THE NEXT MORNING the sky was a cheery blue but for an ominous, towering white thunderhead on the horizon, trailing a dark curtain of rain falling somewhere far away.
“Take a good long look,” Bolshakov said, surprising me. He pulled along a small rolling suitcase made of battered leather. “We will not see the sky again until launch.”
The crew was gathering in the courtyard, readying our move to quarantine quarters. I’d been watching Luka’s door in my peripheral vision, but it still hadn’t opened. Anxiety roiled in my stomach; I’d been waiting to see him again, waiting to know what would happen between us when I did.
There was still a glow inside me, but it had died down to a flickering flame—something easily hidden and fragile.
Luka had never been late, but Bolshakov, Jeong, Shaw, and Copeland had all filtered out of their rooms with their luggage and Luka was still absent.
My eyes were drawn again to the storm clouds.
When Pierce and Crane came personally to ferry us to our next destination, I should have known. Luka’s door remained closed.
“Wait,” I said. “Where’s Luka?”
Pierce stopped short. Regarded me. He appeared tired. His head tilted slightly to the side, either mocking or confused. He pointedly did not answer.
Crane took his time before he spoke, surveying each of us in turn. He prolonged the silence just long enough to turn the atmosphere solemn and expectant, like an orchestra director boosting the anticipation before the music. “We are about to move into the final phase. I need each of you, at this moment, to search inside yourselves and ensure that you are committed to this project. I am offering you a chance that precious few humans in history have been given. You must put earthly concerns behind you. Look only to the future. Four of you have lived full lives, have families, reached the pinnacles of your careers.” His cool, intelligent eyes focused on me and my spine straightened. “But you, Cassandra, you are young. Your life is yet unlived. I cannot have a last-minute change of heart from you. Odysseus must launch, and it must launch with you aboard.”
I saw, as though through a distorted lens, how the other astronauts looked at me now with renewed interest. Copeland didn’t hide her surprise. Shaw and Jeong gave me congratulatory smiles.
I didn’t meet any of their eyes, didn’t feel the shock I should have. Nothing registered.
Pierce clarified. “Luka Kereselidze is no longer a part of this program. He flew home this morning.”
“What?” It was still morning. How early had they sprung this on him? Had he just walked past my door an hour ago, saying nothing? Did they not let him say good-bye, or did he not want to tell me himself?
Colonel Pierce kept his voice steady, but there was a hint of an apology in his eyes. “He could not fulfill the mission requirements. There was no longer a place for him in Project Adastra.”
Crane continued as if Pierce had never spoken, the full intensity of his eyes locked on mine. “Cassandra Gupta, you are needed. You are the fifth member of this crew. There’s no alternate who can take your place.” Now he turned from me to the others. “You, each of you, must decide at this moment. Will you commit to give all, for the good of all mankind?”
Each of them, in turn, murmured their affirmations.
Now all eyes were on me.
“Yes,” I said, and was proud that I had not hesitated.
Bolshakov was still beside me. He offered me his hand. Numb, I slipped my hand in his, and had the impression of shaking hands with a grizzly bear. “Congratulations, Ms. Gupta. It is an honor.” He seemed grim. They all did. I didn’t understand it. Even though Shaw patted me awkwardly on the shoulder and Jeong squeezed my forearm encouragingly, the smiles were all tight and lifeless.
This was a job to them. A dangerous, experimental, completely unprecedented job, but otherwise one they’d done time and again. Maybe they thought I shouldn’t be here. Maybe they didn’t like that it turned out to be me.
“Congratulations, kid,” Copeland said as we started trudging after Pierce, weighed down by various pieces of luggage. Her voice was quiet and tense, her gray eyes scanning me up and down as if to evaluate my worthiness. “You’ve earned it.” And then, a moment later, when she’d dropped back behind me, she spoke in a hushed voice to Jeong that she probably thought I couldn’t hear. “This is so shitty. She’s just a kid. It shouldn’t be someone with so much to lose.”
And then I understood.
I followed the others out the door, trying and failing to reconcile the two warring thoughts in my brain: Luka’s gone. I’m going into space.
I looked around me, at the astronauts I was now a part of. This was my job now, too.
And it was time to get to work.
The downpour started just as I was getting settled into my new quarters inside quarantine. It was a windowless shoe box compared to my last two rooms—more wall alcove than living space—but I didn’t care. It wasn’t like I was going to be here long.
I took a few long, steadying breaths. Get ahold of yourself.
Why was I suddenly so afraid?
The grim mood that had fallen like a cloud of smog on the rest of the crew had afflicted me, too. A tug-of-war was happening inside me.
Luka was gone. I was going into space. I might never see him, or my family or my friends, again. I was going to leave Earth until it was not even a pale blue dot in the rearview mirror. I was going to see amazing things. Alien planets. Faraway stars. An entirely new species. Everything I’d always wanted.
But there were suddenly other, new things I wanted, too.
Was my lifelong dream worth losing everyone I’d ever cared about, all the wonders and creations and humans on Earth, my life? Even if everything went solidly according to plan, it would still mean giving up prime years of my life, spending years I’d never get back semiconscious in a cryogenic tube and hurtling through space. Something could happen to my parents. My dadi might not live to see me return safely home.
I weighed them in my heart. Everything I was, would ever be—a life wrapped up in love and friendship and long happy years on a green-and-blue planet—against many lonely years adrift in a cold, endless, lifeless black void. A fervent, lifelong, heartfelt dream and the promise of unimaginable experiences.
I wanted to push that boundary even further. I wanted to be a pioneer. To dare mighty things. What was out there would forever call to me, and the things I could do for history were more important than my one little life.
I collapsed onto the thin mattress.
This is my dream come true.
I repeated that over and over again. And slowly, the distorted carnival mirror of my thoughts shifted. The universe reordered itself, and suddenly I felt lighter, my way clear and vision unclouded.
The girl I’d been before I’d come there—the one who was willing to sacrifice everything to get to this place—would have never believed I’d have doubts once there. But I was still that girl.
I put everything else—everything that might make me doubt myself—into a box in my mind and sealed it off.
I took another breath. Saw myself promising Luka that I wouldn’t let anything stop me. And then erased the memory, because Luka belonged in that box of things I was leaving behind.
I imagined my body turning to steel. My stomach, full of butterflies and bad omens, replaced with a core of strength. I thought of the person I’d been before coming to Houston: friendless by choice, driven only by ambition and determination. Tethered to Earth by only a gossamer thread. Head constantly tilted upward, skyward, eyes on the prize. I’d been the unstoppable girl before.
I was still that girl.