‘There it is,’ my mother says, and what she means is that the dot we’ve been nearing for weeks, the one that’s been growing into a larger dot with two smaller dots circling it, has now become even larger than that, growing from a dot to a disc, shining back the light from its sun, until you can see the blue of its oceans, the green of its forests, the white of its polar caps, a circle of colour against the black beyond.
Our new home, the one we’ve been travelling towards since way before I was even born.
We’re the first ones to see it for real, not through telescopes, not through computer mapping, not even in my own drawings in the art classes I take on the Beta with Bradley Tench, but through just the couple centimetres of glass in the cockpit viewscreen.
We’re the first ones to see it with our own eyes.
‘The New World,’ my father says, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘What do you think we’ll find there?’
I cross my arms and pull away from him.
‘Viola?’ he asks.
‘I’ve seen it already,’ I say, walking out of the cockpit. ‘It’s wonderful. Hooray. Can’t wait to get there.’
‘Viola,’ my mother says sharply, as I shut the cockpit door behind me. It’s a slotted door, so I can’t even slam it. I keep going to my small bedroom and barely shut my own door before there’s a knock on it. ‘Viola?’ my father says from the other side.
‘I’m tired,’ I say. ‘I want to sleep.’
‘It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.’
I don’t say anything.
‘We’ll be entering orbit in four hours,’ he says, his voice calm, not rising to my attitude at all. ‘There’ll be work for you to do starting in two.’
‘I know my duties,’ I say, still not opening the door.
There’s a pause. ‘It’s going to be all right, Viola,’ he says, his voice even kinder. ‘You’ll see.’
‘How do you know?’ I say back. ‘You’ve never lived on a planet either.’
‘Well,’ he says, brightening up, ‘I’ve got lots of hope.’
And there it is. That word I’m so completely sick of.
