Space Case (25 page)

Lunar day 189

Evening

The way I figured it,
Dr. Holtz had sent the robot out to hide his phone somewhere around panel 36B in Solar Array 2. After all, the robot was dispatched shortly before Dr. Holtz stepped through the air lock. Who else besides him (except whoever had forced him to go outside) would have been awake at that time? And it was the perfect place to hide something. If Dr. Holtz's killer suspected he'd hidden evidence somewhere, they'd most likely search the base—but not outside it. When I explained my theory to Kira later, she admitted that not only did it make sense, but she'd been thinking the same thing.

There was only one problem: Getting the phone wouldn't be easy.

The surface of the moon is deadly. Therefore Kira and I—as well as every other kid on base—were banned from going out onto it.

Despite this, Kira was still eager to go. “It was amazing out there yesterday,” she told me. This was an hour after we'd confronted Daphne. The memorial was over; everyone else's speech about Dr. Holtz had been much shorter than Nina's. (Mom's had been the most touching by far.) Now Kira and I were huddled in a corner of the staging area while most everyone else mingled in the rec room. Kira asked, “Didn't you think it was incredible when you were on the surface?”

“Of course,” I replied, although the truth was, since it had been six months since I'd trudged from the rocket to the air lock, my memory of it had faded greatly. After all, the walk had only taken a few minutes and there had been lots of distractions.

“So let's go,” Kira said. “It won't take more than ten minutes to get to the solar array.”

“This isn't like sneaking behind the scenes at the art museum or the zoo,” I warned. “This is dangerous.”

“Not if we're careful. It's perfectly safe out there with our suits on.”

“Dr. Holtz just
died
out there with his suit on.”

“Because someone forced him to go out with it on wrong. Someone who's still on the loose here in the base, because the evidence against them is out there.” Kira pointed out the air lock in the direction of Solar Array 2.

“That's only a guess,” I said.

“Well, it's a
good
guess.” Kira gave me a frustrated stare. “I can't believe you're trying to weasel out of this. I thought you were going stir-crazy in this place.”

“I am.”

“So? Think how awesome it would be to get outside again, even for just a few minutes. There's no good reason we're not allowed out there. It's just a stupid rule that ought to be broken.”

“It's not stupid,” I protested. “And if we break it, we're going to get caught. We'll end up in big trouble.”

“Not if we find Dr. Holtz's phone,” Kira argued. “We'll be heroes.”

I sighed and looked out through the air lock window. Kira was right. I
did
want to go out there again. And I didn't want to wait another two years and six months until my return rocket home to do it. But it was far more dangerous than Kira seemed to understand. Or she was far more reckless than I'd realized.

“There might be another way to get the phone,” I said.

“You mean like sending a robot?” Kira asked.

“No. I don't know how to do that, and we can't ask Daphne to help.” I looked down the hall, to where Daphne was standing with my parents and Chang.

Daphne had already revealed her secret to everyone. As she'd promised, she'd told Nina right after the memorial, and word had spread quickly. Nina wasn't happy, of course, and told Daphne there'd be some punishment, but everyone else seemed okay about it. After all, Daphne was probably the most-liked adult on the base. The fact that she'd owned up to her mistake and seemed genuinely ashamed only seemed to make everyone like her even more. My father and Chang were teasing her about it at the moment, humming the James Bond theme and calling her Special Agent Merritt.

Kira asked, “So what's the other option, then?”

“We get an adult to do it.”

Kira looked annoyed. “Who? Your parents?”

“No,” I said. “They wouldn't break the rules like that. And besides, they still think Dr. Holtz was crazy.”

“Then who? We can't ask
my
dad. He'd get lost out there and we'd never see him again.”

“I can't tell you.” I knew Zan was the right person to approach about this. She was an adult and she was determined to find out who'd killed Dr. Holtz. She'd be thrilled to hear I'd learned where the phone was hidden—and she probably had all the security clearance she needed to go
out onto the lunar surface. But she'd also made it extremely clear I couldn't tell anyone about our collaboration, no matter how much I wanted to.

“What are you talking about?” Kira demanded. “Don't you trust me?”

“Of course.”

“Then why can't you tell me who you're going to?”

“I just can't,” I said.

Kira gave me a long, hot stare. “Fine. Whatever. But if this secret friend of yours says no, then we go, okay?”

“They won't say no.”

“But if they do . . . we go. Tonight, after everyone's gone to sleep. There's no time to waste. Whoever killed Dr. Holtz is going to find out about the robot soon enough.”

“Sure,” I said. “We'll go tonight.”

“You promise?” Kira stuck out her hand.

I shook it. “I promise.” I fully meant it. I just didn't think I'd have to.

*  *  *

I never got to talk to Zan Perfonic. I
saw
her. The first time, she was standing with a bunch of scientists after the memorial service. The second time, she was at dinner in the mess with the other temps. And both times she saw me, too. After the memorial, I signaled that I desperately needed to talk to her. She mouthed,
Not now
, so I backed
off, expecting her to come around sooner or later, but she didn't.

So when we were in the mess, I decided to be a little more direct. I started across the room toward her, intending to approach her directly. When Zan saw me coming, though, she reacted with such alarm that I stopped dead. Behind the backs of everyone at her table, she shook her head wildly, panic in her eyes.

I signaled again that we needed to talk.

I know,
Zan mouthed.
I'm sorry.

I started to signal that this was really, really urgent, but all the temps at her table were staring at me now like I was nuts. So I backed down and headed off to get dinner, hoping now that Zan knew I was desperate to talk to her, she'd come find me.

But that didn't happen.

This was incredibly frustrating. I'd found our biggest lead so far—and Zan couldn't make the time to hear it? I understood that we needed to keep our alliance a secret, but it seemed that secrecy was now jeopardizing the entire purpose of our investigation.

I spent an hour trying to chill inside my residence after dinner, figuring Zan would swing by, and after that I went out and combed the base in search of her. I found everyone I
didn't
want to see—Nina, Dr. Marquez, the entire Sjoberg
clan—but not Zan. After a dozen loops of the base, I had no choice but to conclude that she didn't want to be found.

I couldn't wait for her anymore. Kira was right about there being no time to waste. If we had figured out that Dr. Holtz had sent the robot to the solar array, his killer would probably figure it out soon as well. And when they did, they'd go right for the evidence.

I sent Kira a text:
We're on for tonight.

She responded within seconds.
1 am.

I reluctantly returned to my room and spent the rest of the evening trying to act normal around my family, hoping Zan would decide to throw caution to the wind and show up at our door. I talked to Riley in Hawaii for a bit, pretending everything was fine, then finally got around to making my video log about Dr. Holtz. I wasn't that pleased with it—it was kind of dull, just saying that Dr. Holtz was a nice man and that I'd miss him—but Mom and Dad both said it was perfect. I turned in when everyone else did, acting like I was tired when I was actually buzzing on adrenaline. I tried to read in bed but couldn't concentrate.

Zan never showed.

*  *  *

I slipped out of my residence at one a.m. on the nose. Kira was already in the staging area, pacing like a lion in the zoo.
She brightened when she saw me. “I was worried you were gonna chicken out,” she whispered.

“I'm right on time,” I told her.

She started to say something else, but I put a finger to my lips. The moon base was deathly silent at night. Even our softest whispers carried.

Kira nodded understanding and opened the storage unit where the kids' space suits were kept.

The suits had been custom-made for us solely so we could get from the rocket to the moon base and back. Each had cost millions of dollars for about twenty minutes of use. Or at least NASA
hoped
we'd only use them for twenty minutes—because the only other reason for them would be an emergency that required us to evacuate MBA. Which is why the suit storage unit isn't locked. (No one has ever told me what we're expected to do on the surface of the moon after all our air runs out. It seems to me that if something really went wrong at MBA, suiting up and evacuating to the lunar surface would only postpone our deaths. But maybe NASA figures that, at the very least, we'd be happy to go outside.)

MBA has mandatory practice emergency drills once a month to keep our evacuation routine well rehearsed. Due to this, I knew how to get my suit on quickly. Even faster than Kira, who'd worn hers just the day before. In the early days of space travel, astronauts had to wear multiple layers
of insulation, so suiting up could take several minutes. Nowadays the suit itself is perfectly insulated, which means the person inside is much less constricted. I pulled on the outer shell, stepped into my boots, clamped my helmet, and pulled on my gloves in less than two minutes. Since we wouldn't be gone that long, I opted not to wear the astronaut diaper, which was designed so that anyone who has to be on the lunar surface for a good stretch of time won't have to return to the base to use the bathroom. Then I sealed all the connections and checked them again. And again. And again. Then I had Kira do it for me.

I had no intention of being the second person in history to die on the moon.

I inspected Kira and found she was suited properly as well.

Since my suit had barely been worn, it still smelled like a new car on the inside. I flipped on the fan vent so the glass of my helmet wouldn't fog up. Given our position at the pole, the sun was still out even now, so we both lowered the reflective visors; without them, in the sun's direct heat, undimmed by any sort of atmosphere, our heads would cook like potatoes in an oven. There were radios inside the helmets, so we could now talk to each other without the whole base hearing us.

“Testing, testing,” Kira said. It sounded like she was
right next to me, speaking directly into my ear. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Can you hear me?”

“Perfectly. Let's go!” Kira clapped her hands in anticipation.

We headed for the air lock. Normally, a security door is controlled by a thumb or retina sensor so only certain people can open it. However, neither of those work very well when you're wearing space gloves and helmets, so this one has a large keypad instead. As kids, we weren't supposed to know the six-digit code that would open the air lock, but my parents had taught it to me months before, figuring I might need it in case of an emergency—and that they could trust me not to do anything stupid like head outside without their permission.

In truth, I figured that while heading onto the lunar surface was reckless, it wasn't
insanely
risky. Solar Array 2 wasn't far from the air lock, and I wasn't going solo. If all went well, Kira and I would only be outside ten minutes, if that.

I tapped in the code. The inner door of the air lock slid open.

Kira and I stepped inside and entered the same code on another keypad. The inner door slid closed.

There was a whoosh as the air lock repressurized to match the atmosphere of the lunar surface.

I looked to Kira. Even though she'd been outside only the day before, she was bouncing up and down on her toes in anticipation. While I couldn't see her face behind the reflective visor, she didn't seem to have the slightest bit of concern about what we were doing. I couldn't help thinking of Riley's dog back on earth, pacing at her kitchen door, barely able to wait to get out in the yard.

Kira turned to me impatiently. “C'mon. What are we waiting for?”

I entered the code again on the keypad for the outer door.

It slid open.

Kira immediately bounded onto the lunar surface.