Space Case (14 page)

I groaned, missing earth terribly. “Come on. Don't rub it in like that.”

“Rub it in?” Eliza asked. “Dude, you're on the moon!”

“You hit six g's on a rocket,” Riley added. “Kohala's probably as exciting as riding a merry-go-round compared to that.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sell it to the censors. “You're right. But I still miss that place.”

“Ha,” Riley said, not believing me at all. “You're famous and you're having the adventure of a lifetime. I get to go surfing every once in a while. Trust me, my life blows compared to yours.”

I desperately wanted to tell them the truth, that I wasn't lucky at all, that all the amazing stories they'd heard about life on the moon (none of which had come from me, by the way) were merely hype and public relations. Instead I could only say, “Your life's not so bad.”

“Mr. Cochran's gonna flunk me in English and Dad wants me to work in his office this summer,” Riley shot back. “What's good about that?”

She still had her smartwatch aimed toward the beach. I noticed several friends from school there, pulling on wetsuits and waxing their boards, feeling the sand on their toes and
the warm sun on their faces. In the distance a surfer shot through the tunnel of a wave.

“It's all good,” I told her. “Trust me.”

The Bock girls' car pulled into the sand lot by the beach and self-parked. Lori Yee-Cohen, one of my classmates, set down her surfboard and waved hello to them. “Check it out!” Riley said, pointing to her watch. “I'm talking to Dash Gibson—in space!”

“Awesome!” Lori exclaimed, then waved to me. “Hey, Dash! How's the moon?”

“Great,” I lied. “How's earth?”

“All right, I guess. We miss you!”

This from a girl who hadn't even known I went to her school until my family got tapped for MBA. Then I got famous and everyone suddenly started acting like we'd been friends our whole lives. I don't mind when Riley milks her friendship with me for social status—we really are friends, and I'd do the same if she were the one on the moon—but it bugs me when other people do it.

“I miss all you guys too,” I said, just to be polite.

“Take it easy!” Lori picked up her board again and continued to the water's edge.

Riley turned the watch back so I could see her. She now looked slightly concerned; I probably hadn't done a great job of hiding my homesickness. “You sure you're all right?”

“Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile. “I'm fine.”

“Hey, some new girl came up there today, right?” Eliza asked. “Did you meet her yet?”

“Yeah, I've met her. I'm her official welcomer.”

“What's she like?” asked Riley.

“She's nice.”

“Ooooh!” Eliza crooned. “You like her! Are you gonna kiss her?”

“Don't be such a dork.” Riley shoved her sister out of the frame.

“Dash has a girlfriend!” Eliza sang, unfazed. “On the mooooon!”

Something suddenly caught my eye in the news report on Dr. Holtz, which was still running in the background on the SlimScreen. I wasn't quite sure what it was, as I'd been focused on the beach instead. But it was enough to make me sit up, aware I'd just missed something important.

Riley must have noticed my expression change. “What's wrong?”

I tapped the SlimScreen, pausing the news report on an image of a somewhat younger Dr. Holtz dressed for a fancy party. “Nothing,” I said. “I just have to jump.”

“Oh. Well, I've gotta go myself,” Riley told me. “The waves are calling. Take it easy up there. If you start freaking out or anything, you know where to find me.”

“Have a good ride for me,” I said.

“You know I will. Aloha, Moonie.”

“Have fun with your girlfriend!” Eliza shouted.

Riley clicked off. I stared at her final image—sand, sun, and beach—feeling desperately homesick for a few more moments.

I was about to return to the news report when a thought occurred to me.

When I'd overheard Dr. Holtz's phone call, there hadn't been any two-second gaps in the conversation. True, I hadn't been able to hear the person on the other end of the call, but still, you can tell. Talking to someone when you have to wait a few seconds for an answer always sounds a little stilted. But Dr. Holtz's conversation hadn't been that way at all.

Which meant he hadn't been talking to someone on earth. He'd been talking to someone on the moon.

I wondered who it could be. Who else had been up at that time of night? And why had they used the phone, rather than meeting somewhere on the base?

I sighed. Trapped in my room, there was no way I could pursue that line of investigation any further.

So I returned my attention to the news report, rewinding it thirty seconds to see what I'd missed.

The report was recapping Dr. Holtz's life and, judging
from the photos of him, was somewhere near the last decade. Dr. Holtz's hair was graying, but not white like it had ultimately become. Various shots of him working at NASA flashed by, while the reporter said, “In more recent years, Dr. Holtz was a key player in designing Moon Base Alpha, drawing upon his research and his own experiences in space to help create the best lunar living environment for humans.”

The video then shifted to the party I'd glimpsed, which turned out to be an event in Dr. Holtz's honor. “Dr. Holtz was widely respected for his work,” the reporter continued, “garnering such awards as the National Medal of Science and NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for his work on the effects of low gravity on the human body.”

“Pause,” I told the computer. The same thing that had caught my eye before had done so again. It was so fleeting I didn't even know what it was, but this time I'd been alert enough to stop the news report in the right place, giving me time to examine the scene.

Dr. Holtz was up on a podium, wearing a nice suit, while Caroline Lesser, the chief administrator of NASA, draped a medal around his neck. In the room around them, hundreds of fellow NASA employees were also dressed to the nines, seated at dinner tables and applauding enthusiastically.

Well, not everyone was applauding enthusiastically.

While all the other guests looked pleased, one person
seated at a front table didn't seem happy at all. I might never have noticed him, but he stood out because he had a Mohawk.

I tapped on the image. “Enlarge,” I told the computer.

The computer zoomed in on Chang Hi-Tech, enhancing and adjusting the resolution until Chang's face was as bright and clear as if I had been sitting right next to him.

Close up, he didn't seem merely unhappy.

He was glaring at Dr. Holtz with complete and total hatred.

Lunar day 188

Dinnertime

My parents sprang me for
dinner.

They had been so busy with their various duties that day that it wasn't till evening that they heard I'd been grounded. Once they did, they were livid at Nina. First, everyone who'd witnessed the raw-egg incident had made it clear that Patton Sjoberg was as much to blame as me—if not more. And neither Mom nor Dad felt it was Nina's right to ground me. So come dinnertime I was seated in the mess with everyone else.

Normally I would consider dining at MBA to be as big a punishment as being grounded, but since fresh food had arrived that day, I was actually excited to eat for once. Everyone
else was too. Most nights the Moonies dribble in at random times to scarf something down as quickly as possible. (It's the general theory at MBA that the faster you eat your freeze-dried crud, the less chance you have of actually tasting it.) But tonight the mess was full, everyone gathered together and eager for their meal.

On a normal night we all prepare our own food. (Even Violet can work the rehydrator, so long as she doesn't stick chewing gum in it.) But the fresh food took a bit more care. So Nina, Chang, and Mr. Grisan had the honor of prepping it while the rest of us waited. It was too crowded for my family to have a table to ourselves; Kira's father and Daphne Merritt sat with us. Kira was the only person at MBA who hadn't shown up for dinner.

“Where's your daughter?” Violet asked Dr. Howard bluntly.

“Hmm?” asked Dr. Howard, who'd been staring off into space. He looked around and seemed to notice for the first time that Kira was missing. However, he didn't seem concerned about this. “Oh, she's off exploring her new home, I suppose.”

“That shouldn't take long,” I muttered. “This place isn't big.”

“That's one of the things I like about it,” Daphne said cheerfully. Other than Violet, Daphne is the only person who seems continually thrilled to be at the moon base.
Unlike Violet, though, Daphne is fully aware of all the base's faults; she simply doesn't care. “It's cozy here, don't you think? Much nicer than a big, empty moon base.”

“Yeah!” Violet said. “I like it here too!”

No one else seconded the thought.

I wondered if Kira was off trying to hack the computer somewhere. This was probably the best chance she'd have. With everyone in the mess, she had the rest of MBA to herself.

Across the room I caught sight of Zan, sitting at a table with some of the other temps who'd come in that day: two solar-panel contractors and a woman who I hadn't been introduced to yet. While the others chatted, Zan caught my eye and gave me a quick wink, letting me know we were still in this together.

Dad turned to Dr. Howard. “You ought to track Kira down. There won't be another meal like this for a while. She really shouldn't miss it.” He pointed toward the kitchen, where Nina, Chang, and Mr. Grisan were busily preparing dinner: actual, honest-to-goodness hamburgers.

They couldn't grill the burgers at MBA, of course. We can't have any open flames, as they'd suck up all our precious oxygen. And if the base catches fire, there isn't anywhere else for us to go. So the burgers were all cooked back in Houston (where they really know their grilling) and then vacuum-sealed in plastic sheets. These look weird,
like huge meaty button candies, but the plastic preserves the flavor amazingly well. Now our chefs were microwaving the burgers as quickly as they could—and serving them up with sides of relatively fresh carrots, pickles, and coleslaw. The Sjobergs had selfishly demanded to be served first, even before the kids. They'd just received their dinner, and the smell of cooked meat was intoxicating. My mouth was watering so much I was worried I'd drool on the table.

Virtually everyone else in the mess was equally mesmerized, eagerly waiting the moment when they'd get their food. Dr. Howard, however, had already checked out mentally again. “Hmm?” he asked once more. “Kira? Oh, I think she's a vegetarian.”

“You're not sure?” Mom asked, surprised.

Dr. Howard shook his head, smiling vacantly. “Who can keep track of what a twelve-year-old girl likes and doesn't like?”

There was a soft ping and then my smartwatch displayed a text. It was from Eliza Bock:
How's your new girlfriend?

“Dash, no messaging at dinner,” Mom said.

“I know.” I didn't feel like responding to Eliza anyhow. I pretended to turn my watch off, while actually setting it to silent mode.

I glanced toward the Sjobergs, my stomach grumbling. The entire family was making a disgusting show of enjoying
their food, groaning with delight at each bite and smacking their lips. “This is absolutely exquisite!” Sonja announced. Her lips, which had been overinflated by a plastic surgeon back on earth, were now painted red with barbecue sauce, making her look like a tropical fish. Lars Sjoberg and his children only grunted in response, not even lifting their heads from their plates.