At the airport some mission people came and took our suitcases. Some of the other astronauts had arrived at the same time, including several from other countries who were coming off of a press tour here in America. One of them was Sophie Enfers, a French girl I’d talked to a few times. She was nineteen but would turn twenty three days before launch, so the press never included her in the “four teenage astronauts going into space” thing. I think that was as much her decision as theirs because she was one of those people who always acted older than she was, the kind who always seemed like an adult. So much so that the adults in the program accepted Sophie on her own terms. She was one of “them,” not one of “us.” Sophie’s mother had been one of the finalists for the mission but had withdrawn because of a health issue. Sophie chose to stay in the program as one of several “astronaut colonists,” meaning she didn’t have a specialty. She knew a little chemistry, a little engineering, a little of a lot of things, but so did everyone else. I think the main reason she got included was because she was young, smart, and seemed willing to learn anything and try everything. Oh yeah, and she could cook. During several of the underwater habitat-training sessions she managed to turn our freeze-dried rations into something that humans might want to eat. I was an okay Earth food cook, but when it came to the high-protein pastes and nutrient cakes we had, everything I came up with tasted like it was made from cardboard, school glue, and despair.
Sophie even had her own personal tool kit. A good one too. Professional grade. When I asked her why, she said that she always liked to fix things and maybe I could teach her some of what I knew so she’d be more useful to the mission. I said sure, but it was something we never got around to during training. Maybe on the flight, if she was still interested.
Sophie was also really pretty and she laughed at my jokes. Izzy met her once at a press thing and hated her on the spot. When I asked her why, she said that Sophie kept “looking at” me. I told Izzy that she was nuts, that Sophie was legally an adult and I was sixteen, and she was being ridiculous. And we had a real big fight.
Bottom line is, I liked Sophie as a friend and we were going to be on the same ship together. At the same time, I didn’t actually know her all that well. She smiled a lot but there was always something a little sad about her. Maybe it was her eyes. None of those bright smiles ever seemed to reach her eyes. When Izzy smiled her eyes filled with light, but for Sophie Enfers it was more like her eyes filled with shadows. Does that make sense? Maybe I’m being too poetic for my own good.
Sophie saw us and came over. She kissed Mom and Dad on both cheeks and then did the same to me. It’s a European thing. When she bent close I could smell soap, sweat, perfume, and chemicals.
“And how are you today, Monsieur Hart?” she asked me, pretending to be formal. It was her thing, and even though she did it all the time it seemed clear that it was some kind of private joke with her. Maybe it was one of the reasons everyone treated her like an adult rather than “another teenager” on the crew.
“I’m good,” I said.
“And now it begins, oui?”
“Guess so.”
She studied me. “Are you perhaps having some doubts?”
“Nope,” I said. “None at all.”
She nodded and looked around and then up at the beautiful blue sky. It was such a perfect color, with small islands of white clouds. A line of birds sailed above us, their wings and bellies so white it hurt the eye.
“How can we leave all this?” said Sophie. “Surely we must be mad.”
Her accent was so thick it took me a moment to understand her. I just nodded.
“I know,” I said, and she turned to me.
“I saw you on TV. You and your girlfriend, Iseult,” she said, using the old-fashioned variation on Izzy’s name. “Such a lovely girl. So pretty and so sad, and as tragic as the Irish princess from the old stories. Do you know those stories, young Tristan?”
“Yeah,” I said flatly. “Doomed young love. Got it. That’s been in every feature story they’ve done on us.”
“I expect so. Au revoir,” she said, then joined Marcel, a friend of hers from Paris. He was one of those moody guys who never smiles. Like, ever. And he always looked annoyed. At everyone and everything. When you talk to him you kind of get the vibe that he thinks you’re uncouth, uncivilized, and not housebroken. But Sophie seemed to like him, so there’s that.
She walked away with her head down as if she was thinking deep thoughts, hands in the pockets of her jeans, ponytail bobbing. Marcel fell into step beside her, neither of them saying a word. Strange people, both of them, and in different ways. But then, a lot of the people on Mars One were strange. Maybe I was strange too. I mean, look at the decision we all made. Even though there were forty of us going and a couple of hundred thousand people wanting to go, you couldn’t call us normal. There were nearly eight billion people who did not apply and if the news services were right, most of them thought we were out of our minds.
Maybe. Jury’s out.