‘I doubt that mate,’ said Tom. ‘Mars is a one-way trip. Your muscles will waste away with the low gravity. Few people have returned to Earth after years of bouncing around on Mars.’
‘Uh!’ said Zak. He shook his head slowly. Couldn’t there be any sliver of hope he could cling to?
‘You’re young, you might be okay,’ said Tom. ‘Count yourself lucky you’re not going to the Moon.’
Zak laughed uneasily.
‘I am worried though,’ said Tom sheepishly. ‘Who knows what will happen when you get to Mars. You might change, get interested in something else…’
‘No!’ protested Zak. He bolted upright to try and dispel his own gloom. He couldn’t let Tom give up hope. ‘We’ll talk regularly. You can still keep an eye on me.’
‘I hope so,’ said Tom sincerely.
‘Of course!’ insisted Zak. ‘We can even talk on the journey. I’ll call you when I get onboard the ship. Although I don’t know how easy it will be with the time lag.’
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ said Tom. ‘In fact, I wanted to talk to you about the journey.’
‘Sure,’ said Zak. ‘But I don’t know much about it.’
‘Do you know what ship you’re travelling on?’ asked Tom.
‘Hang on,’ said Zak.
He glanced at the top of the wall and navigated the house computer via the icons. He accessed Dad’s files and opened the travel details. Several documents were displayed, tiled across the wall. Zak scanned them and found one that contained information about the ship.
‘It’s called the Colossus,’ he said. ‘That’s a bold statement eh?’
‘I’ve been reading up on these passenger ships,’ said Tom. ‘The Colossus is the biggest one yet built. Each new ship gets bigger and bigger, so I’m not sure what they’re going to call the next one.’
‘It doesn’t look that impressive from the image,’ said Zak.
‘That’s probably because you can’t tell its true size,’ said Tom. ‘It should look better when you see it for real. You know, inside it’s like a hotel, it’s got everything to keep you amused.’
