The Art of Space Travel Read online

  The idea of settling for anything too concrete begins to seem like death, so you settle for nothing.

  Benny Conway’s never married, which probably seems strange to you, given that he’s such a people person, but I can imagine that being with him day in and day out would drive anyone nuts.

  Beneath the confidence and sunny bravado, Benny’s actually quite needy and insecure. One of the downsides of working in a close environment is that you often get to know more about the people you work with than you strictly want to.

  * * *

  I spend the morning checking the inventories and trying not to get too worked up about the stupid interview. At 1:30 I go down to the lobby. What passes for the news crew is already there—a camera guy and a college kid, sent along by some backroom satellite outfit most likely, one of the countless pirate stations that don’t have the clout to get themselves an invite for what Ludmilla and I have snarkily begun to call the Day of Judgement.

  These two have to make do with me instead. I begin to feel sorry for them.

  The student who interviews me is called Laura—I never learn her surname—a tiny thing dressed in a black pantsuit and with her copper-red hair cut close to her head. She reminds me of Pinocchio, or one of those Pierrot dolls that my school friends were so crazy about when I was a kid. I like her immediately—she seems so earnest!—and so I find myself relaxing into the process and even enjoying it. I’m expecting the questions Laura asks me to be work-related—what will the astronauts be having for supper, how do you keep the hotel running normally and still maintain security, that kind of thing. Some of her actual questions catch me off guard.

  “It’s thirty years since the crew of the New Dawn lost their lives,” Laura says. “Do you think it’s right that we should risk another Mars mission?”

  “I think in a way we’re doing it for them,” I say. “The astronauts who died, I mean.” I’m stumbling over my words, because I haven’t planned this. It’s strange to hear myself saying these things, thoughts I never really knew I was thinking until now. “I think we should ask ourselves what they would have wanted. Would they have wanted us to try again? I think they would have. So I think we should, too. I believe we have to try again, for their sakes.”

  Laura looks delighted and surprised, as if what I said in reply to her question was the kind of answer she wanted but didn’t expect. Not from the likes of me, anyway. She wraps up the interview soon after—she wants to quit while she’s ahead, most likely.

  “That was great,” she says to me, off-camera. She exchanges a couple of words with the camera guy, who’s preoccupied with packing away his equipment. After a moment Laura turns back to me. She’s smiling, and I think she’s about to say goodbye. But then her expression becomes serious again and she asks me another question. “Your mum was here when the Galaxy flight came down, wasn’t she?”

  I’m so surprised I can’t answer at first. I glance across at the camera guy, wondering if he’s somehow still filming this, but he’s moved away from us slightly, towards the reception desk. I see him checking his mobile. “She was working here, yes,” I say. My throat feels dry and I swallow. What’s this about? “She was part of the forensic investigation team that went out to the crash site. She was an expert in metal fatigue.”

  Laura has moved to stand in front of me, blocking my view of the rest of the lobby and clearly expecting me to say more, but I’m not sure what I should say, whether I should say anything, even.

  I can’t imagine why she’s asking me this question now, when the camera is off. It has nothing to do with the astronauts or with the hotel, and I’m asking myself what it does have to do with, exactly. Is this the question Laura wanted to ask me all along? And if so, why?

  “There was an awful smell,” I say, and then suddenly I’m remembering that smell, jet fuel thickened by dust, ignited by anguish, and the way it hung over the airport and over our village for weeks, or so it seemed, longer even than that, so long that in the end you understood it was all in your mind, it had to be, that no real smell lingers that long. Even the stench of combusted bodies fades eventually.

  I haven’t thought of these things in years, not like this, not precisely enough to bring back that smell.

  But can I tell Laura any of this? She would have been about ten when it happened; she might not even remember it as a real event. Children don’t take much notice of the news unless it affects them directly. Everything she knows about the crash will come from old TV footage, the slew of documentaries and real-time amateur video that followed after.

  Everything from the acknowledged facts to the certifiably crazy.

  What would she say if I told her that Moolie worked alongside the black box recovery unit and the token medics and the loss adjusters? That she was out there for almost three weeks, picking over what was essentially radioactive trash, trying to come up with a reasonable theory of what had happened and who was responsible?

  Of that original forensic team, two are still working and seem in good health, three have died of various cancers, and four are like Moolie.

  There is an ongoing legal enquiry, but the way things are going the remaining witnesses will all be dead before any decision is made on liability.

  I bet that’s what the authorities are hoping, anyway.

  “Here’s my number,” Laura says. She delves into her jacket pocket and then hands me a card, a glossy white oblong printed with an email address and cell number in cool grey capitals.

  Quaint, I think, and rather classy, if you’re into retro.

  “Give me a call, if you feel like talking about it. I’d really like to do a story on your mother, if you think she’d be up for it.” Laura hesitates, uncertain suddenly, a precocious child in front of an audience of hostile strangers. “Think about it, anyway.”

  “I will,” I say, and slip the card into my pocket. Later, after Laura is gone, I try to imagine her with Moolie, asking her questions.

  Does Moolie remember the Galaxy, even?

  Some days, probably.

  The whole idea of her doing an interview is insane.

  * * *

  Of the three male astronauts Moolie had dealings with at the UESP in Hamburg, only Toby Soyinka actually went on to get picked as flight crew. The two other guys involved with the New Dawn mission ended up working on the ground in IT and comms. Angelo Chavez was born in Queens, New York City. His exceptional talent for mathematics was spotted in nursery school. At the age of six he won a place at a specialist academy for gifted children. Angelo did well, and seemed well adjusted, until his father began an affair with a work colleague and buggered off. Angelo’s mother relocated with Angelo to Chicago to be closer to family.

  Angelo was bullied at his new school. He began truanting, then moved on to shoplifting and dealing cannabis on high school premises. By the time he turned fourteen he was regularly in trouble with the police. It was a youth worker at a juvenile detention centre who helped get Angelo back on track by asking him to help out with the centre’s computer system. Later, when Angelo applied for a place at MIT, the man acted as his sponsor and referee. Angelo achieved perfect scores in three out of his five first-year assignments. He graduated with one of the highest averages of that decade.

  After graduation, he began working as a games designer for a Tokyo-based franchise, and landed a junior post at NASA just eighteen months later. Three years after joining NASA, Angelo went to Hamburg for six months to work as a visiting lecturer at the UESP. While he was there, he met and fell in love with the Dutch astrophysicist Johan Wedekin. They became civil partners in July 2048.

  They’ve been together now for almost thirty years. I suppose it’s possible that Angelo was shagging Moolie in Hamburg as well as Johan, but I think it’s unlikely. Marlon Habila was born in Lagos, the son of two teachers. He speaks six languages fluently, and has a solid working knowledge of eight others. He wrote his postgraduate thesis on the acquisition of language in bilingual children. He was initially
employed by the UESP to help develop a more straightforward method for teaching Mandarin to trainee astronauts, and became interested in the New Dawn mission while he was there. After a number of years in Hamburg, Marlon was headhunted by NASA as a senior communications technician and relocated to Austin, Texas, where he still lives today.

  He was in Hamburg at the same time as Moolie, though, no doubt about it.

  When I look at photographs of Marlon Habila, it’s like looking into a mirror.

  I once showed Moolie a photo of Marlon and asked if she remembered him. She was in one of her lucid patches at the time, so I thought there might be a chance I’d get something resembling a straight answer out of her. I reckoned it was worth a try, anyway. You never know with Moolie, how she’s going to react. Sometimes during her good phases you can chat with her and it’ll feel almost like the old times.

  On the other hand, it’s often during these good times that she’s at her most evasive. Ask Moolie her own name then and there’s no guarantee you’ll get the answer you were expecting.

  When I showed her the picture of Marlon, her eyes filled with tears. Then she snatched it out of my hands and tore it in two.

  “Don’t talk to me about that boy,” she hissed at me. “I’ve told you before.”

  “No you haven’t,” I persisted. “Can you tell me anything about him? Do you know what he’s called?”

  She gave me a look, boiling over with impatience, as if I’d asked her if the world was flat or round.

  “You know damn well what he’s called,” she said. “Stop trying to trick me. I’m not brain-dead yet, you know.” She stomped out of the room, one foot dragging slightly because of the muscle wastage that had already begun to affect her left side. I stared stupidly down at the two torn pieces of the photograph she had thrown on the floor, then picked them up and put them in the waste bin. An hour or so later I went upstairs to check on Moolie and she was fine again, completely calm, sitting up in bed and reading softly aloud to herself from J. G. Ballard’s Vermilion Sands.

  I asked her if she wanted anything to eat or drink and she shook her head. The next time I looked in on her she was sound asleep.

  * * *

  Do I really believe that Marlon Habila is my dad? Some days I feel so certain it’s like knowing for sure. Other days I think it’s all bullshit, just some story I’ve constructed for myself so the world doesn’t feel so crazy and out of control. It’s a well known fact that kids who grow up not knowing who their parents are—or who one parent is—always like to imagine they’re really a princess, or the son of a Polar explorer who died bravely in tragic circumstances, or some such junk. No one wants to be told their daddy is really a dustman who got banged up for petty thieving and who never gave a shit.

  “Daddy was a spaceman” sounds so much better.

  The thing is, even if I knew for an absolute certainty that Marlon Habila was my birth father, it’s still not obvious what—if anything—I should do about it.

  I found contact details for Marlon online—it wasn’t difficult—and I’ve lost count of the number of emails I’ve started to write and then deleted. Dear Marlon, Dear Dr Habila, Dear Marlon again. You don’t know me, but I think I might be your daughter.

  Just like in those old TV miniseries Moolie enjoys so much, those overblown three-part dramas about twins separated at birth, or men of God who fall illicitly in love, or lost survivors of the Titanic, stories that unfold in a series of unlikely coincidences, all tied together with a swooning orchestral soundtrack. They’re pretty naff, those stories, but they do draw you in. When Moolie’s going through one of her bad times she’ll watch them all day long, five of the things in a row, back to back.

  I suppose the reason people like stories like that is that no matter how confused the plot seems at the start, things always work out. By the time the film’s over you always understand what happened, and why. There’s always a proper ending, with people hugging each other and crying, if you see what I mean.

  In the case of Marlon Habila, the proper ending is that he moved to Texas. A year after the New Dawn tragedy he married Melissa Sanberg, one of the senior operatives working on what they call the shop floor of Mission Control. They have two sons and one daughter—Aaron, Willard, and little Esther. Eighteen, sixteen, and nine.

  In the photos they look happy. I mean, really happy. I have to ask myself what might happen to that happiness if I sent my email.

  I can’t help thinking about what Moolie said that time, about dropping bombshells.

  In a way it would be easier if my father turned out to be Toby Soyinka after all. Dead is safe, nothing would change, and hey, at least I would know my dad was a hero. People would look at me with sympathy, and fascination. It would make a good miniseries, actually. You can imagine the ending—me and Toby’s relatives hugging and crying as we hand round the old photographs for the umpteenth time and saying, If only he knew in choked-up voices. I’d watch it, anyway, I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I’d blub at the end too, probably. Another Saturday night in with Moolie, a supply of tissues and a box of chocolates on the sofa between us.

  Who doesn’t want a story that makes sense?

  I’ve made up my mind that if the Second Wind launches safely I’m going to send that email.

  * * *

  The biggest headache with having astronauts staying at the Edison Star is the incessant press coverage. Sorokina and Cameron themselves are the least of our worries—they’re just two extra guests; to put it bluntly, they’re hardly going to send us into a tailspin no matter how picky they might be about their food or the ambient room temperature. We’ve had to take on extra security just for that week, but aside from that it’ll be business pretty much as usual. The problem is that it will be business under intense scrutiny, and until the astronauts actually arrive, the press hounds have nothing to do except sit and bitch. You can bet your life that if one of them happens to spot a rat in the garbage store it’ll be headlining as a major news story within the hour.

  You’re never more than six feet from a rat: Getting up close and personal with the Edison Star’s new temp staff.

  It’s enough to give Benny a coronary. Which means no rats, no undercooked turkey, no tide marks on the bathtubs, no financial mismanagement, no corporate bribery, no spree killings.

  Not until this astronaut business is safely behind us, at any rate.

  What it mostly means for me is a lot of overtime, but I don’t mind. I’m enjoying myself quite a bit, to tell the truth. I know how this place works, you see, I’ve even grown to love it over the years. The only problem is winding down, switching off. Even when I’m at home I’m constantly running through mental checklists, trying to head cock-ups off at the pass before they happen. Sometimes I find myself lying awake into the small hours. If I’m not careful I’m going to end up like Moolie.

  * * *

  Will there be children born on Mars, I wonder? Martian children, who think of the planet Mars as their one true home?

  It is strange to think of, and rather wonderful, too, that we might come to that. What will our Earth seem like to them, our built-in atmosphere and water on tap, our border controls and health and safety laws, our wars over patches of land that we like to call countries?

  Will we seem like kings to them, or tyrants, or simply fools?

  I have brought The Art of Space Travel into work with me this morning. I wrapped it inside a supermarket carrier bag for protection, then stuffed it into the back of my locker with the trainers I wear for walking in and my rucksack and my spare cardigan. I have this silly idea, that when Zhanna Sorokina and Vinnie Cameron arrive I’ll get them both to sign it. I know the book was written long before they were born, that it has no connection with them, but I would like to have something of theirs, all the same, something of theirs joined with something of mine. Something to keep once they are gone, that will remind me that although they’re Martians now, they started out from here.

  It will be
a way of keeping them safe, maybe. I know how crazy that sounds.

  * * *

  It’s strange, but each time I think of something happening to them it’s not the New Dawn I think of but the Galaxy, that doomed aeroplane, fireballing out of the sky over Heathrow.

  I was in school when it happened, almost ten miles away, but all of us heard the crash, even from there.

  * * *

  When the call comes through, I’m in the middle of signing off the bulk orders for cleaning supplies—Dettox, Ajax, Glasene, Pledge—we get through tens of gallons of each on a monthly basis. I prefer staff to keep their mobiles switched off while they’re on shift because they’re so distracting, but I have to keep mine by me because of Moolie. Weeks and sometimes months go by without it ever ringing but you never know. When I see her number flashing onscreen I pick up at once.

  I speak her name, only it’s not her on the line after all, it’s our neighbour, Allison Roberts, from next door.

  “She was out the front, just lying there,” Allison says. Moolie’s phone was lying there too, apparently, which I suppose was lucky.

  I can’t remember the last time Moolie went outside by herself.

  I call Benny on his private line, the one that never gets diverted. I know he’s chairing a meeting but I don’t care, I don’t give a shit suddenly, and Benny must realise it’s urgent because he knows I wouldn’t disturb him otherwise, and so he picks up immediately.

  “I have to go,” I gasp. I explain what’s happened the best I can and he says okay. I’m running for the lifts by then. I need to get to the basement, where the staff lockers are. When I reach the lockers I can’t get my key card to work, and then when it finally does everything comes pouring out in a tidal wave. My clobber’s everywhere, suddenly. It’s the last thing I need. My chest is so high and tight I feel like screaming.