Make You See Stars (7 page)

“
You’re not seriously suggesting
we land
now
,” Alen's voice sounded.

“
And why not?” LaFleur
threw back. “This is the perfect opportunity to collect samples
from the subterranean sea.”

“
Yeah, or to be blown off
the surface by violent vapor plumes.”

“
The landing would be
extremely difficult,” the pilot chimed in.

An icy silence followed. “Well,
can’t
you
just take some samples from the atmosphere directly above the
eruptions?” Ernst suggested at last.

“
Those samples would be polluted
or damaged,” LaFleur dismissed his idea.
“The only way this mission will
succeed is if we get down to the surface.”

“
The only way this mission
will succeed is if we make it out of here alive,” Alen shot back,
his voice trembling with anger.

“
Let’s join them,” Jari
mumbled, getting up from his seat. “I want to see what it looks
like down there.”

When they both entered the
cockpit, Tori understood what all the fuss was about. It seemed an
ice storm had hit Enceladus – ice crystals were scrambling the
radar, visibility was close to zero.

“
Are we stuck in the middle
of that plume?” Tori said incredulously.

“
We are.” Alen turned toward
her. “But the expedition leader insists the pilot should make a
landing.”

Mr
. Barry, the pilot, looked anxiously
from the controls to Mr. LaFleur and back. “I don’t know,” he
faltered. “Maybe if I fly around it and try from the other
side…”

“
I can’t believe you’re actually
considering this, Vick,” Alen snapped at the pilot.
LaFleur was still
hovering over Mr. Barry.

A shiver ran down Tori’s spine.
She didn’t know what kind of power play she was in the middle of,
but it felt wrong.
“I’m not going down there,” she blurted out, surprising
herself. “I’m sorry, but I won’t. If the Chief of Security says
it’s not safe, I’m gonna trust his opinion on the
matter.”

Jari, Alen and LaFleur turned
around and all gaped at her.
Jari nodded almost imperceptibly, LaFleur seemed
about to explode with anger, and Alen… she couldn’t quite fathom
what he was thinking, but his eyes weren’t so dark anymore. She
knew that the landing wouldn’t happen if she pulled out now. It was
too dangerous to send in a two-man team, and Alen wasn’t about to
volunteer, that much was clear.

“
I’m out too,” Jari spoke up.
“
I don’t
feel confident enough to pull this off.” And just like that, he
suddenly seemed a lot more sympathetic by showing his insecurity.
It somehow made him stronger, not weaker.

“
Turning around,”
Mr
. Barry
said dryly, not waiting for LaFleur to give the order. He knew the
plan was off the table. The spacecraft swerved to retrace its
flight path back to Saturn.

Ernst had watched the whole
exchange with bug-eyed interest. Tori hoped he wouldn’t mention any
of this in his article. For all she knew, he would peg her as the
heroine preventing the ship from crashing, and that would
not
go down well with
LaFleur. She backed away from the cockpit, avoiding her boss’s
angry eyes. She wasn’t going to stick around and become the target
of his ire. Apparently, Jari and Alen were thinking the same thing,
because they followed suit, leaving poor Mr. Barry at the helm with
LaFleur fuming in the corner of the room.

Alen
took up position at the left
porthole, staring out in space. It took her a few seconds to gather
enough courage to step up to him and mumble: “Thanks for
that.”

He looked sideways. “No
problem. I’m here to keep everyone safe.”

“
Still.”

His lips curled up into
a
faint
smile. “I’m not that much of an idiot, then.”

Tori gazed at the floor, her
face hot with embarrassment. So he’d heard her yell at him last
night. “Yeah, well, not today,” she replied reluctantly.

She was grateful for Ernst
sidling up to her to ask her a few more questions.
Hopefully, she’d
survive the trip home without any more arguments with Alen
Novak.

8.

“
Girl, he’s got it in for you,”
Shirley said, smiling
up at Tori consolingly. Her friend was balancing
three big stacks of hard drives in her arms.

“
Gee, I wonder why,” Tori
groaned.

Ever since they’d returned to
the station, LaFleur had stuck her with the most mind-numbing jobs
possible. Yesterday, after the failed expedition to Enceladus, she
was asked to label containers of bacteria in the storage room for
the remainder of the day, and she wouldn’t be surprised if she
turned out to have run a marathon today, running up and down from
the Astro Lab to Cartography to the Observatory to Commander
Kelso’s office and back again. LaFleur had insisted his research
data needed to be stored and edited physically, not just on the
network, and so instead of sending his data by e-mail, he had asked
her to copy everything onto a gazillion hard drives and
hand-deliver them to the departments involved in his studies for
his colleagues to comment on. It had been quite the workout so
far.

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