by Adam Holt
“A hoot owl,” said Little Bacon. “Hoot owls hunt at night and feed on a variety of small rodents.”
“Like those poor guys?”
“Yes.”
“Why is there a bird in space, Bacon?”
“Possibly to see how a bird digests food in space.”
“Poor guy can’t even fly. I bet he didn’t volunteer for this job.”
“Neither did those mice,” said Little Bacon.
I did a few sketches of the mice and named the owl “Owlbert.” I know. Pretty creative. He flapped his wings occasionally and spun his head around in all directions. The mice didn’t find much of this entertaining.
Finally, across the garden from me was the Harper Device. An enormous white room housed the Device, and a clear plastic wall with a door separated it from the rest of the lab. I could just make out that familiar red glow through the garden. I sketched it from memory though, imagining the mist trailing onto the white floor.
Between sketching and writing about my surroundings, I stayed busy. I took breaks to watch my pen rotate slowly in mid-air, or see how fast I could spin my sketchbook. I never took off more than my helmet even when I was alone.
Scrubbles had a specific diet—fruit, fruit, and more fruit. Apparently one astronaut was supposed to feed him three meals a day. I don’t recommend eating fruit three meals a day, but feeding time was when I met my “handler,” Sylvia Moreline.
She seemed worried about her orangutan. I couldn’t blame her. I mean, he wouldn’t take off his spacesuit or even open his visor! She got over it though, and we worked into a routine over the next few days. I looked forward to seeing her, but the first feeding almost gave me a heart attack.
I did not have on my helmet when the hatch opened at the far end of the space lab. Little Bacon was floating a few feet in front of me, so I shoved him into a bunch of vines in the back of the cage and threw on my helmet. Sylvia floated down the length of the walkway and past the garden. She had a smile that put me at ease, and her long, black ponytail stuck straight up on top of her head in zero gravity. Watching someone float weightlessly toward you is a real thrill the first time you see it, especially if it’s the friendliest astronaut in the world, Sylvia Moreline. I almost answered her when she said, “Hola, chiquito! You want food? Lift up that visor and I’ll give you this jaca.”
A jaca? What the heck is that? I thought. If I lifted up the visor, we would both be in for quite a surprise. Instead, I sat back in my spacious cage. Then I scratched my head and made a throwing motion.
“You want me to throw you the jaca? Well, okay, chiquito, you got it!” She reared back and slow-pitched the fruit to me. I caught the football-sized fruit. I laid it aside and pointed for a banana.
“Yay, look at you!” She motioned for me to eat the jaca first, but I did the same thing as before. “Okay, you want to play with your food first, huh?” The banana came spinning slowly across the cage as well. She’s not very strict. She would be a good mom, I thought.
“That’s it. Eat up now,” she said, signing to me. I signed back to her: “Alone, please.” I gathered the fruit in the corner and pretended to protect my jaca and banana. I tried to shoo her away. “I see,” she said, “so shy. Well, hasta luego, chiquito. You know where to put your hands when you’re done eating, like we practiced, remember? And don’t forget to do your experiments!” She floated back toward the hatch.
She knows Scrubbles! The idea dawned on me. Of course she did. The Adversity had no space for extra workers, like a crazy orangutan manager, especially since Queen Envy took up three cabins to herself. Moreline probably practiced with Scrubbles for weeks or months, feeding him and training him. She “knew” me. I would need to be careful around her.
I removed my gloves so I could peel the banana. The banana was easy to eat and clean up, but my stomach still growled. I looked at the spiky football she had thrown me next.
“You can come out now, Little Bacon,” I said. “Could you tell me what this is?”
“Certainly, sir. It’s a jackfruit, or jaca in Spanish. Jacas can grow up to 80 pounds.”
“Is it edible?”
“A jaca can be opened with a knife or, with some effort, human hands.”
It did take some effort, but I broke open the jaca, and immediately my hands felt like they were coated in glue. It tasted sweet, but I couldn’t get the sticky off my hands. If I put on my gloves now, they’ll be nasty forever, I thought. I didn’t feel safe with them off. Feeling frustrated, I threw the banana peel at Little Bacon.
“How am I supposed to get clean?”
“Soap and water act as traditional cleaning agents for human hands,” he said.
Thanks, Bacon. So helpful.
With no solution in sight, I decided to get a better look at my cage. The cell was green and brown, and some type of grass covered the walls. Vines and trees grew up to the ceiling thirty feet above. At the top of the cage was a huge skylight, about the size of a queen-sized bed. I pushed myself toward the skylight, which opened up into a black canvas dotted with tiny colored lights. Space. The entire universe of a septillion stars was just four inches from my nose, and for who knows how long I stared out into the vacuum of space and lost my thoughts there for a while. We were circling the Earth now, and I saw my first sunrise in space. It was amazing, watching the sunlight burst over the blue curve of the Earth. All the blackness around it made the Earth look that much more special, like a jewel that someone wanted the universe to see. The jewel got blurry though. There was a tear in my eye. I blinked and it floated in front of my face, a perfect sphere that reflected the sunlight. I had planned to sneak on board a spaceship, but I had not imagined the beauty of space.
I would have stayed there longer, but when I wiped the tear, my sticky hands reminded me to get clean. From the ceiling, I saw where I was supposed to perform my “experiments,” as Moreline called them. I also spotted a slot in the wall, just big enough for furry orangutan hands.
I pushed myself toward the ground and stuck my hands into the slot. Maybe it’s a hand sanitizer. Oh, it was. Immediately the slot clamped down on my wrists. I was handcuffed to the wall. I guess that wasn’t the end of the world, but my visor was up. Anyone could see me. “Tully, you idiot!” I said, wondering when this thing would release me.
Well, it wasn’t a hand-sanitizing machine. It was a full-body, orangutan-washing monster, and it was just getting started.
“Orangutan secured,” a robotic female voice said. “Beginning preparation phase.” That doesn’t sound good. I struggled to free my wrists again, but no luck. I heard some loud clanking sounds. That sounds even worse. The monster freed my wrists, but four large clamps grabbed me and removed my spacesuit. There I was, in my jeans and t-shirt, clamped in place in the middle of the room. I struggled to get away, but it was no use. The monster had me. I looked everywhere for help, but all I saw was Little Bacon, Owlbert, and the mice, watching me with growing interest.
“Little Bacon, get me out of this thing!”
“As you wish.” He pulled on my hands but couldn’t do anything for me.
A high-pitched whine began. “Cleaning apparatus engaged,” said the voice.
“No, hey, no need for cleaning apparatus. I’m not that sticky today, really. Uh, abort! Stop! Scrubbles says no!” I struggled to free myself, but there was no use. Suddenly streams of warm water shot from the green walls around me, soaking my jeans and t-shirt. A jet of water blasted Little Bacon across the cage.
“Okay, whoa, no more! You’re making Scrubbles mad!” I yelled. Next came soapsuds in the same way. Then four arms with scrub brushes. For about a minute, I got the most thorough cleansing of my entire life. By the end of it, my jeans, t-shirt, shoes, arms, face, and hair were cleaner than they had ever been.
“Orangutan clean,” commented the robotic voice.
At just that moment I heard the hatch open once again, and a familiar voice.
“Hola, chiquito!”
“Oh,
you’ve got to be kidding!” I was soaked and suspended in my jeans and t-shirt. Sylvia Moreline was coming to visit me again. In a moment she would be in front of my cage. I did the only thing I could do. “Little Bacon, you’ve got to distract her,” I said. “She can’t catch me yet.”
“What sort of distraction would you recommend?” he asked, floating toward me.
“Sorry about this, buddy, but figure it out.” With that, I kicked him. He flew through the bars of the cage and landed in the garden. He disappeared into the vines. I can’t believe this is how I’m going to get caught, I thought, struggling with the clamps. Moreline was almost to my cage before Little Bacon “figured it out.”
“Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light!” Little Bacon began to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the top of his Android lungs. Sylvia Moreline floated toward him to see what was singing in the space lab. He ducked behind the vines and kept singing. They played a bit of cat and mouse.
“Ultrasonic dryer engaged,” said the robotic voice. Ultrasonic sound waves hit me and in an instant the water popped right off my clothes. It was amazing. Droplets of all shape and size were suspended all around me in mid-air. Then a burst of air hit me from one side, blowing the droplets into the vines. This happened three times, and in less than ten seconds the whole cage, including me, was dry.
“And the rockets red glare / The bombs bursting in air…” Little Bacon kept singing as the dryer did its job. Moreline kept searching for him.
Thankfully, the suit returned. The metal clamps tried to jam my arms, legs, and head into the suit. “Adjusting suit,” the voice said. “Still adjusting.” Two metal claws emerged from the vines, poking, prodding, and tightening the suit to fit my non-orangutan body. After a painful readjustment, I was completely clean and dry and back in my suit. And just in time. Sylvia Moreline appeared in front of my cage a moment later. “Scrubbles, have you been hiding a toy on board? How in the world did you keep him hidden from me?” Little Bacon was about to say something, so I put my finger up to keep him quiet.
I nodded at her.
“Well, no more hiding things from Sylvia. Okay, chiquito? I’ll give him back to you in a few days.”
I reached out for him, but she wouldn’t budge.
“You’ve been a bad boy, Scrubbles. You won’t take off your suit and now you sneak toys on board. You think about all the bad things you did and I will feed you later.” With that, she left.
My visor was down, my gloves were on, and I felt like a team of angry hairstylists—or bears—had attacked me. Little Bacon was lost, and I felt bad about throwing the banana peel and kicking him—even though I was a jerk to him, he saved me. He “saved my bacon,” like my dad says. As long as he didn’t start spouting random definitions, the rest of us might not be discovered.
The rest of the day I spent a lot of time laying near the skylight with my sketchpad, enjoying the best view in the universe. I could see so many stars that the sky looked dusty and stained, with big blotches of color. I remembered how many stars were in our galaxy—300 billion. A million stars for every living thing on planet Earth, if you think about it, and I had some time to think. Our gigantic spaceship, our whole planet, it was just a drop in a drop in a drop in a big glass of frosty milk—The Milky Way. 300 billion. How could there be that many stars? Was there some other blue jewel just like ours circling a yellow sun? Was there a boy with a sketchpad looking at a sunset like this one somewhere in the Milky Way? Did he have good friends? Did he help his dad? Did he think these exact same thoughts? It all made my head spin, a little like Owlbert’s, but the sunset made me tired at last.
The Earth was at first a big green and blue globe, but pretty soon it would be only a shiny blue speck. That brought me back to our mission. We would spend two days circling the Earth, three days on the way to the Moon, and then what? We knew so little. My goal was to hide for at least three days. Then the crew couldn’t send us home in an escape pod. As I discovered, easier said than done.
OXYGEN LEAKS AND UNINVITED GUESTS
Everything went along “orangutan style” for the first day. I entertained myself in the enormous cage by playing games on a computer (Bubble’s experiments), watching the sunrises and sunsets out my skylight, and doing flips in zero gravity. Owlbert wasn’t impressed, but I was having fun. It’s about as much fun as you can have while locked in a cage. Still, I was locked up, surviving on jaca and banana, and counting down the days until I could reveal that I was a human.
The second day I watched several astronauts on a spacewalk outside The Adversity. Two of them guided an enormous, circular tube into place around the ship’s mid-section. It was the DSWM (Deep Space Workout Module). It wasn’t a very good acronym, so everyone called it the “Hamster Wheel,” which pretty well described its purpose. To stay healthy, humans need gravity, even in space—the Wheel simulates the effects of gravity and the faster it spins, the more gravity they experience. The astronauts ran at least a mile every day in the Hamster Wheel. When they were on longer missions, there was room and equipment for team sports. I always wanted to play basketball in the Hamster Wheel. My dad told me he and Buckshot had a dunk contest on the way to Mars—on a 20-foot basketball goal. “We played at half of Earth’s gravity,” he said. “Buckshot won with a quadruple back flip dunk.” I wanted to try that myself.
But far below us was a more amazing scene: the Earth itself. Every 90 minutes we orbited, watching the land below shift from dark to light and back again. I saw the outline of North America lit by a billion pinpoints of light. I saw red and yellow deserts and blue rivers that ran across entire continents into the sea. I saw the Great Wall of China, the only manmade thing you can see from space, other than Nouveau Eiffel Tower in New Paris. And I saw a hurricane in the Atlantic, with lightning jumping from cloud to cloud like it was recess time for electricity. I could hardly take my eyes off our world long enough to sketch the scenes.
But I was being selfish. How are Tabitha and Sunjay? I wondered. We had worked out how to get them on board, but they had some serious challenges, like how to sneak food when Queen Envy wasn’t around.
Later that day my thoughts of food, friends, hoops, and sketching were drastically interrupted. I was looking out the skylight when I was surprised to hear voices drifting down the corridor. It’s not feeding time, I thought, who would be coming to see me?
It turns out no one was coming to see me.
Two people floated into the space lab and stopped in front of the Harper Device. I recognized their voices and caught glimpses of them through the garden between us. First was Lincoln Sawyer. I had not seen him since he helped me escape from the crazy events at Hangar Two. I could see his cold, blue eyes glowing through the vines. Gallant Trackman was beside him. He was on board as “Mission Advisor.” My dad wasn’t a big fan of advisors, but Trackman had supported his decision to take the Device into space. I had no idea what Trackman and Sawyer were doing in the space lab. Neither did Trackman.
“Lincoln Sawyer, you fool of an Android, why meet here?” The high, steady voice traveled across the garden.
“My apologies, Mr. Trackman. We could not meet in the cabin areas safely. No one is here to listen, except for a few plants and an orangutan.”
Yep, the orangutan was definitely listening.
“You have a point, Sawyer, but you let me worry about those things. I’m the Space Alliance’s eyes and ears on board The Adversity for a reason. I am the brains. You’re just the hands. When the brains need information, the hands deliver it immediately. You follow me? Is that clear enough for your miniscule robot mind?”
“As clear as clearest crystal, sir. Now let me show you—“
“Sawyer, don’t show me anything. Update me on Operation Close Encounter.”
Operation Close Encounter? It was the first time I heard the phrase, but not the last.
“As you wish, sir. Stage One is nearly complete. Arrangements have been made. A distraction is planned. We will not ne
ed to stop at the Moon base before we proceed to our destination.”
“The base beyond the far side of the Moon,” said Trackman. “Fine, fine.”
What base? In all of our research no one mentioned a space station on the far side of the Moon. It seemed like a bad spot for a station, too, a lonely place so far from home.
Trackman continued. “Fine, fine, but you’ve left out the most important piece, Sawyer, or have you forgotten about our good commander? What about him?”
My dad? I thought.
“Ah, yes,” said the Android. “The man is very cautious and watchful. His heart rate increases when I approach, as if he is ready for a fight. He does not trust me.”
This “operation” sounded more like a conspiracy.
“Stupid Android, you’ve given him no reason to trust you. You must earn the trust of a man like that,” said Trackman. “He trusts me. When he wanted to remove the Harper Device, who do you think supported him? I did. You earn trust by finding a common need. Unless you earn his trust, Operation Close Encounter will not succeed.”
“Thank you, sir. You are wise. Now for what I wanted to show you. Here.” He pointed across the room toward my cage. The two of them floated toward me.
I had no time to think but a lot to think about as they approached my cage. They stopped and stared at me: Lincoln with his long, somber face and bright blue eyes, glowing with cold fire.
Trackman looked like some boring uncle whose name you always forget. He had tiny features—small, black eyes, thin eyebrows, a receding hairline, and enormous, sharp, pointed teeth. On second thought, maybe he ate boring uncles for lunch. He frowned as he looked into my cage, then back at Sawyer.
“It’s an orangutan, Android. An orangutan in a spacesuit. Thank you for this amazing revelation.” He sucked air between his teeth suddenly with a scary hiss. “We should go to the zoo together more often.”
