Oh man, that was such a hard question. My heart and my head had different answers. Who knows what would happen? I loved Izzy, no doubt . . . but how many kids who fall in love in school ever stay together? No matter how much they love each other. No matter how much they can’t imagine loving anyone else. No matter what. The counselors in the mission gave us statistics and probabilities and all of the math. They explained it all in a big-picture way.
I knew all of that. I understood the logic.
And I’d spent a lot of time wondering if I’d have been a better person, and a kinder one, to simply break up with Izzy months ago. To take her off the hook. To stop hurting her and dragging her through all of this.
But . . .
I touched her cheek and, as gently as I could, steered her lips toward mine.
We kissed for a long, long, long time.
They were very good kisses.
And they gave her my answer better than anything I could have said in words.
Chapter 22
* * *
We heard Mindy and her producers calling for us. After a minute Mrs. Drake tapped on the window frame. Izzy and I were wrapped in each other’s arms.
“It’s time, sweeties,” said Mrs. Drake. When I looked at her I could see that she’d been crying. “I’m so sorry.”
She backed out of the window and gave us another minute.
We got up slowly, reluctantly, and went inside. Izzy freshened her makeup; I combed my hair. We kissed again at the top of the stairs and then went down to film the Great Good-bye scene.
Mindy staged it on the porch, with the porch light spilling down on us. It was supposed to look as though we were alone and I was saying good-bye like we were at the end of a date. Just the two of us, a private and intimate moment. As if there weren’t five thousand people on the street and in the neighbors’ gardens and sitting on the roofs across the street, and as if millions of people weren’t going to watch it on cable and YouTube and everywhere else.
So, sure, we kissed, and we hugged each other, because to us some of it was real. It was our last moment.
I’ll never be sure which one of us started laughing first.
PART TWO
BLACK VOID
Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.
—H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, 1895
Be humble for you are made of earth.
Be noble for you are made of stars.
—Serbian proverb
Chapter 23
* * *
We left the next morning. Mom, Dad, and me.
Frick and Frack loaded our stuff into their SUV and we were rolling before the sun even came up. I sat in the corner of the backseat, my head craned around to look at our house as it grew smaller behind us. One of us forgot to turn out the living room light. It looked like people still lived there.
Then we turned the corner and the house was gone. The people who moved in would have pretty interesting stories to tell their friends. Hey, you know where we live? You know the Harts, those crazy people who went to live on Mars? Yeah, it’s their old place. That’d be a heck of a story topper.
Even though it felt like we were running away, I knew that wasn’t the truth.
We were running toward.
Chapter 24
* * *
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.
Chapter 25
* * *
While Mom and Dad signed some papers for the airport people, Frick and Frack escorted me along a line of people who wanted me to sign autographs. They were on the other side of police barricades and monitored by city cops, airport security, mission security, and my two private thugs. If all that security freaked out the people, it didn’t show. They yelled, they held signs, they screamed my name like I was a rapper or rock star. It was nuts.
There were some other people there too, scattered through the crowd. They carried signs too, but not with our pictures on them. Not with the Mars One logo or anything like that.
They had signs like, MARS IS DEATH.
And like, MARS IS HELL. YOU WILL BURN THERE.
And, GOD IS ON EARTH—FIND HIM HERE!
And, YOU CANNOT FLEE FROM YOUR SINS.
Frack must have caught my vibe because he and Frick closed in on either side of me, body blocking me from going anywhere.
“They’re not Neo-Luddites,” said Frack.
“I know, but they—”
Frack cut me off. “Don’t bother. And don’t pick fights you can’t win.”
And Frack corrected him, “No—only pick fights you know you can win.”
Frick thought about that, nodded.
Mom and Dad finished their paperwork and we had to go through speeches from the mission people and some scientists from NASA, SpaceX, and other groups. Then handshakes with all sorts of people, most of whom I didn’t know. I heard Mom warn Dad not to crack too many stupid jokes in front of the press. He crossed his heart and held up a hand to God, but his fingers were crossed. Mom looked at him suspiciously and shook her head in exasperation. The vice president was there. This wasn’t an American mission, so we didn’t rate the actual president. A lot of NASA people were there and even some people from our rival SpaceX. They were very cool. Lots of smiles and good wishes. No one talking trash, no one putting us down.
A few Hollywood superstars were there, and that was cool. Mostly actors who’d been in space movies over the last ten or twenty years. Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Sam Rockwell, Rooney Mara, the whole cast of the last six Star Wars movies, and four of the actors from Star Trek. Steven Spielberg, J. J. Abrams, and Christopher Nolan were there too. All three of them had Mars movies in the works, so I guess this was as much about PR for them as it was support for us. That was cool. Maybe they’d kick something into the Hart Foundation.
There were more speeches, and it seemed like people were just saying the same things in only slightly different ways. Everyone seemed to want to be recorded saying a catchy sound bite. When all that stuff was done we all went into the terminal building. And yes, we still had to go through security. Some of the reporters went through too, because their networks and news services had paid Mars One for special access to do interviews during our flight.
Those reporters used every possible second to ask us the same questions we’d already answered in a million previous interviews. Not sure how this was going to be different. I mean, we were heading to the Netherlands for the last part of training and mission prep—we weren’t leaving for Mars yet. But I guess the twenty-four-hour news cycle needed to be fed. Dad’s way of putting it, mind you. So, because it was required of us and because it passed the time, we answered the questions. Sometimes we tried to make the tired old information sound brand-new, but after a while we were all repeating the same answers we’d come to rely on. I guess that’s how it works. There’s only so much you can say, but saying it again—fresh and live—makes it “new.”
They called our flight and we headed out to the boarding gate, showed our tickets, boarded the plane. Frack sat in an otherwise empty row in front of us, Frick sat behind us. Reporters were all around us. Nobody got much rest, but sometimes the focus wasn’t on me and I could tune it all out. I turned to the window and looked out at the clouds. At the green-and-brown land far below. At the blue of the water. And then up at the sky, trying to find that flicker of red way out in the black. It was there, I knew. Waiting.
We flew to Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands. It was the last place we would all live on this planet.
Chapter 26
* * *
I said good-bye to Frick and Frack at the gates of the Mars One Center compound on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Their job was done and the mission’s in-house security detail would take over from here. They shook hands with my folks and when Mom and Dad walked in through the gate, the two big bodyguards stood there for a moment, looking at me. Even after all this time I couldn’t read their expressions.
“Thanks,” I said, “you guys have been great.”
Nothing. They stood there just looking at me.
“I . . . guess I’d better go in.” I cleared my throat. “Right, then, okay . . . well . . .” I really had nothing, so I held out my hand, not sure if either of them would take it.
Frick did. He shook it with the hard, dry single pump you’d expect. But then he didn’t let go. And after a second he used our grip to pull me into a hug.
Frack wrapped his arms around both of us and we stood there, the two of them crushing me between them, in the strangest hug I’ve ever had. Or ever will have.
Frick released me first, stepped back, and stood there, a strange expression on his face. Pretty sure he was trying to smile, but it looked like it actually hurt his face muscles. Frack gave me a final squeeze, put his hands on my shoulders, and pushed me to arm’s length so he could look me up and down. He shook his head and he smiled too. His looked a little more human and less like a gargoyle trying to grin with stone lips.
“Off the record,” said Frack, “when we got this gig we thought you’d be some privileged, snotty-nosed little creep who thought he was all that.”
“Um . . . ,” I began, but he wasn’t finished.
“But you’re okay, Tristan. You might actually turn into someone. You got the makings. My guess is that even you don’t know what you got. But I think you’re going to keep on surprising people.”
He released me, clapped me hard on the shoulder, and stepped back. I stared at him and tried to think of some way to respond. But like I said . . . I had nothing. I was too shocked. So I stuck to the basics.
“Thanks.”
Frick and Frack nodded.
“Go be amazing, kid,” said Frick.
“See you in the history books,” said Frack.
And with that they turned and walked away.
I lingered a couple of moments longer, watching them get into their rental car, trying to process what just happened, realizing that you can never really know everything about people. Especially when you don’t bother to look very hard.
Frick and Frack. Henry Kang and Angelo Carrieri.
I had a lot of friends that I was leaving behind. More than I thought.
Chapter 27
* * *
I stopped halfway to the mission training center and looked back to where the bus and cars were pulling away. Something about that sight grabbed me, made me watch.
My cell phone buzzed and when I looked at it I saw that there was a new text from Izzy. It was a selfie. In wrinkled pajamas, with no makeup and tragic bed hair, her eyes bleary and puffy from crying. But she had on a crooked, ironic little smile.
How can you bear to leave all of this?
It was supposed to be funny. It was Izzy trying to take me off the hook. I touched the screen with my fingertips.
&n
bsp; “I love you, Izzy.”
Only that wasn’t me saying it. I spun around and standing ten feet behind me was a tall kid about my own age. Intense dark eyes filled with a kind of humor I couldn’t quite identify. Not actually mean, but on the spiky side of sarcastic. A big smile with a lot of white teeth. Hair shaved to a shadow on his head, skin the color of milk chocolate, and a complexion most girls would kill for. He stood there with his hands in the pockets of loose board shorts. Sandals and a SURF JEFFREYS BAY tank. A necklace made from pieces of coral. A tattoo of the African continent on his left shoulder.
“Luther,” I said.
“Tristan,” he said. “The second teenage boy ever to step onto Martian soil.”
“Second? Yeah, I don’t think so.”
He laughed as if this were all a done deal. “We’re creating a meritocracy, boy. The most important member of the team takes the first step, and right now I’m so far out in front you might as well stay on Earth. I’ll send you pictures.”
“Like I said, we’ll see.” It wasn’t the crushing comeback I’d have preferred. I’m usually pretty good with zingers but for some reason my sarcasm guns misfired around Luther. Not sure why. Maybe it was because he always acted as if he’d already won every contest before we even started. I knew it was a tactic, but it was an annoying and effective one.
Luther Mbede was—as he told me three separate times during our previous training sessions—Zulu. All Zulu. Not a trace of anything else in his blood. It was a point of pride with him. He had a lot of pride in his people, his culture, his heritage. I liked that about him. His runaway ego . . . ? I didn’t like that as much.