraught buzz. The scientists flung their arms around a little more wildly and their sofa meetings didn’t seem as relaxed. Even Robeen, normally the most cool and controlled of us four, appeared jittery. We’d all been taught deep breathing techniques in our counselling classes and I found myself having to put them into practice more and more often. As the launch date loomed, it seemed more than a bit unreal that we would soon be boarding the SSO ship Byd 33 and heading for Earth.
We were used to the weekly medical examinations measuring our physical reactions to the exercise programme and flight simulators, so it wasn’t entirely a surprise when, at the start of January (A) we were ushered into the medical suite where Grace Hassan gave us a hurried presentation about a brand new piece of equipment we would be trialling, students only. These new celephetswould monitor the effects of Earth’s atmosphere and gravity on our bodies, including the rate of oxygen absorption in the cells of our organs and any knock-on effects in their function. This kind of recording and analysis had gone on for years, but the celephets were designed to give far more sophisticated results.
‘Human beings can still breathe on Earth, let me reassure you,’ Grace emphasised, ‘but the air quality is deteriorating. Part of the reason for including you guys on this particular mission is to trial this new piece of kit. Small, unobtrusive…’ Grace held up the bluey-silver shimmering film between her thumb and forefinger. It was about the length of a finger but v-shaped at either end. ‘But it will instantly relay hugely valuable information about your bodies’ reactions to the environment, which will help us to plan future missions. All you need do is wear it and forget about it.’
‘Do we wear it on our chests?’ asked Nisien.
‘No,’ said Grace. ‘Good guess but you’re going to be wearing it…’ She turned round, tilted her head down and pointed to the base of her skull. ‘Here. We’ll shave away a small section of your hair before applying the celephet. It’s a minor surgical procedure with a small, local anaesthetic, just as when your tiles were applied. Simple! The celephet doesn’t hurt and will be removed painlessly when you return to Mars, then your hair will grow back and it’ll be just as though it was never there. But we’ll be in possession of vital information. You’ll have done your jobs simply by wearing them.’
It didn’t sound too bad. Grace said that the celephet had only just been given the green light for use and would need a little running-in before we set off for Earth, allowing for last minute alterations if necessary. We would be fitted with them immediately.
‘You’re lucky. I mean look at mine!’ O
n the train, Halley turned around and pointed rather unnecessarily at the silver celephet glued to the base of his skull. ‘People are going to think I’m andro-boy or something.’
It was true. In an age where human-organ-interface-computers were virtually undetectable – besides tiles of course – the celephets did stand out. I felt my own, running my finger tentatively round the smooth edge. Just like our tiles, it was tightly attached, almost like a second skin.
‘You’ll probably start a new fashion,’ I teased. ‘It suits you. Everyone’s going to want one.’
He shrugged.
I asked, ‘Does yours feel kind of prickly, like you’re desperate to scratch what’s going on under there?’
‘Not really,’ said Halley. ‘More like desperate to get it off.’ Although he hadn’t stopped moaning, I suspected he was actually quite proud of it. The way he’d chosen to stand rather than sit in the empty seat by me, and the way he cast his eyes around suggested he wanted people to notice.
Mine was itching like crazy, but Grace had told us there could be some minor side effects to the tissue-glue binding it to the skin. We’d repeatedly been promised that it was very, very safe and above all, it was for the good of our Great Quest and Purpose.
I had the first nightmare that night. I woke in a breathless panic, not knowing where I was. My well-practised breathing technique kicked in automatically as I tried to grasp the last fading wisps of the horrible dream. I’d been walking through the sixth-stratum courtyard of Albany Towers when two dark, blurry-edged but humanoid shapes started following me. In true nightmare fashion, everyone disappeared except these shadowy shapes which gained on me as I ran down random dingy corridors, my legs growing heavier with every step. Has all the fitness training counted for nothing? I thought. They didn’t have faces, they barely had outlines and I had no idea what they wanted with me. They didn’t make a sound, which was horrible too. As they closed the gap between us, I found it more and more difficult to run. Rounding a corner, there, standing before me as though it had been waiting for me a very long time was … was…
That’s when I woke up.
Funnily enough, the next morning at the SSO there was an unscheduled check-up on the celephets. Mine had stopped itching and I didn’t immediately think of telling anyone my dream, but when I did mention it, right at the end of the briefing, Grace Hassan’s reaction struck me as odd. She re-powered her tile and asked me some pointed questions.
‘How long would you say the dream lasted?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said.
‘And when you say nightmare, what was so frightening about it?’
The others were staring at me, three faces in a row, and I felt a bit silly. It was only a dream and I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.
‘The shadow people, I guess. They were chasing me down corridors.’
‘Uh-huh? What did they look like, exactly, these shadow people?’
‘Just … shadows.’
‘Human-shaped shadows?’
I nodded. Grace scrolled around on her tile.
‘Like this?’ she said.
On the screen was a shape approximately like one of the shadows.
‘I … I can’t be sure. A bit. Is it important?’
Grace’s frown lifted and she smiled. ‘Not really, Bree. We just don’t want you to be distressed, that’s all. I suppose we’re all quite keyed up, aren’t we, with the launch a few weeks off, so it’s not really surprising if we have bad dreams.’
‘I think I had a bad dream last night,’ interjected Nisien, who hated being left out.
‘Well,’ said Grace, ‘not surprising, like I say. If anyone wants to speak to one of our counsellors about unpleasant dreams, I can arrange that. Tell me if you have any more, will you?’
This last request seemed directed at me. Whatever Nisien’s dream had been, Grace clearly wasn’t bothered about his. I wondered why she hadn’t shown more interest, but then we had to rush to morning training and the moment was gone.
That dream wasn’t the last. Soon I was having nightmares every night, often more than one per night. I wondered if they were in some way connected to the celephet, which sat so innocently on the back of my head, leeching into my skin. The others didn’t seem to be affected, at least they didn’t say anything. When I asked Halley whether he’d had any nightmares, he said no. Eventually I did tell Grace, choosing a time when we could be alone. I didn’t want to make a fuss about stupid dreams in front of the others.
Grace recorded everything on her tile and made me recount as many details as I could. The dreams always started off somewhere I knew well, but the shadow people would chase me into unfamiliar places, crumbling and decaying around me. There was always some final horrible surprise, too horrible for words, waiting round a corner or down in a valley or over the brow of a hill, paralysing me with fright … but that’s when I’d wake up.
Grace seemed to take it all very seriously but again said not to worry, that it was to be expected with so little time to go until the launch. She said the nightmares were nothing to do with my celephet – if they were, wouldn’t the other students be having them too? I was probably more sensitive than the others. Did I think I might need some more counselling? I said firmly no. I had counselling coming out of my ears, thank you very much.
In spite of the dreams, I felt very, very ready for the mission. I felt confident, well trained, almost over trained, and all I wanted was to get on that spacecraft and begin our three-month journey to Earth. The launch couldn’t come too soon.
I didn’t have nightmares the night before the launch because I got no sleep. Of course, this was to be expected.
Saying goodbye to my parents in the departure lounge was hard. None of the parents managed to keep their tears to themselves, but to our credit, we students remained calm and strong. We’d role-played the scenario again and again in class. When I saw my mother set her jaw in its familiar determined fashion, I knew that she and Dad were going to be all right without me. I was making them so proud.
We felt like a tight little team, the four of us standing shoulder to shoulder for the student group portrait, then as part of the whole group portrait of twenty-four astronauts leaving for Earth. Most had already served on previous missions and we knew several by name but it was the first time we’d met Dr Carter Barat, the ship’s Chief Medical Officer, who also turned out to have invented the celephet.
Doc Carter, as he introduced himself, smiled very handsomely and directly at me and asked to take a quick look at my celephet once we’d done our last personal equipment safety checks. I had the weird feeling that the new Doctor was keen to see mine in particular. As he’d approached me, Nisien had pointed at his celephet rather comically, but Doc Carter ignored him completely. He asked if I wouldn’t mind turning around. I lifted my hair and he stood so close, I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. A pat on the shoulder told me that he’d finished.
We rode to the edge of the Dome in wagons, up a series of escalators to the upperDome. Having locked down our helmets and given our suits final checks, we went through the northern three air locks. In the final one, Halley took my hand and although it was hard to feel much through the thick gloves, I could sense a small squeeze. None of us students had ever set foot outside the Dome before. Halley and I turned to look at each other through our green-tinted visors and I could see excitement and fear written on his face. This was it, what it had all been leading up to.
Outside, all was calm. A small breath of wind kicked up the dust, which was a weird brownish colour seen through the visors, as was the sky. The small sun was very bright. Without our suits, the water in our bodies would be nearing boiling point already. I remember looking down at my boots shuffling through the grit, making the first marks I’d ever made upon the true surface of our planet. When I turned to look at the upperDome, it appeared very lonely, an insignificant looking grey-veined bubble in the dust, but one that contained my whole life and everything I lov
ed. The thought of leaving it made my legs weak and I had to fight the impulse to run back. Thankfully, my well-rehearsed breathing technique kicked in again — inward breaths through the nose to the count of seven, outward breaths through the mouth for five — and I found myself calming down. I decided not to look back any more. During the hour-long flight to the launch pad, we passed only one other Dome in the distance, which Halley thought might be London. Apart from that, the land was barren and featureless, just rocks and hills, a big contrast to the interior of our green Dome.
Each of these Domes’ subterranean environments are carefully engineered, with its own limited ecosystem: light is mainly artificial of course, and there are only a certain number of different plants for oxygen production and food, three species of bee for pollination (there are supposed to be at least twenty thousand species on Earth) and everything is carefully balanced and constantly monitored. Earth always seemed so fecund and exotic to me, with its incredibly complex plant and animal life. Of course, it was also a scarily chaotic world with so many dangers and illnesses, unlike Mars, a planet devoid of disease.
‘What are you looking forward to most?’ Halley asked through the radio link.
‘Rain,’ I said, in a strange voice. ‘And waterfalls. Preferably standing under a waterfall in the rain.’
‘Getting super soaking wet,’ smirked Halley. ‘What is this thing with you and rain?’
‘Don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘Just always liked the idea.’
We’d been playing this game for ages. Seeing a waterfall in the rain was a pretty tame ambition by our standards but the best I could come up with just then. Previously, we’d thought up some great ones: a frog eating blackberries on top of a pyramid … a domestic cat skiing down an exploding volcano (too cruel). Even if these fake wishes were possible, the chances of getting to see them were nil. Although there was talk of a possible link-up with scientists in the south of France, most of our time would be spent in Cardiff helping the two archaeologists on the mission. We did have a realistic list of must-sees, of course, but we also had to keep reminding ourselves that this wasn’t a pleasure trip.
