‘Exactly.’ Poppy stabbed a finger at Jesse.
‘Exactly what?’
‘I think they chose us because we’re expendable,’ she said.
Jesse’s stomach sank. That couldn’t be it.
‘No,’ he finally said. ‘That’s not right.’
‘I was going through the records on Fae’s computer, looking at our old test scores. Even in swimming there was not one test where Christina came below number twenty. She was in the top five for most things.’
‘So…?’
‘So, in every way – on every scale they had – there was no way she was forty-eight out of fifty.’ Poppy paused to open the bag of popcorn, steam curling up to her chin. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she said. ‘I can just pick the burnt ones out.’
‘So maybe they have other scales,’ Jesse suggested. ‘Ones we can’t see, and on those ones Christy ranked lower than you.’
‘That’s what I thought, but what would they be?’ Poppy was flicking burnt popcorn from the bowl. ‘And what’s the point of having all those other tests, all those horrid hoops we had to jump through, getting up at dawn, doing those drills on the lawn, those fit-checks and holding our heads underwater until we choked, five-, six-hour exams – what was all that for?
‘Well, I think that if you really were going to build a colony, a new country somewhere else, and it would take twenty-three years to get there, what would be more important than physical fitness or swimming badges?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. What?’
‘You’d want people who really wanted to be there,’ Jesse said slowly. ‘People who would give up their family, their future, a chance to be a surgeon or whatever and to travel across the stars for twenty years. Maybe those tests weren’t about what we thought they were. Maybe they wanted to see how much we could sacrifice. How much we wanted to be in the Beta. Needed it. And the six of us wanted it the most. And maybe, on the last day, Ara didn’t.’
THE SHIP WAS QUIET by the time Jesse walked back along the frosted corridor. The low rumble of a voice drifted through the half-open door of Igor’s bedroom.
‘Two funerals in one month…’ He recognized Igor’s heavy breathing,
‘It’s more than I can bear,’ said Fae. ‘I don’t think she’ll last the night.’
Jesse caught his breath and began to run down the corridor towards Solomon Sheppard’s room. As he did, he struggled to shake away the thought of Juno dying, of wrapping her body in a sheet as they had for their commander and watching as she was jettisoned out into space.
Jesse fought against the clenching in his throat until he reached the bed where Juno lay, and dropped down to his knees and began to beg. He’d felt this way before, with his sister Morrigan, although he’d been a lot younger then. They’d been driving home from a cousin’s wedding in Murang’a – rust-red roads, all the windows open, baking in the heat of the car – when his sister had slumped against him, her head hot with fever, and complained of a headache.
‘Probably dehydrated,’ their mother had said. What she always said when one of them complained of a headache.
The next morning she had not come downstairs for breakfast, and Jesse’s mother had screamed when she found her, tangled in her bedsheets, her limbs thrashing, foaming at the mouth. Jesse remembered the feeling of the condensation on the cool marble under his bare feet, the sound of the fan whacking the hot air and the medicine man’s prophecy coming back to him. That Morrigan would fall sick, but not leave this world. Like a talisman, he turned the old man’s words over in his mind, even after she was rushed to hospital, even after she slipped into a coma, mouth half-open, dead to the world. The doctors had washed their hands of her but when she’d lived they’d said, ‘Miujiza!’
‘Jesse?’
He looked up, brought back to his own body by a voice that sounded like Juno’s. She was standing in the doorway for a moment, but then he realized. ‘Astrid. It’s you.’
The next thing he knew Astrid was standing next to him, her arms squeezed around her. This pain, he knew, they could share.
‘Fae said that she doesn’t think she’ll make it through the night,’ Astrid said.
‘I heard…’ Jesse said.
‘So I thought… I wouldn’t want to be alone.’ She took off her glove and grabbed Juno’s hand. Juno’s breath was watery, as if her lungs were filling with fluid, coming in long, laboured gasps. And with every gap in between, Jesse wondered if she would take another breath, glanced at his watch, wondered if this was the moment.
‘My grandma told me a phrase for that way she’s breathing.’ Astrid nodded towards Juno. ‘They call it “climbing the mountain of death” in her language. They say that once you start to climb…’
‘Do you believe in miracles?’ he said. Astrid wiped an eye with the back of her wrist so that she wouldn’t have to let go of her sister.
‘You know that I do,’ she said. ‘I’ve been praying and praying but… maybe our luck’s run out.’
Jesse looked at Juno’s heartbeat on the monitor, blood pressure, oxygen saturation. Astrid’s head was blocking the lamplight so she was a dark shadow, slightly painful to look at.
‘Maybe…’ said Jesse. He was thinking of the prayers of thanksgiving that the doctors had offered up to a merciful God. ‘Maybe you can’t just ask. You have to give.’
Astrid looked up at Jesse quizzically. ‘Like, make a deal?’
‘Like, make a sacrifice.’ Jesse didn’t believe in Astrid’s God, but he believed in sacrifice. Remembered the Sunday school class in which he learned about Abraham and the son he took up a mountain to murder.
Astrid looked at her sister. ‘You know, my mum once told me never to make a deal with God. It was the strangest thing she ever told me. She said that it’s dangerous. That you should only make promises that you can keep.’
The thought frightened Jesse just a little. Reminded him that Astrid believed that God was not only the kindly father of her Sunday school songs, the one who held them lovingly in his hands, waiting in eager expectation for the moment that they would turn their faces towards him. To her, He was also the bringer of storms, the sharp hand of justice, an awesome force.
‘What would you give up, Astrid? If you had to. What do you love the most? What would you sacrifice to save your sister?’
THEY AWOKE TO THE SOUND of the oxygen alarm. Jesse’s eyes were too blurred to see the figures on the monitor but he knew what it meant. ‘Astrid?’ She’d been asleep too, but she started awake with a gasp.
‘No…’ she cried, her voice light with horror. But Juno’s mouth was hanging open and she was not breathing. Jesse pushed his hands under her neck to check for a pulse but couldn’t find one. Astrid screamed, dropped to her knees, tears pouring from her eyes. Jesse stepped back, his entire body numb, ears ringing, fingers trembling.
Then the ship was filled with the thunder of running feet, others rushing up the ladder. Fae dashed into the room, still in her dressing gown, and took in the scene. Poppy ran to embrace Eliot and a wailing Astrid, Harry and Cai lingered by the threshold.
‘Poppy.’ Fae pointed to Astrid. ‘I can’t work with this noise.’ She opened a box and pulled out her stethoscope, pushed it against Juno’s chest and said, ‘Quiet.’
Jesse watched the concentration in her eyes, the way she frowned, shrinking away from the whine of the oxygen alarm. She was still for a long while, and then looked up at the monitor, pressed a button on the side and held it for a moment. It went blank, and in the silence all Jesse could hear was the sound of the blood throbbing in his eardrums.