Apollo's Outcasts (5 page)

His voice trailed off. He didn't know when we'd be able to come home; he knew that, and so did we. Or at least Jan and I did; I wasn't sure if Melissa yet realized the full extent of our situation. But it wasn't going to be any time soon; of that, I was certain.

Dad gave Jan a brief hug; she was dry-eyed, but her mouth was trembling. Melissa was angry, and for a moment I thought she was going to throw a hissy fit and stalk away as she usually did when she didn't like something, but she relented and let Dad put his arms around her. Logan was saying farewell to his mom and dad; they seemed even more reluctant to let him go. As for the other kids...the boy was weeping within his mother's arms while his little sister remained stoical, calmly accepting a quick embrace from her father. Strange.

"Folks..." The guy in the doorway was becoming nervous. "I don't want to hurry you, but you need to..."

He suddenly stopped, and I saw that he was gazing past us. Turning my head, I spotted what he'd seen: the headlights of another car, turning off the road to enter the terminal parking lot. As it approached the rear of building, we saw that it was a black sedan with government plates.

"Oh, God, no," Jan whispered. "They can't have found us already."

"No," Dad said. "I don't think so..."

The sedan glided to a halt next to our van. The front doors opened and two men climbed out. Both wore dark business suits and straight black ties, and if it hadn't been night I'm sure that they would've been wearing sunglasses. The guy who got out on the passenger side waited beside the car while the driver approached our group. No one spoke, but I could practically hear everyone's hearts pounding with fear.

"Dr. Marguiles? Dr. Barlowe? Mr. Hernandez?" The driver looked like an average guy in his midthirties, but I had a sense that he could've killed any one of our fathers--or even all three at the same time--with his bare hands. "May I have a word with you, please?"

The three of them traded wary looks with each other, then they reluctantly walked over to him. The driver spoke to them in low tones that none of us could hear; my father and his friends listened, occasionally glancing back at us kids, then they spoke as well. The conversation lasted a few minutes, during which Melissa moved closer to me to kneel beside my mobil.

"You think these guys are here to stop us?" she asked.

"No." Logan came up behind us. "If this was a bust, they would've brought more people."

I had to agree. There were only two of them...or at least so I thought, until I saw Dr. Marguiles nod his head and my father reluctantly do the same. The driver turned toward his companion and made a small gesture; the other guy walked to the back of the sedan and opened the rear passenger door.

A girl about my age climbed out of the car. She wore black jeans and a dark grey pullover, and her ash-blonde hair was tucked up under a Washington Nationals ball cap. She had a small bag under her arm, and although she was trying hard to hide it, it wasn't hard to tell that she was just as confused and scared as I was.

She gave Logan, Melissa, and me a wary glance, then let her companion escort her over to where my father and his friends were
huddled with the driver. Melissa glared at her. "You don't think she's trying to come along, too, do you?" she asked, not bothering to keep her voice down.

"If she is, she's out of luck." Logan nodded to the Hernandez kids, who were still hovering near their mother. "Counting those two and Jan, there's six of us...and my dad said there's only six seats on the shuttle."

The conversation came to an abrupt end. While the girl waited nearby, bookended by the two suits, my father and the other two men walked back toward their respective families. Mr. Hernandez looked angry; he said something in Spanish to his wife and children, and his son stared at him before bursting into tears again. Dr. Marguiles took his wife by the arm and gently led her over to where Logan was standing with Melissa and me. My father followed him, motioning for Jan to do the same. Jan stared at the girl for another moment or two, then reluctantly stepped over to join us.

"Her name is Hannah...Hannah Johnson," Dr. Marguiles said once we'd gathered together. "And...well, it's like this. She has to get on the shuttle."

"But there's no room," Ms. Marguiles said. "Didn't you tell them that?"

"They know there's only six seats. I've explained that to them already. But..."

"What Paul is trying to say is that she has to go to the Moon." Dad's face had become a mask; it was impossible to read the emotions behind it. "Jeanne, there's no time to explain, but..." He let out her breath. "It's absolutely imperative she gets on the shuttle. That's all there is to it."

Ms. Marguiles stared at him. "Even if one of our own children is left behind?"

My father nodded, and so did Dr. Marguiles. "Even if one of our kids stays here, yes," Dr. Marguiles said. "Tomas knows this, too," he added, looking over at the Hernandez family. "He's telling Rosita and the kids now."

Ms. Hernandez wasn't taking the news any better than Ms. Marguiles was. She addressed her husband in rapid-fire Spanish, angrily pointing at the girl who'd shown up out of nowhere. Hannah Johnson looked embarrassed; clutching her bag against her chest, she stared at the pavement, afraid to make eye contact with any of the kids who'd arrived before she did. Nor could I blame her; if our fathers had their way, one of the six of us would be bumped from the shuttle.

"So who's it going to be?" Ms. Marguiles's voice rose. "One of our children is going to stay here. We're going to have to pick which one, aren't we?"

My father slowly nodded...and as he did, his eyes shifted toward me.

Melissa looked at me, too. So did Logan, and even the Hernandez kids were gazing in my direction. Like it or not, they were right. Whoever Hannah Johnson was--she looked vaguely familiar, even though I was positive that I'd never met her before--someone had to give up a seat for her, and I was the one least likely to survive a magcat launch.

The others would get on the shuttle. I was to be left behind.

"I'll stay," Jan said.

For a second, I thought I hadn't heard her correctly. She had spoken so quietly, it was hard to hear her voice. Dad's eyes went wide as he turned to her.

"You can't..." he began.

"Yes, I can...and I have to." Jan looked straight at him. "If Jamey remains here, he'll be helpless...and so will you. You'd never abandon him, which means that he'd only slow you down."

"Then cut me loose," I said. "I can make it on my own."

"No, you can't." Jan nodded toward my mobil. "C'mon...how far do you think you'll get before someone picks you up? If they find you, then they can force Dad to turn himself in. And if that happens, this will all be for nothing."

My face felt as if it was burning. That was my sister: pragmatic even when it hurt. And boy, did it hurt. Seldom before had she, or anyone else in my family, made an issue of my having LBDS. They'd always worked around it, making allowances for the fact that I couldn't go anywhere without my mobil or at least a pair of crutches. This time, though, things were different. I'd be a ball and chain for my father as he was running for his life. And on my own, I wouldn't last a day.

Jan must have seen the pain in my eyes, because she knelt beside me. "Look, kiddo," she said, "you mean well, but I've got two good legs and you don't." A tight smile. "Besides, I've got a lot of friends. Time for me to call in a few markers."

"Jan, you don't have to..." my father began.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have time for this." The man at the terminal
door was pointedly looking at his watch. "We should've started getting these kids ready five minutes ago." He held the door open a little wider. "Anyone who's getting on the shuttle, come now...or stay behind."

Logan turned to his folks; his father solemnly shook his hand and his mother gave him a quick hug, and neither of them dared to look at Jan or me. The Hernandez children were already going in; Eduardo was still mopping tears from his face--
what a crybaby!
I couldn't help thinking--while Nina remained almost eerily calm; she didn't even look back to wave farewell to their parents, but instead took her big brother's hand and led him into the terminal. Dad made up his mind; he gripped the mobil's rear handles and pushed it the rest of the way to the door, then bent down to detach my crutches from its side.

"You'll need to leave your mobil here," he said, unfolding the crutches and handing them to me. "Jan and I will take it with us and..."

"Sure, okay." Something that felt like a stone was stuck in my throat. I twisted around in my seat to look back at Jan. "I'm sorry, I..."

"Don't worry about it." She stepped forward to take my overnight bag from my hands, then helped me to my feet while Dad pushed the crutches under my arms. "We'll get in touch as soon as we can," she went on as she handed my bag to Melissa, who impatiently waited for me just inside the door. "Until then..."

"Break a leg," I muttered; an old joke between us. "Good luck."

"You, too." A quick kiss on the cheek, then she vanished.

It seemed as if my father wanted to say something else, but there was no time for long goodbyes. So he took my hand and grasped it as just as Logan's father had done with him, and I realized that no words were necessary, really. A final pat on the shoulder, and then he was gone.

He hadn't remembered that today was my sixteenth birthday. No one did, except Jan. There was a good reason why, but it stung nonetheless.

The last person through the door was Hannah Johnson. The two men who'd brought her to Wallops Island accompanied her all the way to the door; they seemed reluctant to leave her, but neither were there any overt displays of affection. They simply wished her good luck and she quietly thanked them, and then they both turned and headed back to their car.

Melissa was still glaring at Hannah as the door closed behind us. "Whoever you are," she hissed, "I hope you're worth it."

For once, MeeMee and I were in full agreement. "My sister gave up her seat for you," I added. "I hope you remember that."

Although she'd pulled her ball cap down low, it wasn't hard to tell that Hannah's face was red. The man who'd met us at the door saved her from making any sort of response. "All right, then," he said, "we're going to have to hurry now. Ms. Barlowe, Ms. Hernandez, Ms...um..."

"Johnson," she whispered.

"Right...Johnson." He pointed to a young woman standing a little further down the corridor we found ourselves in. "Please follow Ms. Cates. She'll take you to get you ready. Boys, you're coming with me."

Logan took my bag from Melissa, then accompanied me down the corridor, letting the others lead the way. The girls disappeared through a door marked P
ASSENGER
P
REP
-F; a little farther down the hall was P
ASSENGER
P
REP
-M, which is where Logan, Eduardo, and I went.

Our escort murmured something into his prong as he led us into the room, then he left us alone, shutting the door behind him. We'd barely had time to take in the hospital-style furnishings--gurneys, medicine cabinets, a counter with a computer terminal, some uncomfortable-looking chairs--when the door opened again and three doctors wearing lab smocks, surgical masks, and thin plastic gloves walked in.

For the next twenty minutes, I underwent the fastest physical I'd ever endured. I'll spare you the details except to say that it was painful and humiliating. The doctors were considerate enough to
pull curtains around the gurneys the other guys and I sat on. This didn't give us very much privacy, since I could hear what was happening elsewhere in the room, but at least I didn't have to see it. And while Logan and I were used to having people seeing us without our clothes--joining a high school swim team isn't something you should do if you have body shyness--it was pretty obvious that Eduardo didn't like taking his clothes off even for a medical exam. He put up a stink that didn't stop until his doctor threatened to tell his little sister what a coward he was.

What is it with that kid?
I thought.
Is he disturbed or something?

The physician who examined me tried to be gentle, but he was in a hurry; every couple of minutes he'd glance at his watch, and then move just a little faster. One of the first things he did was to hand me a suppository, and once he was through giving me the jelly-finger treatment he asked me to insert it myself. The reason for this soon became clear; he'd barely finished taking a blood sample when my stomach began to cramp, and without a word the doctor handed my crutches back to me and hastily ushered me to a toilet where I was able to empty my guts. Dad hadn't given us a chance to eat breakfast before we left the house; now I knew why.

I had so many shots that my arms ached. But when the doctor opened my medicine box, he asked only a couple of perfunctory questions about the prescriptions and supplements I was taking before he closed it again and put it back in my bag. Apparently he already had my medical data in his pad; he didn't appear at all surprised to be dealing with a teenage kid who had LBDS.