Ashley's lips tightened and her almond-shaped eyes flashed. “And we are now within the escape pods' range of Earth.”
“Give or take a couple of days,” Dad said. “The important thing is to keep this among the three of us and to find different ways to search.”
I knew what I'd be doing. Watching Lance Evenson. And I had an idea how to do it.
I caught Dad frowning at me, as if he were reading my mind.
I was wrong.
“Just had an idea,” he said. “Did either of you check our escape pods for a bomb?”
My eyes widened. “Hadn't thought of it.”
“I'll check them both,” Dad said quickly, as he turned on the autopilot controls and then got out of his seat. “If the bomb is in one, he must intend to use the other.”
“Finding it in an escape pod would solve the problem, wouldn't it?” I said. “If we can't disarm the bomb, we'll just eject the pod into space and not care where it blows up.”
Great solution. Except, as it turned out, I was wrong about that too.
“You know what's weird?” Ashley asked me.
Except for the usual background humming of the
Moon Racer
's air circulation units, it was quiet. She and I were at our usual early evening meeting place. In the
Moon Racer
's observation quarters.
It was the same size as the robot lab, but there was no computer or X-ray receiver. Instead, a telescope tube fit through the upper panels and extended beyond the ship. Eight months to Mars and eight months back is a lot of travel time, and Earth scientists use a lot of the recorded information from this telescope. After all, there's no atmosphere to interfere with the view, and the camera shots and real-time visuals from this telescope are amazing.
I spent hours here, looking at clusters of galaxies and supernovas and the different planets of the solar system. It never failed to stagger me, wondering where all this beauty came from. It never failed to lead me to thoughts about God.
“I'll bite,” I said. I was floating upside down beneath the telescope tube, staring at Mars, wondering what Mom was doing there right now. And if Rawling had started a new project without me. The swirls of red made me homesick. “What's weird?”
“Just yesterday, Dr. Jordan wanted to ask me questions.”
“What!” I would have jumped if there were any gravity. I switched my attention from Mars to Ashley.
“Don't look at me like that. It's not that big a deal. I was going down the corridor, and Luke Daab was doing some maintenance work on the hatch door to Dr. Jordan's prison bunk. Luke said Dr. Jordan wanted to ask me a question. I didn't even go inside. I just stuck my head through the hatch. Dr. Jordan was cabled to the wall, of course. And Luke Daab was right beside me, so I knew I was safe.”
“What did he ask?” I didn't feel any better because of what I'd heard. Blaine Steven was bad enough, but compared to the evil Dr. Jordan, Blaine seemed like an innocent baby.
“About my escape. You know, the Hammerhead.”
“Did you tell him?”
“Not a chance. You know it makes me sick to even think of him. I hope he wonders for the rest of his life. Especially since you know how easy it was.”
I did. The test had taken place from a shuttle that orbited Mars. Just before the test began, Ashley had loaded a spare space suit into the Hammerhead. Because only the dark helmet and visor were visible to us inside the shuttle, it looked like she was at the controls. Instead, she had remained inside the cargo bay, speaking to us as if she were actually on the space torpedo. She controlled the first part of the Hammerhead's flight, long enough to set its course for impact on the distant moon. It fooled all of us, including Dr. Jordan, into thinking she had died during the crash. After the shuttle landed on Mars, she sneaked out of the cargo bay unnoticed and hid in the dome until it was finally safe to appear again.
“Oh. Was that all he wanted?”
“That was his only question.”
“You're right,” I said. “That
is
weird.”
I should have given it more thought. Dr. Jordan didn't do anything without a reason. But I noticed the look on Ashley's face. She was scared.
“It'll be all right,” I said.
“How do you know what I'm thinking?”
“You're thinking about the others in the experimental group.” The kids that Ashley and I were supposed to try to find. That was why we were headed back to Earth.
She gave me a small smile. “You know me pretty well.”
Ashley was part of a small group of Earth kids who had been operated on to be able to handle robot controls remotely. Dr. Jordan had forced her to go to Mars with a simple and effective threat. If Ashley didn't do exactly as she was toldâincluding maintaining the pretense that she was his daughterâthe kids in the experimental group would be killed. That's why she'd made it look like the Hammerhead failure killed her.
“It'll be okay,” I said. “Dr. Jordan and Blaine Steven are military prisoners. Word was sent from Mars to keep that highly confidential. Those kids will be all right. I mean, that's why you and I are going back to Earth. To break them loose. They'll be exactly where you left them.”
Which was some sort of hidden retreat in the Arizona desert. Once the
Moon Racer
reached the Earth orbit, we would be shuttled to the surface of the planet. After a week to get used to the gravity, Dad would lead us to the retreat, and Ashley would show him and other soldiers the entrance. The plan had full military approval.
“Tyce, those were my friends. All of us have been together, training in virtual reality, as long as we can remember. If my actions hurt them, I'd never forgive myself.”
As she spoke, she touched the silver cross on a chain around her neck. It was an earring, and it matched the cross around my neck, which she'd given me once as a friendship gift.
A thought hit me. “You know what else is weird?”
“What?”
“I've never asked you where you got the silver crosses from. I'd be surprised if one of the rebel leaders who guarded your experimental group gave them to youâ¦.”
Another smile from her, this one sad. “They're from my parents. At least, that's what I was told. I was just a baby when they died in a car crash. That's all that I ever had of them. Not even a photo.”
Her sad smile didn't change. “That's why I ended up in the experimental group. Because I was an orphan. Like the others. There was nobody around to wonder where we went or to care what happened to us.”
She was thinking about them again. I could tell by her face.
“Really, Ashley,” I said softly, “it will be all right.”
I didn't add my next thought.
If we make it to Earth.
It was late at night. At least, it was late in the 24-hour schedule that we followed. Day and night didn't really exist on the spaceship. We were always headed toward the sun, so we really didn't have a day or night.
I floated beside my bed, sitting in a cross-legged position with my comp-board on my lap. I stared at the unfolded screen. Over the last few months of travelâbecause not much new happened from day to dayâI had not spent much time on the comp-board adding to my Mars journal entries.
Part of it was because I didn't want to remind myself of the homesickness I felt whenever I couldn't fall asleep quickly.
Like now, reading one of my first entries on the space trip.
A little over two weeks ago, I was on Mars. Under the dome. Living life in a wheelchair. I'd been born there, and the most I had ever traveled in any direction was 200 miles. Then, with the suddenness of a lightning bolt, I discovered I would be returning to Earth with Dad as he piloted this spaceship on the three-year round-trip to Earth and back to Mars. Although the actual legs of the journey only take eight months to get there and eight months to get back, the planets' orbits have to be aligned correctly in order to make the trip. And that takes three years.
I'd been dreaming of Earth for years.
After all, I was the only human in the history of mankind who had never been on the planet. I'd only been able to watch it through the telescope and wonder about snowcapped mountains and blue sky and rain and oceans and rivers and trees and flowers and birds and animals.
Earth.
When Rawling had told me I was going to visit Earth, I'd been too excited to sleep. Finally I'd be able to see everything I'd only read about under the cramped protection of the Mars Dome, where it never rained, the sky outside was the color of butterscotch, and the mountains were dusty red.
But when it came time to roll onto the shuttle that would take us to the Moon Racer, waiting in orbit around Mars, I had discovered an entirely new sensation. Homesickness. Marsâthe domeâwas all I knew.
Dozens of technicians and scientists had been there when we left, surprising me by their cheers and affection. Rawling had been there, the second-to-last person to say good-bye, shaking my hand gravely, then giving me a hug.
And the last person?
That had been Mom, biting her lower lip and blinking back tears. It hurt so much seeing her sadâand feeling my own sadness. I'd nearly rolled my wheelchair away from the shuttle. At that moment three years seemed like an eternity. I knew that if an accident happened anywhere along the 100 million miles of travel to Earth and back, I might never see her again.
Mom must have been able to read my thoughts because she'd leaned forward to kiss me and told me to not even dare think about staying. She'd whispered that although she'd miss me, she knew that I was in God's hands, so I wouldn't be alone. She said she was proud of me for taking this big step, and she'd pray every day for the safe return of me and Dad.
The first few nights on the spaceship had not been easy. Alone in my bunk I had stared upward in the darkness for hours and hours, surprised at how much the sensation of homesickness could fill my stomach.
Who would think that a person could miss a place that would kill you if you walked outside without a space suitâ¦.
My comp-board bogged down. The arrow kept scrolling down the page, but the letters on the screen lagged behind.
I stopped. This was puzzling. Except for the short time this afternoon with Blaine Steven, this had also happened the last time I used my comp-board. I'd even asked Lance Evenson to check it then, but he'd said it was my imagination.
Except this was definitely not my imagination.
I scrolled farther and finally got to the end of what I had written. As I began to keyboard a new entry, describing the events of this day, the comp-board just as mysteriously began to work at its normal speed.
That was about the only good thing about this bomb threat. It took my mind off how badly I still missed Mom and everyone else on Mars.
I stopped keyboarding and let my thoughts drift off. I was tempted to fold the comp-board right now and try to sleep again, but I knew that once I closed my eyes, my mind would go right back to wondering about the bomb. Would I have any time to realize what was happening when it exploded? How might it feel to get sucked into the vacuum of outer space? Andâ
Stop!
I told myself.
I focused on the keyboard and began to type again.
So who might be the “mastermind” that Blaine Steven told me about? That is, if he wasn't lying to me for some reason. And considering his past record, that's a good possibility. Is the mastermind really on the Moon Racer? There aren't that many people on board.
There's me, of course, and Dad and Ashley.
Lance Evenson, the chief computer technician. Luke Daab, a maintenance engineer who helped maintain the dome's mechanical equipment during his 15 years on Mars. Susan Fielding, a genetic scientist who spent only three years on Mars. And Jack Tripp, a mining engineer who was returning with a couple tons of rock samples.
There are also two prisoners. Blaine Steven, the ex-director of the dome, and Dr. Jordan, who arrived with Ashley on Mars only three months before leaving again on this ship.
Nine altogether. And if one of them â¦
I stopped typing again.
I couldn't help but wonder if Blaine Steven had been telling the truth. Maybe he just wanted to make trouble. I wouldn't put it past him.
But if someone had actually planted a bomb, my first guess was Lance Evenson. But it would be dumb to make that assumption without at least considering if it could be anyone else.
If Blaine Steven and Dr. Jordan hadn't been securely sealed in their bunks, both of them would have been prime suspects. They'd been working together on Mars for a rebel group on Earth and had nearly succeeded in destroying the whole Mars Project. But neither had been able to leave their bunks, and it would be impossible for either to reach an escape pod. So it couldn't be Steven or Jordan.
Luke Daab? He was a skinny, redheaded guy with a beach ball belly and a nervous laugh. He chewed his fingernails badly too. I couldn't imagine him trying to pull off something like this.
Susan Fieldingâchubby with blonde hairânever spoke above a whisper. Although she was older than Dad, she was smaller than Ashley and never went anywhere on the ship without an e-book in her hands or tucked under an arm. I couldn't picture her as the traitor either.
Maybe Jack Tripp, though. He and Dad were about the same age and the same size. Jack had a big red nose, twitchy red eyebrows to match his wiry red hair, and a loud laugh, usually at his own jokes, which weren't that funny.
The trouble with trying to guess, I realized, was that any guess I made was based on appearance only. I didn't really know much else about them.
I looked at my computer screen, barely focusing on the words I'd already written. Then I thought of something as I stared at my journal entry.
Yes! That was it! Ashley and I could interview everybody on this ship. We could write about this trip as a school project or even for an e-magazine. Some Web site somewhere would love to have an article about two kids traveling from Mars to Earth. That would be the excuse Ashley and I would use to ask everyone on board more about themselves.