That evening there was a storm, the first huge Earth storm I’d witnessed, with thunder rumbling like the belly of some hungry sky-god, forks of lightning leaping to Earth and endless heavy rain hammering down. Most of the crew at Base congregated in the fourth-floor common room and we turned out the lights, to view the lightning’s ferocity as it tore the sky apart.

When the rain was at its heaviest and visibility at its lowest level, a dragomansk flew head-on into the window with an enormous, shocking bang. It was only squashed against the glass for a split second. I saw its eyes burst on the pane which ran with sticky, brown bubbling acid before it fell. Fortunately there was no damage to the window. I wondered if it had survived and, if not, whether Halley would be out hunting for the corpse tomorrow morning or whether he’d left that phase behind.

In bed that night I listened to a fully orchestrated gale being conducted outside. Gusts of wind moaned and whistled round the building and sudden blasts shook the windows. The recordings I’d heard of the storms on Mars were worse than this, much worse, but here I was conscious that only a thin layer of brick protected us from violent elements beyond our control.

Strangely, with so much else to worry about, what had preoccupied me all evening was why everyone was insisting that Earth had ‘got to me’. Annoyingly, Halley and Carter were right – it had. Our Dome is home to many thousands of people packed into a relatively small space so you’re never alone for long, but having viewed the Dome from the outside, I could appreciate how solitary it actually was. On board the Byd we’d been little more than a small, insignificant group of atomic clusters hurtling through endless space, but at least you could hold the hand of another human being when you started thinking that way. Why had being on Earth so particularly got to me? Perhaps because it felt like the most lonely of all lonely places in the universe, a place which should have been able to sustain human life in abundance, but was virtually empty of it; a place where it should have been possible to roam about unconfined, except you could not. Earth was the cradle of human life, yet humans weren’t welcome there anymore.

Although the wind had calmed by breakfast, it was still moaning, aggrieved that it hadn’t managed to find its way into the building, and though the rain was lighter, it fell incessantly. The sky above us was filled with a strange, sickly, sulphurous light and the western edge was turning darker by the minute. Nisien, Robeen and I sat at our table. Nisien was complaining that he wouldn’t be able to carry out the tests he’d wanted to that morning because Halley was taking me out on a trip. Eventually, even Robeen looked up from her Kyrachess and asked him to give it a rest. Halley had already messaged me, asking me to meet him by the entrance straight after breakfast. I guessed that at that very moment he was probably being given his final briefing by Carter, but I was past caring. The thought of having to spend an entire day with him turned my stomach.

‘So here we are again.’ Halley was already waiting by the front entrance, but he didn’t seem as sure of himself as usual, I could tell by the way he hugged his visor to his chest. If I was going to go along with the charade, I decided I might as well make it look convincing. When he saw me smile, his body relaxed a little.

‘I’m under orders to give you a fun day out.’ He did an unconvincing little mock salute. I walked up, placed my hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek, biting my lip teasingly at the look of surprise on his face.

‘That’s to say sorry for giving you such a hard time,’ I sighed and tilted my head to one side. ‘I don’t know what’s been wrong with me. Well, I do: it was being holed up in that Museum all those days. You were right, you and Doc Carter. And I do know how worried you’ve both been about me. Thanks for that.’

Halley nodded.

‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘I’m glad we’re going out, just you and me. It’ll be fun.’

‘Where do you fancy, then?’

‘I don’t mind. We could start with the canals. I mean, if you want to?’

‘I guess it’s always been a special place for us, huh?’ He was relaxing more and more.

I took his hand and swung it to and fro. ‘But no dragomansk hunting, deal?’

He shook his head. ‘Oh deal, I mean, oh, definitely not,’ he flustered. ‘I can’t say I don’t find them fascinating, but no, I think I learned my lesson there.’

‘Come on then, let’s go.’ I gave his hand a quick squeeze and we prepared to leave, but just at the last moment he pulled me back.

‘How about a real adventure?’

‘What do you mean?’

He glanced up the stairwell to check that no one was coming, then looked at me and that wicked secret smile I’d once loved spread slowly across his face.

‘Follow me.’ Still holding my hand, he led me down a small, dark passage. I knew immediately which way we were heading, straight for the service rooms. I was forced to run to keep up with him.

‘You must be joking!’ I said as he let go of my hand and approached the class four parked in the middle of the workshop. No one else was around, the day’s work hadn’t begun. He climbed onto the skirt of the vehicle and squinted inside, then held out his arm, beckoning me.

‘I have the activation code,’ he said, ‘up here.’ He tapped his forehead.

‘Do you know how seriously Nisien’s going to kill you?’ I said. ‘Never mind just you, me as well!’ But before I could make any more protests, the roof of the hulking amphibical was retracting and Halley was climbing in and crooking his finger at me.

‘Aw, come on,’ he said.

Against my better judgement, I stepped up onto the skirt. Halley patted the seat next to his, inviting me in. ‘This thing’s proper heavy-duty. We can go much further, inland or out along the coast, if you like. We wouldn’t be able to do that in a class one. Nothing can stand in our way, not with the “Barroblaster” on board. Come on, then.’

The doors at the front of the workshop were already beginning to slide apart, preparing for our exit.

‘You’re mad. You don’t have the authority to do this.’ On impulse and because at heart I was past caring, I climbed in and the roof slid shut above our heads.

‘I have all the authority I need,’ he laughed. ‘Especially with you here.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Nothing.’ But he was chuckling to himself and I knew exactly what he meant: I was everyone’s ticket to getting what they wanted. As long as he followed Carter’s instructions, which were basically to look after me and get me to cheer the hell up, and as long as he brought me back in one piece, Halley was right: he probably could get away with it. A minor slap on the wrist at worst. The way he rubbed his nose with his finger so casually, the way he whistled softly through his teeth as he began steering the brute up the ramp so expertly … everything exuded a mean kind of confidence.

I turned to see Nisien careering into the workshop, calling out and waving his arms above his head. The look on his face was one of frustrated outrage but we were already trundling on to the back road with the vehicle’s giant wheels kicking up dust. When he glanced at the rear view screen and saw Nisien screaming at us to stop, Halley roared with laughter.

‘He’ll thank me.’ He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. ‘Believe me, he will thank me. This thing hasn’t had any kind of proper test drive with his machine on board yet. It’ll speed up the whole process. I’m doing him a favour.’

‘Are you sure this vehicle’s safe? It’s rattling, listen. Wasn’t it decommissioned?’

‘It’s absolutely safe. One hundred and one percent.’ His eyes twinkled as he glanced at me. ‘All right: one hundred and two percent. Look, I wouldn’t risk it, would I? Especially not with you on board. It’s mechanically sound, it’s just an old model and they rattle. It’s built like an elephant. We drove one just like it out in Mumbai.’ By now, Nisien was out of sight.

‘We could have offered to take him and Robeen with us. It’s big enough. We could have all had an adventure together,’ I said.

‘’Fraid not. Nisien might not realise it but it’s his turn to help out at the site today. He’ll be up there at the caves with Robeen thoroughly enjoying himself in half an hour. By then, he’ll have forgotten about it.’

‘I really doubt that.’

‘In any case, I much prefer just the two of us, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes, of course.’

I felt sorry for Robeen having to spend the day with Nisien in one of his moods and this time the mood was perfectly justifiable which would only make it worse. Still, remembering the little act I’d signed up to, I smiled sweetly at Halley.

We drove to the coast, taking a wide detour to avoid the clifftop site. The class four was a lot more rattly and echoey than the more modern vehicles I was used to but it got us easily over some pretty rough terrain after we left the road. Halley was ecstatic when we came across a fallen tree blocking our path, its huge earthy root system upended towards us. Rather than go around it, which we could easily have done, he decided to road test the Barroblaster. The freezing beam shot from the front of the amphibical, encasing the tree in a brilliant blue light. This appeared to harden before our eyes as an invisible force squeezed the tree flatter and flatter in the middle. The blue beam shut off abruptly and the long double ellipse of the tree exploded at either end just the way I’d seen in demonstrations, only this tree was big and the burst of frozen wood shards and sparkling, powdered ice was even more spectacular. Halley whooped in delight and a ‘wow’ or two escaped me.

It soon felt like we’d left civilisation far behind. The rain came and went but the amphibical powered effortlessly through the great gusts of wind that tried to stop us like a warning hand. The sea to our left was dark and forbidding and the choppy waves reminded me of that poem I’d written at school. How long ago that seemed now and how strange to think that when I wrote it, I’d never seen a wave in real life. Would my poem be different if I wrote it now? I guessed it would. For all the heartache it had brought me, I knew that being on Earth was the most amazing privilege.

‘Where are you taking us?’

‘Dunno,’ said Halley. ‘But I know what I’m trying to find.’

‘What?’ He didn’t answer but I could see him smile to himself. He glanced at me, then reached over and took my hand, held it up to his mouth and kissed it. It made my skin crawl.

‘Do you remember us on the way to Earth, Bree?’ he said. ‘Making plans about all the things we were going to see and do, remember that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Earth hasn’t always lived up to your dreams, has it? But it can do, believe me.’

I knew what was coming.

‘Like your journey to Mumbai?’ I may have let a hint of impatience creep into my voice. Clearly, yes, I would have loved to have seen Mumbai for myself, but these secondhand reports from Halley were wearing.

He studied me then shouted, ‘Hold on!’ We veered off to the right.

I could see why: a truly enormous metamansk was heading straight for us. The sparse group of trees we nestled amongst gave enough shelter for us to observe their amazing display in safety. There must have been five hundred creatures in this group, darkening the sky in a miasma of movement and whirring noise. They performed their extraordinary and varied motions with perfect timing, almost mimicking a single animal, and it was breathtaking to watch. The metamansk actually did resemble single animals from time to time – you could spot them momentarily, the way you could catch glimpses of creatures in shifting cloud patterns on Earth. A mouth would open here, a set of paws rear up there or a dorsal fin would emerge and for a moment the whole beast would porpoise through the air before it broke up again.

We watched for a while but my thoughts had returned to my overwhelming problem. I might let myself be distracted for a short time, but it was always there: soon, the dreaded celephet would be fixed to the back of my head again and the torture would recommence. Jonah already hated me, but the thought of being turned into the means of torturing what remained of his consciousness was more than I could bear. Maybe that was why I felt so detached: my head simply couldn’t take any more. I couldn’t think straight and there didn’t seem to be any solution. I desperately needed a plan. How long could I carry on pretending to co-operate while basically doing nothing? Time was running out.

‘Extraordinary,’ said Halley. His voice jolted me back to the present with a start. ‘Once I thought it was the most amazing creature ever to have existed, but now I know there are other creatures just as incredible, many we haven’t even heard about on Mars. I saw plenty in…’

‘Mumbai.’ We finished his sentence off together.

‘I’d like to show you a little of what I mean.’

I wouldn’t meet his earnest gaze but kept focusing on the metamansk show. ‘That would be … nice.’

‘I was wondering where you went, Bree.’ His voice dropped a little. ‘Somehow you weren’t the same person I knew aboard the Byd. Just wanting to be at that Museum all the time. That’s not what we came for, is it?’

‘I thought I was the same person.’

‘Trust me, you weren’t.’ He laughed.

I could feel the anger and resentment stir inside me again, at the bottom of a deep, dark well. I couldn’t afford to show it though, I couldn’t and wouldn’t. The metamansk rose right up into the air and performed an amazing pirouette before the individuals began peeling off in different directions. As more and more of them left, the action became faster and faster until those that remained just blew apart like the seed heads of the yellow flowers that were scattered all over the grass before us.

Our amphibical emerged from the spindly trees once we were sure the dragomansk were all far enough away. We carried on heading west. Slowly, the sky began to clear of rainclouds and the sun came out, although the wind was still blustery enough to whip the waves into small peaks. We followed the track down until we were on a level with the sea itself, then Halley spun us out into the shallows. We began speeding along on top of the water much faster, following the curve of the coastline. Halley whooped with joy and it did feel exhilarating, skimming on top of the water at such speed, especially as the sunshine strengthened, accenting the waves with a brilliant, silvery, ever-shifting shimmer. If I had been in the right mood, it would have been a wonderful experience. I carried on pretending to enjoy myself for all I was worth, smiling until the muscles in my face hurt. The class four seemed in its natural element at last, no longer the awkward, lumbering brute it was on solid ground, but graceful on the water, like a dancer.

‘See?’ said Halley, leaning back with his head in his hands, snaking his hips from side to side in his seat, guiding the vehicle with one knee in the steering zone. ‘This is what we should be doing. This is what we should always have been doing, Bree.’

He was so in control, so sure of himself. So sure of me and of how dumb I was. I hated him more at that moment than I had at any time before and I struggled now because I was so tempted to strike at him, whatever the consequences.

‘You’ve got to live.’ He cocked his eyebrow and grinned, a dimple appearing in his cheek. ‘Live first, then you can write your poems.’

That was it.

‘I know that,’ I said through my teeth.

‘Sorry?’

‘You assume I haven’t been alive but I have. More truly alive than you can imagine.’

‘All that sitting about in the…’

‘That’s where I have been most alive.’

Halley frowned and sunk lower in his seat. The amphibical began to speed even faster, as though his mood was controlling it, and for the first time the engine sounded as though it was straining. A grind of protest came from beneath our seats and the holomap flickered. We rounded a corner and came up against a row of rocks jutting out of the water like fangs. Halley leapt forwards and with a flick of his fingers performed a sharp sudden turn to avoid them, but then, rather than turn back towards land, we headed on out to sea.

‘I don’t understand, aren’t you enjoying yourself?’ He grimaced, his flattened palms and twitching fingers attempting to regain a perfect balance.

‘With you, no. If I can be honest.’

‘Not again.’ He shook his head. ‘What’s wrong with you now?’

‘I know.’ My stomach was in knots but I couldn’t keep it locked up any longer. I wouldn’t tell him about Jonah, though.

‘You know? Know what?’

‘I know about you. I know what you’re doing here.’

Halley spun his hand in the steering zone and we turned a huge circle in the water.

‘What I’m doing here?’ I almost couldn’t hear him above the screeches of complaint from the class four.

‘I heard you and Carter,’ I yelled, and when he looked at me I could see understanding was beginning to dawn. ‘When you were in Carter’s room.’

‘You don’t know what you heard!’ He couldn’t tear his eyes away from me. We continued to circle.

‘Why? Because I’m too stupid?’

‘Bree, no!’ He tried to take my hand, forgetting that his was still needed to control the craft. It immediately lurched backwards, squealing, an almost animal-sounding protest of pain. Halley cursed and waved his hand angrily in the steering zone. The amphibical jolted us backwards and forwards, throwing us about in our seats before Halley regained control. We started heading out to sea again.

‘You pretended to be my friend,’ I said.

‘I am your friend. I always was your friend.’

‘LIAR!’

‘Don’t.’ Halley slowed the vehicle until it came to a standstill. The engine shut off and we bobbed gently on the water. By now, we were a long, long way from land. When he turned to look at me, he looked fearful and ashamed. ‘How long have you known?’

‘You argued with Carter the night before you left for Mumbai and I was just outside the door. Oh, I expect you’ve had numerous chats about me, but that’s the night I found out … what you both think of me.’

‘Bree, you’ve got…’

‘Don’t tell me I’ve got it wrong!’ I laughed.

‘I was going to say, you’ve got to forgive me.’

There was a pause. Golden sunlight plated the vast expanse of water ahead of us and it was strange to be floating in one spot and not making a sound. We were utterly alone, bobbing gently along as though nothing mattered. The sky was clear. It was rare to find dragomansk far out at sea, apparently.

‘Why should I forgive you?’ I asked.

‘I’m the one who doesn’t deserve to be on this mission. I’m only here because I agreed to lie and cheat and spy on you for Carter. I am a liar, I’m despicable and I know I am. Still, you have to forgive me.’

‘That makes no sense,’ I said.

‘Love makes no sense.’

I burst out laughing. Halley looked spent, drained. He wasn’t laughing.

‘You are – what? You are excusing yourself now by saying – what?’

‘That I’m in love.’ He looked as though he wanted to say more but couldn’t. We both fell silent.

‘Love’ was a strange word to come out of Halley’s mouth. Back home ‘love’ was an archaic concept, cherished the same way as the ancient buildings, but nobody ever really talked about actively being ‘in’ it. So Halley was ‘in love’ with – me? With himself, I could buy, but with me? This had to be the biggest, most breathtaking lie of the lot. What did he think I was? Oh yes, that’s right: stupid.

‘Just listen.’ He’d turned pale and his voice was strained as he sat rigid, staring straight ahead at the sea. It was a truly brilliant act, really almost convincing. ‘I’m not proud to say it but I signed up to Carter’s plan straight away. He came to school one afternoon and for some reason, which can’t be much of a compliment, I was the one called to Deputy Vilia’s office. She wasn’t there but he was. He explained everything and I agreed to act as your companion and keep an eye on you, there didn’t seem any harm in it really. He told me about the celephets: that yours was the only one that really worked and he told me why. He promised me the celephet wasn’t dangerous, same as he did to you. Well, you can guess why I agreed to the plan, the whole lie, can’t you? I knew that this was the only way I’d ever get on an Earth mission and coming to Earth had always been my dream, same as everyone at school. It’s what we all dream about all the time, isn’t it? I never stood a chance of getting picked, not ordinarily. I mean, I’m good at sports but I’m not that super-stunningly bright, not like Nisien, not like Robeen. And not like you either, Bree. That’s what Carter doesn’t realise: he thinks you’re unintelligent, but I don’t. You have real talent. What you’ve got, they don’t really teach at school. I started appreciating it as soon as I got to know you. And I learnt just enough from Empathy classes to know how they’d have put it, those old poets. I’ve fallen into love.’

‘Will you stop using that word?’ I cried. ‘No one says that word! If you think for a moment that I could ever believe what you’re saying…’

‘You have to,’ he whispered. ‘Or I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s in poems, isn’t it, that word? It must be what I’m feeling, Bree, because I think about you all the time.’

‘You liar.’ I whispered.

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I’ve lied my head off, but not about this.’

I tried to imagine myself encased in a hard, impenetrable shell. It wasn’t fair, having more woe and worry piled on top of me, squeezing the life out of me, when I was already fighting for breath.

‘This is like being buried alive,’ I muttered. Then to Halley, ‘So you’re quite happy about what’s going to happen to me next? You’re happy Carter’s going to reattach that thing to the back of my head? You don’t mind that, even though you love me so very much?’

He twitched, his chest rising and falling. ‘It won’t be for long though, will it? Once he’s got the dragomansk code, that’ll be it. It’ll all be over.’

‘I believe it might kill me this time.’ I was watching him very carefully.

‘No!’ He shook his head fervently. ‘Carter’s promised me no harm can come to you.’

‘Harm has already come to me,’ I protested. ‘Do you know what the celephet actually does? It tortures, Halley. It latches onto the consciousness and then it tortures it to try and get it to reveal what it wants to know. Carter’s lied to you.’

He was still shaking his head.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Listen to me. The consciousness will kick back, of course it will and I’m the one in the firing line, not you and certainly not Carter. My mind isn’t as empty as he thinks, it’s not some kind of empty channel, and I will get hurt by it, Halley, badly hurt. If he sticks that celephet on me again and sends me back in there, I believe I might lose my mind.’

He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he moaned. He reached out tentatively, his fingers flexing with nerves and this time I let him take my hand.

‘Help me,’ I said and he nodded, ashen-faced. Could I trust him? What choice did I have?

‘I’ll talk to Carter,’ he whispered.

‘What’s that going to do?’

He frowned as though he were fighting back tears. ‘Then we’ll find a different way.’

We were still drifting along, the sun smiling down on us and on the sea all around us.

My thoughts are like waves

Bobbing happily at sea…

I let him kiss my hand and put it to his cheek, wishing I could wholeheartedly trust him. At least he wasn’t driving me straight back to Carter, but that didn’t reassure me completely. Halley was inconsistent, he blew like the wind. Maybe it was because he was struggling with his conscience. Because he knew he’d done wrong. This I could just about believe.

‘We could always run away,’ he said, speaking slowly at first but then speeding up. ‘And go back when it’s time to return home. That’s it!’

I actually considered this for a moment as if it was a serious proposition. What would it be like to live as fugitives? Would it be possible to build a shelter and find food? If we lived deep in the forest like other creatures did, the dragomansk wouldn’t be able to get us. True, the fuel cylinders powering the amphibical would need changing, but could we return to Base quickly and stock up before disappearing, now, while everyone else was out of the building? On the other hand, SSO vehicles were probably easily traceable, and this one stood out a mile. How on earth would we hide it? And then of course there were the problems we’d face when it was time to go home.

‘We’d be marked down as traitors,’ I said. ‘That would be the end for us and our families.’

‘Unless we just stay. Stay here on Earth forever or until the next mission arrives in a few years time. Pretend we had amnesia or just got sick. I bet we could think up a good excuse. We’d be heroes.’

There was a mad enthusiasm in his eyes and he was squeezing my hand almost too tightly. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Halley, I don’t think so.’

‘You and me!’ he cried. ‘We could do all those things we always talked about on board the Byd, go everywhere, see everything before it’s too late. It’s tearing me apart, that Earth’s going to get destroyed and I’ve been one of the ones bringing it about. What kind of idiot am I?’

‘What’ll we eat?’ I yelped but he wasn’t listening, his eyes were roaming everywhere, his ideas accelerating to warp speed. It felt like he might be about to do something incredibly stupid and not for the first time.

‘Listen to me, Halley, what will we eat?’ I practically spelt out the words.

‘What did our ancestors eat?’ he shrugged.

‘I don’t know!’ I cried. ‘And that’s the point, neither do you!’

‘All right, we catch small things, frogs and birds and cook them on a fire. That would work.’

‘And how do we get fire?’ This was becoming farcical.

‘Our ancestors discovered how and so can we if we have to. We’ve seen fire, we’ve seen what it looks like in Empathy classes, there must be some around.’

‘Okay, Halley, calm down. We need to … we need … what are you doing?’

He was starting up the amphibical, his fingers poking and prodding the air then wriggling wildly.

‘This is where it starts.’ His eyes shone as though lit by an interior sun. ‘This is what I’ve been yearning to show you, Bree. Where I’ve been planning to take you today. After this, you’ll realise that anything’s possible for you and me.’

Without waiting for a reply, he flipped his hands up in the steering zone and the front of the class four crested sharply into the air. For a heart-stopping moment the sea was no longer visible. Then we dived, slapping the surface hard and then plunging through it, through a wall of bubbles, diving down steeply with the engines at full-tilt. There was no time to protest and the shock had knocked the ability to scream out of me. I just hung on to my seat, wide-eyed. Halley was making those crazed, whooping noises again, but he must have retained some self-control as before we hit the sea floor, he executed an expert steering action, as if he was gathering and pulling strings with his fingertips. The amphibical slowed until it was horizontal again and we began cutting through the water easily. Two strong lights snapped on at the front of the craft. The bubbles dispersed but the water remained an obscure greyish-green.