Space Case (9 page)

Their fellow travelers moved differently. None had ever been on the lunar surface before, and all were having significant trouble figuring out the low gravity. They wobbled, stumbled, and bounded too far. One tripped and face-planted in a pile of moon dust.

Only five of the new arrivals were officially Moonies, who'd be staying for years. The rest were temps: people who only came for brief stays. Temps might be contractors who installed new equipment, mechanics who repaired broken machinery, or engineers surveying the construction site for Moon Base Beta. In a few days they'd hop on the return rocket and head back home to earth. I wasn't even sure how many temps were scheduled to arrive at MBA this time. Besides the seven people en route to the air lock, I knew there were other passengers I couldn't see, ones who'd remained at the landing pad to unload the rocket.

Dad, Chang, and the other Moonies who had cargo duty were suited up by the time the new arrivals reached the air lock. The cargo team passed through first, emerging onto the surface of the moon, where they did their best to greet the new arrivals. (Space suits are far less bulky than they used to be, but it's still almost impossible to shake hands in them.)

The cargo crew then headed for the landing pad. The new arrivals passed through the air lock into the base and the celebration began.

Greeting new arrivals is always one of the happiest times at MBA. All of us at the base are thrilled to have new people there. And all the new arrivals are thrilled to have finally made it. (Despite all you've heard about how modern spaceships are so elegant and spacious, they're not; after a few hours on board, you still feel like a sardine in a can.) The moment the newbies popped their space helmets off, the base was alive with excitement. All the adults cheered and hugged one another.

I was the only greeter who'd never spoken to my assigned newbie. I'd seen some things about her on the news, but since that was vetted by NASA's PR department, I knew it might not be reliable. (News reports about Roddy had often referred to him as an “impressive athlete”.) Other than knowing what Kira looked like, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

I wormed my way through the crowd, pausing to say a quick hello to Katya and Buster, and finally found Kira by the air lock. She was standing with her father, Dr. Maxwell Howard. Both had removed their helmets but still wore the rest of their space suits. Dr. Marquez, who was Dr. Howard's official greeter, was talking to them animatedly, though Dr. Howard wasn't paying much attention to him. Instead he
was looking all around MBA, taking in his surroundings. He didn't seem to be either amazed or disappointed. His gaze was very clinical, like he was studying the place.

Kira, on the other hand, seemed a bit overwhelmed. Her eyes were nervously darting back and forth. She didn't look very much like her father, who was tall and black. She looked far more like her mother, who'd been Asian. (According to Kira's bio, her mother had died from cancer four years earlier.)

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound as cheerful and friendly as possible. “I'm Dashiell. Welcome to Moon Base Alpha.”

Kira didn't appear surprised that I had replaced Cesar. In fact, she seemed relieved there was someone her age to talk to. “Hey, Dash. Nice to meet you.”

“I know Cesar was supposed to greet you, but—”

“Oh, they let me know about the change as we were landing. It's probably better this way. I know all about you. I've seen all your video logs.”

“Really?” All Moonies have to post videos to the MBA website once a week so people back on earth can follow our lives. It's a big public-relations deal. I do my best to make mine interesting, but since NASA policy states I can't say anything bad about the moon base, there isn't much to talk about. So I usually goof around, making up stories that are obviously ridiculous, about meeting martians and fighting
moondragons and such. I knew I had followers, but I'd never met one before.

“Yeah,” Kira said. “Well, I haven't seen
all
of them. But most of them. They're more fun than anyone else's. Although your sister's can be pretty hilarious.”

That was true. Violet has no idea what the point of the video logs is. The week before, she had simply danced around with a pair of underpants on her head while singing the
Squirrel Force
theme song.

“Need any help getting out of your suit?” I asked.

“Definitely.” Kira turned to her father. “Hey, Dad, this is Dash. He's gonna help me get settled.”

Dr. Howard turned to her, still somewhat distracted, as though he'd forgotten she was even there. “Oh. All right, hon. Have fun.”

He didn't even bother introducing himself to me. I'd stuck out my arm to shake hands, but he didn't seem to notice.

“Daddy's a bit monofocused,” Kira explained. “He's probably already thinking of ways to improve the base.”

“If he needs any help, I have a few thousand suggestions,” I said, then winced. I probably wasn't supposed to bad-mouth the station to the newbies. Not right away, anyhow. I tried to cover. “Not that this place isn't great, of course.”

Kira laughed. “I know it isn't exactly paradise,” she whispered.
“Dad's always going off about all the mistakes they've made.”

I looked at her, surprised. “And you still wanted to come?”

“It's not like I had any more choice than you did.” Kira spun around, exposing the back of her suit to me. “Can you undo this?”

Space suits are really more like suits of armor than clothing; they're designed to protect you from danger rather than provide any comfort at all. And like suits of armor, they're very hard to put on or take off without help. There were several Velcro strips and latches in the back of Kira's suit. I undid everything and Kira wriggled backward out of it, emerging like a butterfly from a cocoon.

Without her suit on she seemed three times smaller. That's true for everyone, but it seemed more evident in Kira's case because she's small to begin with. She was wearing a vintage
Star Wars
T-shirt and warm-up pants.

Kira shook her arms, getting the blood flowing after being in the constricting space suit. “Ahhh. Much better,” she sighed, then turned to me. “So where should we start the tour?”

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Starving,” Kira admitted.

“Then let's start with the mess hall.”

“That'd be great. They told us not to eat anything in the hours before landing because it makes people nauseous and they didn't want anyone blowing chunks all over the rocket.”

“Did anyone?”

“Dr. Kim, the geologist. Have you ever seen puke in zero gravity? It's disgusting.”

I glanced at my mother and Dr. Kim as we passed. Mom had called it right. Dr. Kim's clothes were stained with vomit.

I picked up Kira's space suit and carried it toward the storage area. “Mess is this way.”

Kira started to follow me—and bounded way too high in the low gravity, soaring past me and slamming face-first into the wall.

I winced. “Sorry! I forgot to warn you: It takes a while to figure out how to walk around here.”

Kira flushed, embarrassed. “I didn't realize how much lighter I'd be without the space suit.”

“Yeah. These things double your weight.” I slipped Kira's suit and helmet into their racks. “You shouldn't be embarrassed. When I first got here, I did exactly the same thing.”

Kira shot me a distrusting glance. “You're only saying that to make me feel better.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But I still had plenty of trouble. Everyone does.” I pointed to the other newbies.

They were all having problems moving about. Dr. Kim's husband, Dr. Alvarez, had flown into a wall himself, while Viktor Balnikov had bounded so high he'd cracked his head on the bottom of the catwalk. Kira's father was the only one who hadn't wiped out yet—and that was only because he hadn't taken a step.

Kira tentatively gave it another go—and still used too much force. She sailed high in the air and then crashed back to the floor. “Dang it!” she snapped. “Back on earth they said this would be easy!”

I felt terrible, hearing the frustration in her voice. It reminded me of my own, six months earlier. The realization that MBA was far worse than everyone had led her to believe was already setting in. In just a few weeks she'd be as bitter about the whole place as I was.

Only I didn't want that to happen. Maybe I couldn't make the moon base itself better, but I could certainly try to make life there more bearable for Kira.

I extended a hand to her. “It'll get easier. I promise.”

The anger faded from Kira's eyes. She took my hand. “I hope so.”

I helped her to her feet. “The trick is to barely even use your muscles. Pretend like you're walking on eggshells.”

“All right.” Kira gingerly took a step. This time she didn't go flying. So she took another. And another.

“There you go,” I said.

“Yeah. Three whole steps. Amazing.”

I finished storing Kira's suit and then helped her work her way toward the mess. Normally I wouldn't be in any hurry to eat at MBA, but whenever a rocket arrives, a small amount of fresh food comes on it. This is an incredibly transparent tactic by NASA to boost our spirits at MBA—and it always works like a charm. By the time we got to the mess, almost every Moonie had already descended on it, desperate to taste something that wasn't freeze-dried and dehydrated.

Most of the fresh food was still on the rocket, but Katya and Buster had carried in a sack of tangerines. The fruits hadn't weathered the trip that well—back on earth we'd have turned our noses up at them—but I would have eagerly traded a pound of gold for one.

Buster tossed two to me and Kira as we entered the mess. I held hers out to her.

To my surprise, she shook her head. “You can have it. I don't really like tangerines.”

“Don't pass this up,” I warned her. “You'll regret it. Before I came here, I didn't like tomatoes. Now if someone showed up here with a fresh one, I'd kill for it.”

Kira shrugged. “I still pass. It's all yours.”

I wasn't going to argue myself out of a second tangerine. I
quickly slipped it into my pocket, then walked Kira through the basics of how to prepare food. Since she'd just done me a good turn, I warned her about the chicken parmigiana and tracked down a shrimp cocktail for her. Kira still wanted to practice her low-gravity walking, so rather than sit and eat, I led her around the base, trying to point out everything of interest, though I was far more focused on my tangerine than on delivering a decent tour.

There are two ways people eat fresh food at MBA. Roddy represents the first: Having no self-control whatsoever, he devours his food as quickly as possible, like a dog that's been given a steak. I represent the second: I try to savor every last molecule. From the moment I tore off the first bit of tangerine peel, I inhaled deeply, relishing the smell. Then I ate one section at a time, resting it on my tongue, slowly sucking the juice out of it, and finally methodically chewing the pulp.

I'd only eaten half my tangerine by the time I'd taken Kira past the gym, the greenhouse, and the rec room and wound back past the residences to the main air lock. “There you go,” I said. “You've seen everything.”

Kira frowned. I could recognize the disillusionment setting in again. I'd felt it myself after my first tour. “That's it? It's a lot smaller than I expected.”

“It's actually just the right size,” I said, trying my best to
be upbeat. “Trust me, when you're heading to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you'll be thankful this place isn't any bigger.”

Kira turned to me, startled. “You mean we don't have our own bathrooms?”

“Er . . . no,” I said, then quickly tried to change the subject. “How long are you supposed to be here for?”

“Three years, same as you.” Kira frowned, then looked to me hopefully. “It won't be that bad, right? I mean, on your video logs you look like you're having fun up here.”

“I am,” I told her, hoping it sounded like I meant it. “It's not perfect, but it's still pretty cool to be one of the first people to live on the moon.”

“Yeah. It is.” Kira nodded, then seemed to shrug off her doubts. “Hey, I haven't seen my room yet.”

“You're in Residence Three, right next door to my family.” I led the way to the staircase. “Careful coming up, though. Stairs are the trickiest part of low gravity.”

Kira followed. She'd already gotten much better at low-g walking on our tour, but the moment she set foot on the stairs, she stumbled. She grabbed the handrail and tried again, but wobbled and had to steady herself. “Whoa,” she said. “Why is this so hard?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “Something about how we perceive our own weight gets all messed up. It happens to
everyone. NASA considered building a ramp instead of stairs because they can be so much trouble, but the stairs took up less space.”

“Why were they so concerned about space?” Kira snapped. “That's all there is up here. We're on the freaking moon, for Pete's sake!”

“It's just expensive to build here, I guess. My folks say Moon Base Beta's going to be a lot bigger.”

“When's that gonna be finished?”

“In ten years. If we're lucky.”

Kira sighed, then focused on the stairs. Slowly she managed to work her way up them. When she finally arrived at the top, she threw her arms in the air. “Ta-da!” she crowed sarcastically. “A whole flight of stairs in a mere five minutes.”

“Just so you know, it's even harder going down,” I warned.

“You're kidding.”

“No. I usually just jump over the railing.” I pointed at the floor fifteen feet below. “In low gravity you barely feel the landing. But don't ever do it when Nina's around. It's against the rules, and she'll have a fit.”