Chasing the Stars by Malorie Blackman Page A

my brother and a hero was an omen. A good one.’ My smile faded. ‘Turns out the name wasn’t such a good sign after all.’
    Nathan placed a commiserating hand on my thigh, just above my knee. I smiled at him grateful for his sympathy. He removed his hand but I could still feel the heat from it for seconds afterwards.
    ‘But to look at it another way, you were lucky,’ Erica said.
    ‘Lucky?’ I exclaimed. ‘How?’
    ‘How?’ Erica spoke as if surprised I even had to ask. ‘The whole galaxy has been yours to explore.’
    Wow! Was she serious?
    ‘Mine to explore
alone
. What’s the point of going to amazing places and seeing incredible sights when I’ve had no one to share them with?’ I asked.
    ‘And no one to tell you what to do or where you can and can’t go,’ said Erica. ‘Sounds great to me.’
    Erica had a romanticized view of my last few years. Travelling alone and lonely had been soul-destroying. Only clinging to thoughts of home back on Earth had kept me from flying the
Aidan
into a star.
    ‘It’s not as good as going home,’ I replied. ‘Not as good as knowing you have somewhere to go and somewhere to be and someone who cares waiting for you at the end of it.’
    ‘Yeah, well we don’t all have that waiting for us,’ Erica replied brusquely.
    She was glaring at me. Again. What had I said wrong this time? All at once the atmosphere in the room started to get tense.
    ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey and who you make it with that counts.’ Nathan was looking at me as he spoke.
    OK, Vee, you can look away now.
    Vee, move your head! Look away now.
    I couldn’t get my neck to move. I just kept looking into Nathan’s dark-green eyes, feeling like I was falling, drowning. It was only when Anjuli coughed meaningfully that I managed to tear my gaze away. All eyes were upon us. Heat flamed across my face.
    ‘So did you get to explore any of the planets you must’ve travelled past?’ asked Anjuli.
    I could’ve kissed her! Great change of subject. Thanks, Anjuli.
    ‘No, I didn’t.’
    ‘Not even one?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘But you could’ve? I mean, didn’t you have the ship’s robot to accompany you for safety?’ asked Anjuli. ‘Weren’t you the least bit curious?’
    I shrugged. ‘The ship’s robot was damaged beyond repair on one of the planets we explored over a year before the crew died. I wasn’t prepared to risk landing on any planet without one, to be honest.’
    ‘That’s understandable,’ said Mike. ‘You and your brother would’ve been far too vulnerable just by yourselves on some unknown planet.’
    ‘Exactly. When the ship’s robot was damaged, it couldn’t be salvaged so the decision was made to leave it behind.’ Time to change the subject. ‘I just want all of you to know how sorry I am about the friends and family you lost back on Barros 5. I know what it’s like to lose loved ones.’
    ‘We’re used to it,’ said Erica.
    I frowned. How did you ever get used to something like that? Mike gave Erica another significant look which she didn’t seem to notice.
    ‘What happened to the original crew when they died?’ asked Erica. ‘I mean, what did you do?’
    Strange question. What did she think I did? I wept. I hurt. I mourned. And I tried to move on.
    ‘Standard funeral procedures. The bodies of those who’d died were jettisoned out into space,’ I replied. ‘Towards the end, only Aidan and I were well enough to do that. We’d stand beside the bodies, I’d say a few words and then they were gone.’
    That had been the scariest, most unhappy time of my life. I still remembered my dad existing on a couple of hours’ sleep a night as he and his two medical colleagues desperately sought a cure, until he too had become ill. I’d had to watch my mum and dad and the rest of the crew die by degrees. I never wanted to go through that again.
    ‘It must’ve been lonely, just you and your brother,’ said