by Dan Wells
“That’s the end of your leash, buddy,” said Zero. Kratt stopped, braced himself, and surged forward again. But again the chain yanked him back. Zero waved at the furious pirate, laughing as Kratt struggled, but in doing so, Zero’s gloves slipped, and he dropped the can.
Zero was about three meters away from the Drago, and floating slowly farther every second.
Off into space.
“Ha!” roared Kratt over the intercom. “I got him.”
“Good!” said Mama. “Bring him in.”
“That’s . . . not what I meant,” said Kratt.
“So you don’t have him?” asked Nyx.
“Not in my hands,” said Kratt, “but I chased him away. He’s floating off into space, without a ship or a jetpack or a tether. We’ll never see him again.”
“Ha!” said Mama. “That will show him.”
Zero reached into his other pocket, and pulled out his second can of spray paint.
“Just in case,” he said, and turned around, and used the sprayer to propel himself down to the surface of the Pathfinder. His boots hit the hull, and he activated the magnets.
“No!” shouted Kratt.
“What happened?” asked Mama.
“He got back to the ship!”
“Then go get him,” said Mama, “and do it right this time!”
Kratt tugged on his chain.
“I can’t move,” Kratt roared. “He chained me to the hull!”
“What?” asked Jim.
“You idiot!” screamed Mama.
“I think I like this kid,” said Spider.
Zero waved at Kratt and turned to walk away, moving around the curve of the ship and out of sight. He didn’t want anyone to see which airlock he used to get back inside.
“Come out and get me!” shouted Kratt.
“How? That’s our only space suit!” said Jim.
“There’s got to be more somewhere,” said Kratt. “Find one!”
“If we have time,” said Mama. “Right now we’ve got bigger things to worry about than helping an idiot.”
“You can’t leave me out here, Mama!”
“Your rebreather’s got plenty of air,” said Mama. “You’ll be fine till we can get to you. For now: Spider, Jim, find that boy!”
Chapter Twenty-One
TOMATO SAUCE
ZERO RACED BACK to the empty hangar, threw himself into the airlock, and hit the button. The tiny room pressurized, filling with air, and when the light turned green Zero pulled off his helmet and gasped. It was the same air he had in his suit, but there was more of it. He’d felt like he was suffocating in that thing.
The communicator crackled: “Someone just used an airlock on Ring 42,” said Spider. “It’s one of the landing barge hangars.”
“Got it,” said Jim.
“Crap!” said Zero. They’d been watching the airlocks on the ship’s computer! He had to get away from here as fast as he could. He opened the inner door, stripped off the rest of the space suit, and pulled it with him toward the cargo bay to hide it. After a few meters he saw a streak of blue out of the corner of his eye, on the sleeve of the white space suit, and realized there was paint on the fingers—sticky globs left over from the spray cans. Zero looked behind himself in a panic and saw a small spot on the wall, and then another, and then another; he’d left a tiny trail of bright blue paint smears all the way here from the airlock! He let go of the space suit immediately, knowing that it was safer to just leave it here and get as far away as possible. He pushed off the wall, flew a fewer meters down the passage, then stopped in another panic and launched himself back toward the suit: if he left them another space suit, they could go outside and get Kratt. The rebreather was removable, so he pulled it out, leaving the suit useless, then raced down the hall as fast as he could go. He didn’t know if he had time to make it all the way to his hideout in the construction supplies, so he raced instead to the cargo bay full of food. He reached it in record time, fled inside, and closed the door behind him. He squeezed back into the gaps between the crates, and waited. His heart pounded in his chest.
“I’m here.” Jim’s voice rang loud in Zero’s ears, and he yelped and flinched before remembering that it was just the communicator.
Don’t find me. Don’t find me, Zero thought.
“There’s some paint smears on the walls, so I might be able to follow him—aw, wait, here’s the space suit. Looks like he left it in the middle of a hall.”
Zero shook his head in relief. He was so glad he’d seen the paint before it was too late.
“Where did he go from there?” asked Mama.
“I can’t tell,” said Jim. “No, wait—there’s some more paint.”
Zero’s heart froze. More paint? Zero looked at himself frantically, trying to find some paint he had missed, and found a small smear of it on his hip. He’d been so scared in the hallway, he hadn’t thought to check himself, only the space suit. He squeezed further back into the maze of crates, praying that he hadn’t left any smears that could lead them to the cargo bay.
“Found some more,” said Jim’s voice. “And some more. And—no, that’s it. The trail stops here.”
“Where?” asked Mama.
“A few meters away from one of the cargo bays,” said Jim. “Maybe he’s hiding inside.”
The door to Zero’s cargo bay slid open with a soft swoosh. Light flooded in. Zero held his breath, though he was so far back behind the crates that there was no way Jim would see him.
But he might see more paint . . .
Zero’s heart pounded in his chest. He heard Jim’s breathing, and then a sharp tap on one of the crates. Sweat beaded on Zero’s skin, and then instead of dripping to the floor it floated off of him, hanging in the air around him like a rainfall frozen in time. Zero counted the seconds: one, two, three, four, five. What was Jim seeing? What would he do? Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. The breathing moved closer. Another loud knock.
“He didn’t come in here,” said Jim. Zero heard his voice twice—once in person, and again a second later in the earphones from the communicator.
“You sure?” asked Mama.
“There’s no paint inside the cargo bay,” said Jim. “Plus, these crates are stacked so close together there’s nowhere for him to go. I’ll check the bay across the hall.” He left, and the door closed behind him.
Zero didn’t dare to breathe again for several seconds. He was safe—for now. And part one of his plan had worked: Kratt was stranded outside, with no way to get back in. Better yet, he was chained to the Drago, so when the pirates flew away they’d take him with them. But that’s the whole problem, thought Zero. How do I get the pirates to fly away?
Zero’s stomach growled, so loudly he worried that Jim might hear it through the wall. He squeezed his way through the maze of crates until he found the open one, and reached in to find food. He probed around with his hand, found another box of banana chips, and pulled it out. He peeled it open and ate ravenously, but as his hunger lessened his thirst got worse and worse. He rooted around in the crate for something to drink, but all he could find that had liquid in it was another can of tomato sauce. He stared at the label, grimacing, and finally popped it open and took a long gulp. It was thick, but it was liquid, and it helped calm his thirst for now. “Good thing you’re not infected like that other can,” he whispered. “If I’d taken a drink of that stuff, hoo boy—”
And then he stopped, and a slow grin spread across his face.
“They’ve got crowbars and stun guns,” he said, “but I’ve got tomato sauce.”
Zero left the can of good tomato sauce floating in the air, and looked behind him for the bad one. Where had he stashed it? Aha! There it was. He pulled it out of a gap between two crates, feeling the bulge in the sides and the lid. Anyone who ate even a drop of this stuff would get so sick they wouldn’t be able to leave the toilet for a week. They’d be trapped almost as securely as Kratt was. If Zero could get it into their
food . . . but how?
He couldn’t just walk up and put it on food they’d already prepared, because there was no way to get in and out unseen. But if he could get to the meal packs before they ate them, he could just add a drop or two to all of them—no matter which one they ate, they’d get too sick to move. But he had to be fast, and he had to be agile, and that meant he couldn’t haul the entire bulging can of tomato sauce with him. He needed something he could use to carry a smaller dose. He hunted around in the opened food crate to see what he could find: Shrink-wrapped pickles. Cream of Mushroom soup. Protein powder. Instant coffee with filters and stirring straws. Maybe the filters would work? No: the straws. He dipped one into the good tomato sauce, just as a test, and pulled it out. The sauce was thick enough that it stayed in the straw, and the lack of gravity meant it didn’t drip out. He used a shrink-wrapped pickle to wipe off the excess sauce, and ta-da! He had a perfect dose of weaponized food poisoning—just stab it into the meal brick and let the pooping commence.
He grabbed the straws and the bulging can, and moved to a different part of the cargo bay. He didn’t want to risk contaminating the food he actually ate. He peeled open the can—it smelled bad, but not so strong it would tip them off—and prepared a few straws full of spoiled sauce. He didn’t have pockets in this Pathfinder coverall, but he had a little belt around his waist; he tucked the straws into that, and worked his way back to the door.
Jim was still searching the cargo bays, calling out his position to Mama every now and then, so Zero knew exactly where he was. And Spider was presumably still up in the control room, programming a new flight path to Tacita, so Zero knew where she was, too. It was Mama he couldn’t predict—and Nyx. He didn’t dare to forget Nyx again. Where were those two? What were they doing? Wherever they were, they were probably together, because they weren’t talking over the communicator. Zero opened the door, slipped into the hall, and closed it behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
PLAN C
“RING 56, SECTION C,” said Jim. “It’s a cargo bay full of solar panels. No kid.”
“I can’t believe you can’t find a kid,” said Mama. “He’s just a child! You’re supposed to be smarter than a child, Jim.”
Zero moved through a narrow aisle of stasis pods on Ring 52, toward the maintenance tube in Section B. As soon as Jim announced his next target—a cargo bay on Ring 56, Section H—Zero slipped into the B tube and jumped up, traveling several Rings and shooting right past 56 in a flash. With Jim far behind him he breathed a little easier, but he was still spooked by Mama and Nyx. Where were they?
Zero changed tubes frequently, trying to make himself as unpredictable as possible. He didn’t want to stay in one place, or on one path, any longer than necessary. It kept him hidden, but it slowed him down, and it took him almost an hour to reach Ring 240. If he was going to ruin their food, he had to make sure he got all their food, and that meant the meal bricks in the Drago as well as the Pathfinder. He hovered out of sight near the Drago’s entrance, listening, but it didn’t sound like anyone was there. He pulled himself closer, certain that there would be a guard—maybe Nyx—since she didn’t seem to be anywhere else. But he heard nothing. He peeked out, and saw an empty hallway. Four pirates were not enough to keep watch over an entire spaceship. He took the risk and jumped across the open space, through the door, and into the Drago.
It was mostly as he’d left it, though if possible it was even messier—when Kratt had taken the space suit, he’d apparently scattered everything else that cargo net had been holding all over of the main room. It occurred to Zero that Kratt might be looking in from outside, so he stayed away from the cockpit windows just in case. He maneuvered through the floating clutter and hunted for the pirates’ food stores. Every few seconds he looked back at the entrance, expecting to see one of the pirates walking in on him with a stun gun. He searched in the cargo nets, he searched in the lockers, he even searched in the disgusting bathroom again. Finally he found a large cooler shoved under one of the sleeping bag wall-beds, but when he opened it he found only a handful of ration packs—six small meal bricks, all of them labeled “Chicken Stroganoff.” Apparently none of the pirates liked chicken stroganoff. He jumped back to the bedroom door, looking across to the main ship entrance, but saw no one.
Time to do this, Zero thought.
He flew back to the cooler, unwrapped a corner of each meal, and used one of his tomato sauce straws to dab a bit of spoiled food into each one. He closed them up again, stashed the empty straw in one of the sleeping bags, and fled back out of the Drago. He’d done it! But he wasn’t sure it would do him any good: no one was likely to eat those meal bricks anytime soon.
He had to go up to the fore of the ship—to the rec room and the rest of the food. He slipped out of the Drago and back into the Pathfinder.
“I’m sick of searching,” said Jim on the communicator. “I’m coming back up.”
“No, that’s where I’m going!” whispered Zero.
“You stay until you find him,” said Mama.
“Yes, what she said,” said Zero to himself.
“This ship is a kilometer long and a hundred meters wide,” said Jim. His voice was angry now. “That’s almost eight million cubic meters of volume, and that kid probably takes up half a cubic meter at best. I’m not going to find him until he does something stupid, and I’m hungry and tired, so I’m coming back up!”
Zero grimaced. “No!”
“Check the Drago, then,” said Mama, and Zero froze in the hallway, mouth open.
“No way,” said Zero. “Am I really that lucky?”
“Nyx was supposed to be watching it, but I haven’t heard from her in a while.”
“You think he got her?” asked Jim.
“I think she’s off screwing around, like usual,” said Mama.
“Fine,” said Jim, “I’ll check the ship.”
Zero punched the air in excitement—his plan was going to work! But then he realized he was floating in plain view, right where Jim was headed, and pushed himself into the nearest aisle of stasis pods to hide. Should he wait? Or just head up to the control room now? Better to keep moving. He floated all the way around to the opposite side of the ship, and then peeked into a maintenance tube. No Jim in this one, and no one in the other direction, either. He pulled himself in and jumped up, moving as quickly as he could. When he reached Ring 299 he heard voices: Mama and Spider were arguing.
“. . . then it doesn’t matter,” said Mama, “because we’ll catch him eventually anyway.”
“One of him, maybe,” said Spider. “Twenty thousand of him? You go on and on about having twenty thousand workers in your mine, but this one kids shows exactly why that’s a bad idea. How are you going to keep control of that many people?”
“Once we’re on Tacita, we can use guns again,” said Mama. “That’ll keep ’em in line.”
Spider answered around a mouthful of food: “We’re a tiny outpost. We have a thousand bullets, at best. That’s nineteen thousand colonists left to overrun us.”
Zero inched closer. Both women were in the rec room, and by the sounds of it they were eating. He was too late! He wanted to float over toward the door, so he could peek in, but that would mean going out into the central column. What if Jim saw him? And where was Nyx?
He hesitated, and then doubled back toward the maintenance tubes. He could hide in the last place they’d ever expect to see him again: in the computer banks. He found the same hatch he’d used before, and slipped inside.
“I’m back at the Drago,” said Jim. “Everything’s fine. I’m coming up—”
“You wanted to eat,” said Mama, “so eat in the Drago. Someone’s got to eat those chicken stroganoffs, and you’re the one that bought ’em.”
Zero did a little antigravity dance of joy.
“They were cheap!” said Jim.
“Just eat one,” said Spider.
“And watch the Drago,” said Mama. “Sooner or l
ater that kid’s going to think about going in there, and then we’re all in trouble.”
That made Zero pause. What was in the Drago that could put them all in trouble? Or was she just being dramatic about the invasion of their personal space?
Either way, Jim was about to eat a spoiled meal, and that’d be one more pirate down—
“Uh oh,” said Jim. “Green Alert.”
Zero floated closer to the rec room wall, and heard Spider’s confused response through the vent: “What’s a green alert?”
Mama sighed. “That’s when he thinks there’s an alien.” She got on the communicator. “For crying out loud, Jim, there’s no alien!”
“Something’s gotten into the meal bricks!” said Jim. “Not a person—it’s a creature. Something was nibbling on the corners!”
“Maybe it’s a rat,” said Spider.
“We don’t have rats,” said Mama. “Kratt ate them all.”
“Something was poking into these meal bricks with . . . hollow teeth! What has hollow teeth? I swear to you. It’s an alien!” Jim insisted.
Zero looked at his little coffee straws. They did kind of look like long, hollow teeth.
“Stop making up stories!” said Spider. “You just don’t want to eat the stroganoff!”
Zero could see the women clearly now through the vent: Spider and Mama, floating in the rec room with their meals in front of them. Some kind of burrito thing? They both had one, whatever it was, and they were both ignoring their food, talking on the communicators instead. It would have been the perfect opportunity to poke the food with some spoiled tomato sauce, but they were too far away. Maybe if Kratt had actually managed to rip the vent off the wall, Zero could reach his arm through and stab the lasagna, but even that might be too far away. What could he do?
