He looked at his watch again. In England, it was 2.43 in the morning. Beatrice would be asleep, with Joshua stretched opportunistically on his side of the bed, legs spread. Joshua, that is, not Beatrice. She would be on her left side, one arm dangling over the edge, the other thrown up, elbow covering her ear, fingers so close to his pillow that he could kiss them from where he lay. Not now, of course.
Maybe Beatrice was awake. Maybe she was worrying about him. A month had passed without contact between them, and they were used to communicating every day.
‘What if my husband dies en route?’ she’d asked the USIC people.
‘He will not die en route,’ was the reply.
‘But what if he does?’
‘We would let you know immediately. In other words, no news is good news.’
Good news it was, then. But still… Bea had spent these last thirty days conscious of his absence, while he’d been oblivious to hers.
He pictured their bedroom, lit in subdued tones by the bedside lamp; he pictured Bea’s pale blue uniform slung over the chair, the jumble of shoes on the floor, the yellow duvet with Joshua’s fur all over it. Beatrice sitting up against the headboard, bare-legged but with a sweater on, reading and re-reading the uninformative info pack sent by USIC.
‘USIC cannot and does not guarantee the safety of any travellers on its craft or domiciled in its facilities or in the pursuit of any activities related to, or not related to, USIC activities. “Safety” is defined as health both physical and mental and includes, but is not restricted to, survival and/or return from Oasis, either within the time period specified by this agreement or beyond that period. USIC undertakes to minimise risk to any persons participating in its projects but signature of this document is deemed to constitute acknowledgement of understanding that USIC’s efforts in this regard (i.e., minimising risk) are subject to circumstances beyond USIC’s control. These circumstances, because unforeseen and unprecedented, cannot be detailed in advance of occurrence. They may include, but are not restricted to, disease, accident, mechanical failure, adverse weather, and any other events commonly categorised as Acts of God.’
The door of the dormitory cell swung open, silhouetting the massive body of BG.
‘Yo, bro.’
‘Hi.’ In Peter’s experience, it was better to speak in one’s own idiom than echo the idioms and accents of others. Rastafarians and cockney Pakistanis did not come to Christ through being patronised by evangelists making clownish attempts to talk like them, so there was no reason to suppose that black Americans might.
‘You wanna eat with us, you better get yourself out of bed, bro.’
‘Sounds fine to me,’ said Peter, swinging his legs out of the bunk. ‘I think I’m up for it.’
BG’s massive arms were poised to lend assistance. ‘Noodles,’ he said. ‘Beef noodles.’
‘Sounds just fine.’ Still barefoot, dressed only in underpants and an unbuttoned shirt, Peter waddled out of the room. It was like being six again, when he was spaced out on liquid paracetamol and his mother fetched him out of bed to celebrate his birthday. The prospect of opening presents was not sufficiently adrenalising to dispel the effects of chickenpox.
BG led him into a corridor whose walls were papered with floor-to-ceiling colour photographs of green meadows, the kind of adhesive enlargements he was more accustomed to seeing on the sides of buses. Some thoughtful designer must have decided that a vista of grass, spring flowers and an azure sky was just the thing to combat the claustrophobia of airless space.
‘You ain’t a vegetarian, are you, bro?’
‘Uh… no,’ said Peter.
‘Well, I am,’ declared BG, steering him round a corner, where the verdant if slightly blurry scenery was repeated. ‘But one thing you learn when you go on a trip like this, man, is you gotta relax your principles sometimes.’
Dinner was served in the control room; that is, the room that contained the piloting and navigation hardware. Contrary to Peter’s expectations, he was not met with a breathtaking sight when he stepped inside. There was no giant window facing out onto a vast expanse of space, stars and nebulae. There was no window at all; no central focus of attention, just reinforced plastic walls punctuated by air conditioning vents, light switches, humidity adjustors, and a couple of laminated posters. Peter had seen the imagery before, on the USIC pamphlets when he’d first applied for this vacancy. The posters were glossy corporate productions, depicting a stylised ship, a stylised bird with a stylised twig in its beak, and a small amount of text extolling USIC’s high standards of business practice and unlimited potentials to benefit mankind.
The ship’s controls were also less impressive than Peter had imagined: no giant rig of knobs and dials and meters and flashing lights, just a few compact keyboards, slimline monitors and one freestanding computer cabinet that resembled a snack dispenser or automatic bankteller machine. In all honesty, the control room was less a ship’s bridge than an office — a somewhat pokey office, at that. There was nothing here to do justice to the fact that they were floating in a foreign solar system, trillions of miles from home.
Tuska the pilot had swivelled his chair away from the monitors and was staring into a small plastic tub held up near his face. Steam obscured his features. His legs, crossed casually over one another, were bare and hairy, clad only in oversize shorts and tennis shoes without socks.
‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ he said, lowering the tub to rest against his rotund belly. ‘Sleep well?’
‘I don’t know if I was sleeping, really,’ said Peter. ‘More just waiting to feel human again.’
‘Takes a while,’ conceded Tuska, and raised the noodle tub to his face again. He had a mouse-coloured beard, and was obviously well-practised in the logistics of conveying sloppy food past the hazards of facial hair. He twirled some noodles round his fork and closed his neat red lips over them.
‘Here’s yours, Pete,’ said Severin. ‘I’ve torn the foil off for you.’
‘That’s very kind,’ said Peter, taking his seat at a black plastic table, where BG and Severin were tucking into their own noodle tubs with their own plastic forks. Three unopened cans of Coke stood ready. Peter shut his eyes, recited a silent prayer of thanks for what he was about to receive.
‘You’re a Christian, right?’ said BG.
‘Right,’ said Peter. The beef noodle stew had been cooked unevenly in the microwave: some parts were bubbling hot, other parts were still ever-so-slightly crunchy with ice. He stirred them into a warm compromise.
‘I used to be Nation of Islam, long time ago,’ said BG. ‘Got me through some tough times. But it’s high maintenance, man. Can’t do this, can’t do that.’ BG opened his considerable mouth and forked a quivering freight of noodles in, chewed three times, swallowed. ‘Ya gotta hate Jews and white people, too. They say it’s not mandatory and all that shit. But you get the message, man. Loud and clear.’ Another mouthful of noodles. ‘I make my own decisions who I’m gonna hate, know what I’m saying? Somebody fucks with me, I hate ’em — they can be white, black, aquamareeeen, man; don’t make no difference to me.’
‘I suppose what you’re saying, also,’ said Peter, ‘is that you make your own decisions about who you’ll love.’
‘Damn right. White pussy, black pussy, it’s all good.’
Tuska snorted. ‘You’re making a fine impression on our minister, I’m sure.’ He’d finished his meal and was wiping his face and beard with a towelette.
‘I’m not that easy to scandalise,’ said Peter. ‘Not with words, anyway. The world has room for lots of different ways of talking.’