Space Case (24 page)

Lunar day 189

Afternoon

Roddy didn't bother making an
excuse to leave the memorial service. He just scurried right out the door. Kira was close on his heels, excited to investigate.

I held back, though. If Daphne was the killer—which was hard to believe, but still possible—then she'd be dangerous. I tried to get Zan Perfonic's attention without being too obvious about it, waving at her.

She looked my way—but so did several other people. So much for not being obvious.

I pointed out the door, trying to indicate it was urgent.

Wait,
Zan mouthed.

“Dash!” Kira hissed from the hallway. “C'mon!”

I reluctantly stepped out of the room, hoping Zan would follow. Kira was waiting in the hall, but Roddy was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He ran on ahead,” Kira told me.

“Why didn't you stop him?”

“What am I supposed to do? Tell him we suspect her in Dr. Holtz's death?” Kira paused. “
Is
she a suspect in Dr. Holtz's death?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “But she's definitely up to something.”

“Then maybe we should find her before Roddy does and messes everything up.”

I glanced back into the rec room. Zan was still watching me, but she didn't seem comfortable leaving the service yet. She hadn't taken a step toward the door.

“All right,” I said.

“He went this way.” Kira bounded toward the main air lock. She tried to go quickly, but she was still having trouble in low g, so she flew too high and nearly banged her head on the catwalk.

I caught her leg, yanked her back down, and helped her along. We hooked right through the staging area and quickly came upon Roddy. He was flattened up against the wall of
the administrative offices, doing his best to stay out of sight. Kira and I stopped in our tracks. Roddy pointed through the office window and mouthed,
In there.

I gingerly took a few steps forward until I could see through the office window. Sure enough, Daphne was on the computer. She was typing frantically, bringing up page after page of information, pausing every few moments to touch her watch to the screen and download something. She certainly wasn't supposed to be there. She had the same look that Violet always has when she's sneaking candy without permission.

I was about to step back, out of Daphne's range of sight, when Roddy sneezed.

It wasn't a tiny sneeze either. It was a great big snot-blaster. In the otherwise quiet hallway, Roddy might as well have clashed two cymbals together.

Daphne turned from the computer, saw me through the window, and shrieked.

This startled Roddy, who shrieked as well.

Daphne clutched her heart in shock. “Holy cow! You guys almost scared me to death!”

Kira opened the office door and asked, “What are you doing in here?”

Daphne looked from Roddy to me to Kira, desperation in her eyes. She quickly tried to come up with a lie—and
failed. “I'm . . . uh . . . I'm . . . Oh, fiddlesticks. I can't keep this up any longer. I'm a spy.”

“You?”
I couldn't contain my surprise. It was impossible to envision Daphne as a spy. A kindergarten teacher, yes. Or someone who ran a bakery. But a spy?

“Not like for the CIA or anything,” Daphne said quickly. “I'm a corporate spy.”

“You mean, for a company?” Kira asked.

Daphne nodded, then flushed in embarrassment. “For Maximum Adventure.”

“The tourism company?” Roddy screwed up his face in confusion. “Why? They're already running the tourism here.”

“They want to open their own hotel on the moon,” Daphne admitted, “so instead of bringing up just one family of billionaires at a time, they can bring up lots of them.”

“How long have they been planning this?” Kira asked.

“Years.” Now that her secret was out, Daphne seemed very relieved, like a weight had been lifted off her. She'd obviously been keeping everything bottled up, and now it spewed out of her. “They've suspected all along that MBA wouldn't really be the perfect vacation place—and now that the Sjobergs are so upset, they're worried all the others they have lined up to come here will start backing out. They've wanted to build a
real
resort here all along. With nice beds and good food and masseuses and low-gravity sports and stuff like that.”

“What are you doing for them?” I asked.

“Getting information,” Daphne replied. “About how certain systems work. Like the evaporators and the heating and stuff like that.”

“You're not
getting
information,” Roddy corrected. “You're
stealing
it. NASA spent billions of dollars developing those systems and now you're going to give it all away?”

Daphne hung her head in shame. “You're right. This is bad. Really, really bad. It's just that when Maximum Adventure approached me, they didn't make it
sound
bad. I mean, no one was going to get hurt. And to be honest, I really needed the money. This gig doesn't pay all that well. I could have made ten times what I'm getting here if I'd stayed back on earth and worked for a private robotics company.”

Kira asked, “Then why'd you come?”

“Why did any of us?” Daphne replied. “To go to the moon! To make history! And when Maximum Adventure offered me the money, I figured I could have it both ways: live here
and
cash out. But it's been terrible. Maximum Adventure has asked me to do far more than I thought they would. And I've hated living a lie. Just hated it. I like everybody here so much, and I've been going behind all your backs all this time. Look at me! I loved Dr. Holtz, and here I am, skipping out on his memorial to do this dirty work.”

“To be honest, you're not missing much,” I said.

Daphne heaved a huge sigh. “I can't believe I'm telling you all this. I'm the worst spy in the world.”

“Pretty much,” Roddy agreed. “We're only kids and you cracked like an egg.”

Daphne laughed. “I know. But it just feels so good to tell someone. I've always hated lying. And now I've had to tell the biggest lie of my life for months.” She paused as something occurred to her. “Please don't tell anyone.”

“We can't lie for you,” Kira said.

Daphne looked horrified. “No! That's not what I meant! I meant that
I
should tell everyone what I've done, not you. I've lied long enough. It's time for me to be honest. I'll do it right after the memorial is over.”

I looked to Kira and Roddy. It seemed like all of us should be really upset at Daphne, but I certainly didn't feel that way, and the others didn't seem to either. Daphne was simply too nice—and she seemed upset enough at herself for the four of us. “All right,” I said.

“We should get back,” Kira added. “Nina's probably almost done with her eulogy by now.”

“I wouldn't bet on it,” Roddy grumbled.

I started back toward the rec room. “Still, I shouldn't miss my mom's eulogy. She worked really hard on it.”

Kira began to follow me. However, Roddy stayed rooted to his spot, staring Daphne down.

“You coming?” he asked.

“In a few minutes,” Daphne told him. “There's one more thing I need to take care of.”

I stopped in my tracks. I liked Daphne, but I didn't completely trust her anymore. “What?”

Daphne put her hand over her heart. “It's nothing for Maximum Adventure, I swear. I'm not even going to send them the files you caught me swiping just now. But while I was doing that, I noticed something strange in the robot log from two nights ago, and I want to follow up on it before I forget.”

Kira and I shared a look, the same idea occurring to us at once.

“You mean, the night Dr. Holtz died?” Kira asked.

“Yes.” Daphne had turned back to the computer. She wiped away several windows until she came to a log sheet filled with dates and times. “It's probably nothing important. You should get back to the memorial.”

I returned to the door of the office. “What was strange?”

Daphne scanned through the log. “Well, as you know, there are hundreds of robots at work here, especially at night. They run all sorts of maintenance tasks while we're asleep: calibrating the evaporators, checking the seals on the exterior of the base for oxygen leaks, cleaning the solar arrays, and so on. They work in carefully timed shifts, so they're not
all bumping into one another out there and screwing each other up. The computer logs all their entry and exit times, so I can tell if there's a problem with any of them. Like, if I see that a solar-panel robot is taking longer than usual, I know it might be time to run some maintenance; it probably has moon dust built up in its joints or something. But instead of the usual three hundred sixteen robots two nights ago, the log shows there were three hundred
seventeen
.”

Kira and I shared another intrigued look.

Roddy kept his eyes locked on Daphne, suspicious. Now that he'd busted her for spying, it was like he imagined himself to be the base police force. “Why are you only noticing this now? Aren't you supposed to check the logs every morning?”

Daphne sighed. “Yes. But as you might recall, there was a lot going on here yesterday.”

“What happened yesterday?” Roddy asked.

I smacked him on the back of the head. “Dr. Holtz died, you moron.”

“Oh yeah,” Roddy said.

Daphne said, “With all the commotion, I forgot all about checking the robot logs.”

Kira asked, “Do you know what the extra robot was?”

“Not yet.” Daphne kept scrolling through the log. “But it shouldn't take long to find out. . . . Aha! Here we go!”
Daphne pointed at the screen triumphantly, then looked surprised. “That's weird.”

“What?” Kira and I asked at once.

“I was expecting that one of the maintenance robots had glitched,” Daphne told us. “That instead of going out once, it went twice. But according to this, a drone went out.”

“What's a drone?” Kira inquired.

“A robot we send out for a specific task,” Daphne explained. “The maintenance robots do the same thing all the time, day after day. But often we need to handle something more precise. The biologists want a soil sample, so we send out a drone with a drill. Or the geologists want to map a specific crater, so we send out a flying drone to scan it. The thing is, not just anyone can send a drone out. In fact, I'm the only one authorized. Other people are allowed to send them, but it's supposed to be cleared with me.” Daphne's fingers were tap-dancing on her keyboard, bringing up more and more information on the suspicious robot.

“What kind of drone was this?” I asked. “Where did it go?”

“And when did it go out?” Kira added.

“It was a rover,” Daphne replied. “It went to Solar Array Two, panel thirty-six-B. And it went out at five fifteen in the morning.”

“Who sent it?” Roddy asked.

Daphne stopped typing and stared at the computer, shocked. “According to this,
I
did. But I didn't. Which means someone here swiped my command code.”

I stepped back from the office, not wanting her to see my face, afraid I couldn't control my excitement—because I had a very good idea who'd sent the probe out.

Dr. Ronald Holtz.