They climbed up the stairs and into the cockpit. Jerrie Hixon strapped herself into the pilot’s seat, working the controls with practised ease. With her flight cap, freckles, and devil-may-care grin, she reminded Naomi of old photos of Amelia Earhart. Valerie and Naomi lay down in the body of the plane. The floor was padded, the white walls smooth, and the only window was on the door.

The engines rumbled to life, so loud they drowned out Naomi’s thoughts. She was grateful for the distraction. Hixon raced the plane along the runway, gathering speed. Naomi loved the moment of flight when the wheels lifted off and you knew you were no longer Earthbound. If she were at the window, she’d watch the ground grow distant as they rose over the grids of houses, the swathes of freeway like grey ribbons, and Mt. Tamalpais would look like little more than an inexpertly moulded pile from a child’s sandbox. Hixon pushed up, up through the lower atmosphere, speeding to the upper stratosphere at a forty-five-degree angle.

Naomi should be proud she’d made it to the second round of interviews. Objectively, she knew this. She hadn’t lost her nerve during questions designed to poke at her weaknesses or show the cracks in her psychology. She’d proved her physical fitness—swimming, running long distances on the treadmill interspersed with all-out sprinting, the ever-present monitor tracking her heartbeat. She hadn’t panicked when they’d put her in the sensory deprivation chamber, floating in water the exact temperature of her skin, time ceasing to have any sense of meaning.

Naomi had thought she’d performed well in the tests. No, she knew she had.

But what do you do when your best isn’t good enough?

“Ready?” Valerie called.

Hixon reduced the thrust and lowered the nose of the airplane, creating the perfect parabolic arc relative to the centre of the Earth.

Naomi felt it—that first sense of her body lightening as Hixon brought them over the apex. The candidates that were chosen wouldn’t have a chance to go up in one of NASA’s vomit comets for ages yet. She’d beaten them to this. Sure, it was only because she’d grown up with one of the richest people in the world, but still. She’d take her victories where she could. Naomi’s back arced as she rose.

“I didn’t get into NASA my first time,” Hixon said, her voice amplified by the speakers. Naomi twisted, staring at the back of the pilot’s head. “I think that was my first heartbreak.”

Naomi darted a glance at Valerie, who kept her face very innocent. Naomi should have known Hixon was going to be a part of the pep talk.