Apollo's Outcasts (17 page)

"You're going to have a vote?"

"A town meeting is scheduled for this evening, at which time a formal resolution will be submitted." He paused. "Since you're not an Apollo citizen...not yet, at least...you won't be able to vote. So you don't have to be there...but it may help if people can see you and your friends."

I slowly nodded, understanding what he was telling me. If Hannah, the other kids, and I were going to remain on the Moon, the majority of Apollo's inhabitants would have to agree to let us stay. And that meant defying the president of the United States. Mr. Porter would have to make a case for us, but showing up for the town meeting would be in our own best interests, whether we wanted to be there or not. "I'll talk to the others and let them know what's happening. Can you tell me how to find them?"

"That reminds me." Mr. Lagler reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of wristbands, and handed one to me. "You need to wear this at all times. The other is for your sister."

I took the wristband from him. A thick plastic bracelet, it contained a LCD, a miniature mike and speaker grille, and a green bar that I didn't recognize at once. "It's GPS-enabled," Mr. Lagler explained, "so we'll be able to find you at any time, even if you're out on the surface. And it's voice-activated, so all you need to do is say the name of the person you want to reach. It only works inside the crater and ag domes, though...you need to use a suit com when you're outside. But the most important thing is this..." He pointed to the green bar. "That's a radiation dosimeter. It should be green at all times. If it ever starts to turn black, it means you're in danger of exceeding the safe dose of REMS and you should get to a radiation shelter as soon as you can...the big one underground would be best."

"Thanks." I fastened it around my left wrist, next to my watch, then pushed back my chair. "So what should I do now?"

Mr. Lagler picked up my plate and cup. "There's little for you to do. We can't enroll you in school or Colony Service until we know for certain that you're staying, so..." He shrugged as he carried everything to the kitchenette. "Walk around a bit and get to know the place. Talk to the others and let them know about tonight's meeting. Other than that, I can't think of anything else."

It sounded like good advice. Knowing that it could take hours for Melissa to emerge from our room, I left the apartment before
Mr. Lagler did. Logan might not have a wristband yet, so I'd need to find him and speak with him about the town meeting. Nina, too, although I'd leave it up to her whether Eddie should be there or not; he might not understand what was going on, or be able to sit still and be quiet for the entire meeting. And as for Hannah...

Walking along the Tier-3 balcony, I was just thinking about her when an apartment door opened about a hundred yards away and who should appear but the First Daughter herself. It wasn't hard to recognize her from a distance; there couldn't be very many girls in Apollo who wore Washington Nationals ball caps. There was a slender, dark-skinned woman with her, whom I assumed to be Ms. Porter. As she shut the door behind them, Hannah happened to glance my way.

Both of us stopped dead in our tracks. For a moment or two, neither of us knew what to do, even though it was obvious that we'd spotted one another. Hannah tentatively raised a hand, and when I waved back she turned to Ms. Porter and said something to her. The city manager's wife looked at me, then gave Hannah a quiet nod. Hannah turned and started walking toward me.

I met her about halfway. "Hi. How're you doing?"

"Okay...you?"

"All right, I guess." I hesitated. "So...I saw you last night. On the holo, I mean."

Hannah's face colored. "You saw that?" she asked and I nodded. "Yeah, well...it was something I had to do, even though I didn't want to. Get in front of a camera, I mean."

"No, no, I understand. And I think you did fine. But..." Feeling a sudden flash of anger, I turned to lean forward against the balcony railing. "When were you going to tell us who you are?" I asked, not looking at her while trying to keep an even tone. "I mean, that you're really...?"

"The president's daughter?" She rested her arms against the railing, clasping her hands together. "I was waiting for a chance."

"We were cooped up in a spacecraft for three days. You had plenty of chances then."

"I know that, Jamey...and you're right, maybe I should have." Hannah sighed. "Try to look at it my way. My father had just died. I still don't know what happened to my mother. I was pulled out of bed in the middle of night by a couple of Secret Service agents who were loyal to my dad and pushed into the back of a limo before the vice president's people could get their hands on me. I didn't even know where I was going until five minutes before I met you. Do you really think I was going to jump up and down and say, 'Hey, guess what? I live in the White House!'"

"No, but..." I floundered for a second or two, trying to figure out what to say. "You could have trusted us."

"I
do
trust you." Unexpectedly, she laid a hand across my wrist. "And if you want to know the truth, I like you."

Even if that hadn't come from the First Daughter, I would've jumped out of my skin. How many girls do you think have said that to me? You can start at zero and count backward.

"I...I...I..."

"You saved my life during the blowout. I never got a chance to thank you for that, either. And even if you hadn't done that, I would've been impressed just by the way you've learned to..."

Her voice trailed off and she looked away, embarrassed by what she seemed to want to say. "Walk?" I asked quietly.

"Yeah, I guess that's what I mean." She looked at me again. "That took a lot of courage."

I was still trying to come up with an answer when she glanced at her watch. "Look, I've got to be somewhere just now, so...well, don't be mad at me, okay? And next time we see each other, let's try this again."

"All right, sure...."

"Okay, then." She hesitated, then suddenly gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "See you later."

And then she was gone, which was probably just as well. It took me a minute or two to learn how to breathe again.

The town meeting was held in the colony's largest room, the storm shelter beneath Apollo. This was the place where everyone was supposed to go when the colony received warning of solar flares. Every few years, storms erupt upon the Sun's photosphere, which cause massive geysers to shoot out into space. These flares release lethal amounts of radiation that can penetrate the crater's regolith shield.

The shelter was there to protect Apollo's inhabitants during these storms; behind its mooncrete walls were the colony's water tanks, which provided additional radiation protection. There were also reserve air tanks holding enough oxygen and nitrogen to keep everyone alive for up to thirty days. And since the bunker was designed to be large enough to hold a thousand people at a time, it provided enough space for residents to gather for events such as town meetings. There was even a big wall screen at the front of the room.

When Melissa and I arrived with Mr. and Ms. Lagler, I thought she and I would be hidden in the back of the room. We weren't full citizens, after all, but rather a couple of kids who'd shown up on the Moon like orphans abandoned on someone's doorstep. So I was surprised when someone met us at the door to usher us to the first row of folding chairs facing an elevated platform. Mr. Porter was seated in the middle of a long table set up on the platform, the five other council members on either side of him. He smiled when my sister and I were brought to seats directly in front of the table; clearly he wanted us to be seen by every person in the room.

Logan was already there, along with the Hernandez kids. I'd called him earlier that afternoon and told him that he needed to be at the meeting, and said the same thing to Nina once I got in touch with her. Eddie fidgeted in his seat; I could tell that he didn't want to be there, but Nina did her best to keep him calm. Shortly after I sat down, she pulled a pad out of her pocket, opened a children's maze game,
and handed it to her brother. Eddie was instantly mesmerized, and we heard little from him for the rest of the meeting.

I glanced over my shoulder at the audience behind us. People were still coming in, but so far as I could tell from the scarcity of vacant chairs, it seemed as if nearly everyone in Apollo had decided to show up. I recognized almost no one, though. I caught a quick glimpse of Gordie as he made his way to a seat about halfway to the rear, and Nicole gave me a little smile and a wave from three rows back--I wanted to go over and say hello, but realized that this wasn't a good time to be seen flirting with a girl--but just about everyone else was a stranger.

It was not until Hannah came in that anyone paid attention to the six of us. An abrupt hush fell across the room as Ms. Porter escorted her in. Hannah wasn't wearing her cap tonight, and she proudly kept her head up as she walked down the center aisle. She was used to being the center of attention, I suppose, because she showed no sign of nervousness. Yet a low rumble of voices followed her, and although most people smiled as she walked past them, I noticed a few frowns as well. No doubt everyone had seen her speak the night before, and some probably thought she and the rest of us were nothing but trouble.

Hannah sat down beside me. She was able to do so because Melissa moved over one seat to make room for her. My sister was still mortified by the lousy way she'd treated her on the way to the Moon and was eager to make amends. Hannah barely paid attention to her, though; instead, she turned to me.

"Hi," she whispered. "Have I missed anything important?"

Other than your arrival?
I thought. "No, not really," I whispered back. "They haven't started yet."

"Good." She hesitated, then bent a little closer. "Have you thought about what I said?"

That little kiss on the cheek had haunted me all afternoon; so had what she'd told me just before then. "Yeah...sure." I swallowed a lump, then looked her straight in the eye. "We're square, okay?"

"Sure, we're square." A quiet smile. "Hey, do you think maybe you'd like to get a snack after...?"

She was interrupted by the sudden bang of a gavel. Mr. Porter was calling the meeting to order; the rest of our conversation would have to wait.

"I'd like to thank everyone for coming this evening," Mr. Porter began after the room had gone quiet, his voice carried by the prong in his ear. "I realize this is sudden, but the matters before us are too important to be held off until our scheduled monthly meeting. I'm sure most of you are already aware of the situation, but I'll begin by summarizing recent events..."

He gave a brief run-down of everything that had happened over the course of the last few days, beginning with President Wilford's death and continuing with the flight of my friends and I from Earth, ending with Hannah's testimony the night before and the town council's decision to suspend helium-3 shipments to the United States until President Shapar gave an honest account for her predecessor's death and the detention of ISC officials and others.

"Since then," Mr. Porter said, "the president's response has been unsatisfactory, to say the least. First, her spokesman claimed that Ms. Wilford is still in Washington--" some muted laughter at this "--followed by the allegation that she's been abducted by PSU agents working in collaboration with us." The laughter grew louder and more derisive, and Mr. Porter tried not to smile as he raised a hand for silence. "Less amusing is the White House's demand that we immediately send Ms. Wilford back to Earth. Although they haven't explicitly said so, we may assume that they'll want us to return the other children as well, since their parents are ISC officials who've been detained."

Once again, I felt a chill. Somewhere back on Earth, Dad and Jan were in federal custody, charged as criminals simply because my father had spoken out against Lina Shapar. Melissa made a hissing sound, and I looked around to see her face pinched in anger. My sister had finally realized the seriousness of our situation.

"If we refuse to do so," Mr. Porter continued, "President Shapar has threatened to retaliate against other ISC countries. They haven't yet said what actions they may take, but apparently they believe that our sponsor governments will pressure the ISC into forcing us to turn over the children."

He paused to let his words sink in, then went on. "The town council has acted on its own to impose an embargo, and in doing so we are acting within the provisions of the ISC charter, which allows us to forfeit production shipment to any member country that takes actions contrary to the interest of others. We also recommend that Apollo refuse the Shapar administration's demand to send back the children, However, the latter cannot be done without majority assent of Apollo's citizens. Therefore, as town manager, I'm entering a motion that these children--" he gestured toward the six of us "--be granted unconditional political asylum and allowed to remain here as Apollo citizens." He turned to another council member. "Ms. Fleming?"

A stern-looking woman with white hair stood up. "As moderator, I'm allowing one hour for debate before calling for a vote. Anyone who wishes to speak may now do so."