Space Case (18 page)

Lunar day 188

Bedtime

Unfortunately, Zan was nowhere to
be found. I circled the entire base three times, but she wasn't in any of the common areas. Lots of people remained in the mess, still savoring their last morsels of fresh pie—a few were even licking their plates clean—although a lot of the temps had retired to their quarters. (Arrival day can be exhausting.) My parents and Violet had left as well.

There were a few folks in the gym, and Roddy had taken his usual place in the rec room, jacked into the ComLink. He's there so often he might as well be a piece of furniture.

The science pod was empty, as were the control rooms,
save for Daphne, who was overseeing the robot arm. The Raptor rocket had brought plenty of heavy cargo that humans couldn't carry: new solar arrays, a lunar rover, and construction materials for Moon Base Beta. All of that had to be moved with the arm, which is half robot, half crane. It's enormous, with a span of one hundred feet, and it looks surprisingly like a real human arm and hand, minus the flesh and with steel instead of bone. There are only two differences: The “hand” has two thumbs in addition to its four fingers, which gives it better grip, while the “arm” has three joints, which gives it greater flexibility. The arm is anchored next to the rover garage outside, where it can reach from MBA to the launchpad and Solar Array 2.

Like most robots, the arm can do its job well without much human input. All it needs is the occasional order from Daphne about what to do next. Therefore, Daphne wasn't working that hard. She was reading an e-book, only glancing at the camera monitors every now and then to make sure everything was going well.

However, when I looped past her on my third sweep of the base, she had stopped reading. Instead she was furiously typing at one of the computers. Lines of code filled the screen. I edged forward, wondering what she was doing.

Daphne suddenly seemed to sense I was there. She spun around quickly, covering the computer screen with her body.
“Hey, Dash!” she called, trying to sound casual, although her voice sounded higher than usual. “Are you doing laps—or looking for someone?”

I almost asked if she'd seen Zan, but then caught myself, remembering that Zan had warned me not to let anyone know we were working together. Daphne was the least threatening adult at the station—I couldn't imagine her squashing a bug, let alone bumping off Dr. Holtz—but Zan still wouldn't want me tipping her off about us. “I'm looking for my folks,” I lied.

“I think they took your sister back to your room.” Daphne laughed. “That Violet's such a pistol. I love her. She conned three people into giving her an extra slice of pie, then got hopped up on sugar and ran around like a hurricane until she collapsed from exhaustion.”

“Sounds like Violet all right.” I gave Daphne a wave of thanks and headed home. I figured Zan must have turned in for the night herself, and all the temps shared sleeping quarters. Despite how anxious I was to talk to her, it looked like I'd have to wait for her to come find me.

Daphne didn't resume typing on the computer. At least not while I was in range. Instead she made a show of monitoring the robot arm as I walked away.

Sure enough, my family was back in our room. Violet was almost comatose after her sugar rush, murmuring nonsense
while Dad tried to pour her into her Hello Kitty pajamas. Mom was seated at the table, typing on the SlimScreen.

“Hey!” Mom said, nice and chipper. “Did you find Kira?”

“Yes.”

“Mmmm,” Violet sighed sleepily. “I love pie.”

“What was the big emergency?” Dad asked me.

“She was just trying to get everything set up in her room and couldn't figure out the computer.” I didn't like lying to my parents, but I knew they wouldn't be pleased with the truth.

“That couldn't have waited until the end of dinner?” Mom inquired.

“What are you writing?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

It worked. “A eulogy for Dr. Holtz,” Mom said. “Nina wants to have a ceremony for him tomorrow, and she asked me to speak.”

“Only you?” I wanted to know.

“No,” Mom said. “A few others will talk too. Nina. Dr. Janke. Maybe Kira's father.”

“I want a pony,” Violet said dreamily.

Dad slid her into her sleep pod and gave her a kiss on the forehead. A second later she was snoring.

“What's happening to Dr. Holtz's body?” I asked.

“NASA gave permission to bury it on the moon,” Mom
said. “And so did Dr. Holtz's daughter. She said it would be the perfect place for her father to end up. Plus Katya and the others didn't like the idea of bringing a corpse back with them on the rocket.”

“Who's digging the grave?” I asked.

“No one,” Mom explained. “Daphne's sending some robots out to do it tomorrow. It's too dangerous to use humans for this. The crust is so thick they'll have to blast through it.”

I sat next to my mother at the table. “Will the body decay here?”

“Ew,” Mom said. “What kind of question is that?”

“A legitimate one,” Dad told her. “No, the body won't really decay, without an atmosphere or any life forms to break it down. Instead it'll sort of mummify.”

I nodded, then turned back to my mother. “What are you going to say?”

“The usual, I guess. What a great person Dr. Holtz was. How he was so committed to human spaceflight. How this place was the realization of his life's work. Blah blah blah.” Mom frowned and put her face in her hands. “It's so darn difficult, summing up a man's entire life in one speech.”

Dad said, “If anyone can do it, it's you.” He came behind Mom and kneaded her shoulders. Mom sighed with relief and closed her eyes.

“Mom,” I said, “you were going to tell me something about Dr. Holtz at breakfast. But you never got to because Dr. Marquez interrupted us. Something important I should know about Dr. Holtz.”

Mom reluctantly opened her eyes. She looked a little confused, like she was trying to remember the conversation.

I tried to jolt her memory. “I was saying this hadn't been an accident. And you said there was something else I ought to know.”

“Oh, right.” Mom leaned in close to me. “This is not to be repeated, though. I don't want it leaving this room.”

“Sure. What is it?”

Mom said, “I think Dr. Holtz's mind might have been slipping.”

I glanced at Dad. He didn't seem surprised by this, so I guess he and Mom had discussed it before. “How so?”

“Well, he didn't seem as sharp as usual over the last few weeks,” Mom told me. “He was distracted a lot. Kind of spaced out. And then he'd be manic. Incredibly happy. Unnaturally so.”

I thought back to Dr. Holtz in the bathroom the night before he died. “Maybe he was just excited about this big discovery he'd made.”

Mom sighed. “Perhaps, but . . . I wonder if Dr. Holtz had even made a discovery at all.”

“You mean, he only thought he had?” I asked.

“It's possible,” Mom replied, “if he was really suffering from some sort of mental breakdown. There's a lot of precedent with this. A scientist believes they're on the verge of something huge: figuring out some famous unsolved math problem, or developing a new physical theory. They fill up notebooks with ideas and formulas and it all looks very convincing. But when other scientists come in and look everything over . . . they find it's all just nonsense.”

I frowned. “But those scientists are dealing with serious mental disorders, right? Like schizophrenia. Dr. Holtz never seemed that bad to me. . . .”

“He was talking to himself too,” Mom said.

“Lots of people do that,” I countered.

“Not like this,” Mom said gravely. “I came across him doing it one night. It wasn't talking like you mean. It was like he was having a conversation with an imaginary person. Someone he actually thought was there. He wasn't just talking. He was
listening
too.”

I straightened up, concerned. “So . . . you think he was really going crazy? Like certifiably nuts?”

“I don't know,” Mom sighed. “This isn't my specialty. But I brought it up to Nina and she said I wasn't the only one who'd noticed.”

“Who else had seen him?” I asked.

“Nina wouldn't say. But she'd asked Dr. Marquez to start keeping a close eye on Dr. Holtz.”

“A lot of things can go wrong with the human mind,” Dad told me. “Dr. Holtz was getting on in years. This might have been the start of Alzheimer's or some other age-related dementia. Or perhaps it was something triggered by spending so much time here at an advanced age. Maybe due to the lower concentration of oxygen in the air or something like that.”

“You mean he might really have had some sort of space madness?” I said. “Roddy suggested that today. I can't believe Roddy actually might have been right about something.”

Dad looked surprised as well. “Neither can I,” he said. “Although Roddy is the son of our base psychiatrist. I suppose he could learn something now and then.”

I looked down at my hands. “So . . . you think this all has something to do with why Dr. Holtz walked out the air lock alone?”

“It might,” Mom said. “If he was really losing his mind, it explains why he might have done something so uncharacteristically careless like that.”

I thought back to the footage I'd seen of Dr. Holtz in the air lock. If he was really going crazy, could he have simply
imagined
someone was forcing him to go out on the lunar surface to die? It made sense—and yet Dr. Holtz had seemed to me like he was in complete control of his mind. His sign language had been so deliberate. He'd had such focus. But then I was only a kid. I didn't know squat about mental illness.

I considered telling my parents about the footage I'd seen of Dr. Holtz in the air lock—and the cryptic message he'd left. I was tired of keeping it all a secret. But I'd promised Zan not to tell anyone about our investigation. At the very least, it seemed, I should update her first on what I'd learned, before telling anyone else. Certainly I'd be able to find her the next day—if she didn't come find me herself.

“So that's why Nina didn't want me making a stink about Dr. Holtz's death?” I asked. “She thinks he was losing it too?”

“I don't know the specific reasons why Nina told you to keep quiet,” Mom answered. “But I'd say that makes sense. I'm sure NASA doesn't want the public—or the press—to have any idea that Dr. Holtz might have been slipping.”

“Why not?”

“Because it could make people question the entire manned space program,” Dad explained. “What if Dr. Holtz's illness was caused—or hastened—by his living here?
What does that say for the future of human habitation on the moon? Or any long-term space travel?”

“So NASA isn't going to look into any of that?” I asked, concerned. “It seems kind of important, seeing as
we're
living on the moon.”

Mom gave Dad a pointed stare, not pleased with him for bringing this issue up. Then she spoke in her most comforting voice. “Your father was only posing a question for the sake of argument. If Dr. Holtz had mental problems, they weren't caused by living up here. These types of health issues are usually genetic—or related to aging. And Dr. Holtz was a lot older than everyone else here.”

“Even older than Mr. Grisan?” Violet asked from her sleep pod.

We all turned to her, surprised she was awake again. She seemed to be still partly asleep, cocooned in her blankets, her eyelids drooping.

“How long have you been listening?” Dad asked.

“I don't know.” Violet yawned. “Mr. Grisan seems
way
older than Dr. Holtz. Like a hundred years older.”

Mom knelt by Violet's pod and stroked her hair to soothe her back to sleep. “He's not.”

“He's still not that young,” I said thoughtfully. “Is anyone worried about
his
mental health? He acts a lot stranger
than Dr. Holtz ever did. He barely ever talks to anyone.”

“Mr. Grisan's just quiet,” Mom told me. “And perhaps a bit self-conscious. He's the only blue-collar worker in a base filled with scientists. That can't be easy.”

“I want to be a ballerina,” Violet sighed, and then her eyes slid shut. Mom tickled her nose and got no response.

“She's asleep again,” Mom said, keeping her voice lower now.

I asked, “If Dr. Holtz might have gone through the air lock because he was crazy, is NASA going to investigate that?”

“Oh, there's definitely going to be a major inquiry into this,” Dad replied. “There's been a death, after all.”

“So is NASA going to send investigators up here?”

“No,” Dad said. “We're in a very unusual position. If this were a military base on earth, the government would probably send a whole team of people in to find out exactly what happened. But that's just not feasible here. There's no seat available for even one investigator on any of the rockets—and even if there was, they wouldn't be able to get here for weeks. So there's not much NASA can do except rely on Nina for the answers. I know she's been ordered to compile a report on Dr. Holtz's death—and that Dr. Marquez has been asked to help.”

I asked, “So if Dr. Marquez said Dr. Holtz went out the air lock because he was going crazy, NASA would buy it?”

“So would I,” Mom said pointedly. “It was his job to analyze Dr. Holtz.”

I nodded understanding. My parents' stories about Dr. Holtz had shaken me. They seemed to truly believe he might have been going crazy—and that his great discovery might have been a delusion. I now wondered that myself. Could his euphoria that night in the bathroom have been the result of mental illness? Could his signing that he was being murdered have merely been paranoia? Come to think of it, he'd signed that the earth had killed him, which certainly
sounded
crazy.