But, Jesse observed, Harry couldn’t tolerate surprises. When a fuel tank exploded, his sudden impulsive jerk of the controller sent him veering off in the wrong direction, losing power too soon to complete his mission. When a rogue ship careened past, Harry was too surprised to prevent a collision. He seemed to lack the cunning or creativity to improvise at higher levels.
After the fuel tank explosion, Jesse said, ‘Hey, you know if you switch from the damaged fuel tanks to the secondary rocket boosters you’ll be able to land without too much excess drag.’ Harry had said nothing. ‘Also, it’s all about the angle of entry,’ Jesse added, ‘right now you’re going in too steep. That’s why you keep—’
Harry interrupted by switching off the simulator and yanking off his goggles.
‘Hey, Jesse,’ he said, ‘do you want to see something?’
‘See what?’
Harry spun round in his seat and leapt off with a little chuckle. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘That would ruin the fun.’
‘No, I’m fine here I think.’
‘Really? You don’t have a minute or two for a little competition?’
Jesse’s immediate desire was to shrug his shoulders and remain in the comfort of the games room. But it was the way Harry always said the word ‘competition’ that piqued something inside Jesse, something like curiosity and determination.
So he followed him into the half-lit corridor where, instead of climbing up the ladder as Jesse had expected, Harry slid towards the store rooms. Jesse had only ever gone down that way a few times, during that first night when they were all moving in, or when Cai requested extra cartons of stock solutions to mix more fertilizer.
Further down the hall was the round door he’d never touched.
‘The airlock,’ Jesse said.
‘That’s right. So they taught you something about the ship during your midnight astronaut crash course.’
A quick flame of annoyance sparked inside Jesse, but he didn’t want to give Harry the satisfaction of seeing him ruffled. ‘I’m just as trained as you,’ he said.
‘Actually, you’re about half as trained as me.’
Jesse had expected this, sooner or later. Each time he asked a question in their tutorials about something he had not been taught he could almost feel the sneer on Harry’s lips. It made him sheepish and embarrassed, keen to hide his deficiencies but certain everyone was taking note of them. Jesse said what Commander Sheppard kept repeating to him: ‘Everything else I need to know I can learn on this ship.’
‘Exactly.’ Harry’s eyes glittered. ‘Like how the airlock works.’
‘I know how the airlock works. It allows entry or exit without compromising the environment inside the ship.’
‘Good. How does it do that?’
‘Why are you asking me?’
‘How does it do that, Jesse?’
‘Two doors – well, two pressure-sealed hatches – and a space in between; one opens out into space, the other into the ship. If someone is leaving, the compartment between depressurizes. The opposite if they are entering.’
They were standing before it; the round door with the fat metal latches. Jesse peered at his reflection in the airlock’s porthole as Harry found the gearbox mounted on the side of the wall and twisted the handle. The hinge mechanism groaned and then, with a low hiss of air, the hatch swung open.
The airlock was about the size of their tiny bathroom. Two spacesuits were charging, hooked to either wall, and they stared out at Jesse like astronauts with darkness for eyes. On the far end was a window to space.
‘You scared?’ Harry asked,
‘There’s nothing to be scared of.’
‘Exactly. Though that’s hard to remember sometimes.’ He stepped a little closer and Jesse followed behind him. ‘Have you heard of a sensory deprivation chamber?’
‘Yes—’ Jesse began, but Harry continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
‘During training they put us in one to see how long we could stand it. No light, no sound. Most people can’t last fifteen minutes before they begin to see things, begin to panic. They don’t even know what they’re afraid of. Themselves, maybe. In the darkness every fear finds a face. You imagine being buried alive, being paralyzed, and some people can’t handle it.’ Jesse shuddered as he, too, imagined it. He was silently glad this ordeal had been omitted from his training. He tried to picture Harry in the darkness.
‘Do you know how long I managed it?’ Harry was still talking. ‘Seven hours, forty-three minutes. Sounds impossible. Especially for someone like you, who’s afraid of the dark.’
‘I’m not afraid of the dark,’ Jesse said. ‘What kind of astronaut is?’
‘Prove it.’ Harry folded his arms and smiled. Jesse could only see part of Harry’s face in the half-light of the corridor. He was dressed in his uniform, as he usually was during the daytime, clean-shaven, his straight blond hair slicked back from his forehead.
Jesse swallowed, a lie suddenly on his lips. ‘I have a fit-check in five minutes, so maybe another time.’
‘This will only take five minutes.’
Jesse’s heart sank. He had no choice but to step inside the airlock. Harry’s silhouette was backlit on the threshold behind him.
‘Igor will probably tell you that when Russian cosmonauts train they’re put in isolation chambers, for weeks sometimes,’ Harry said. ‘Some of them call it the Chamber of Silence. Can you imagine it, Jesse? Can you imagine what thoughts would be going through your nervous head. There’s more to being an astronaut than just wanting it, you know. You have to prove you can do it.’
He paused, and the dread in Jesse’s stomach grew.
‘The astronaut can’t fear enclosed spaces,’ Harry said, his fingers on the handle. Jesse’s nerves panged. In another moment, Harry would close the hatch and he would be left alone there.
‘No, don’t—’
‘The astronaut can’t fear the darkness.’
Jesse saw Harry’s silhouetted hand lift and realized, too late, that he was letting the airlock close.
‘Harry!’ Jesse rushed towards the door as it shut. ‘No!’
‘The astronaut can’t fear death.’
A hiss of air as the door sealed closed, and Jesse was left alone in the almost total blackness. All sound from the noisy ship disappeared, and he could hear only his own heavy breathing and the sweat prickling on his back. The air was stale and unmoving. How long until it ran out?
‘Harry,’ he called, ‘this isn’t funny.’
I won’t panic, he thought to himself, but still he remained pressed up against the door. Sinister shapes were already beginning to encroach upon him in the darkness. He blinked them away.
‘You said five minutes.’ Five minutes. How long had it been already? One? Thirty seconds? He just had to keep calm for five minutes and then Harry would free him. He tried to distract himself by taking deep breaths, but inhaling the still air only made him more nervous.