by Stuart Gibbs
“I can help you with that,” I said, reaching toward him.
“I can do it fine by myself,” Cesar said curtly, even though he couldn’t. It seemed that the whole idea of fighting Lily had put him on edge. Or maybe he was upset to find out that Lily had tried to kill someone. After all, she and Cesar had spent a lot of time together at MBA.
Cesar stormed away from me, straining against his own helmet, oblivious to the latch that was still connecting it to his space suit. When he couldn’t get it off, he angrily pounded it with his fists.
“Wow,” Violet said, coming over to me. “How did someone as smart as his mother ever have someone as dumb as him?”
“Be nice,” I said, more for Mom’s benefit than Violet’s. “He saved our lives out there.”
“He’s still a moron,” Violet said.
I noticed that Mom didn’t correct her.
The next batch of Moonies poured into the air lock from the lunar surface. Within fifteen minutes, everyone was back inside MBA, safe and sound—and I found myself in Nina’s office, having an emergency meeting with my parents, the Sjobergs, Dr. Balnikov, and Chang. (Dr. Merritt agreed to look after Violet and took her to the mess to get space ice cream.)
It was a meeting I had been dreading the entire time on the lunar surface, but one I knew we had to have. The fact that Lily had attacked me needed to be dealt with immediately. The meeting was called in Nina’s residence with the intent of keeping it secret, but of course anyone who wanted to (like Kira) could hear everything that was said by standing on the catwalk outside and listening through the door.
There weren’t enough InflatiCubes for everyone, so we all stood awkwardly. The moment the Sjobergs came through the door, Lars started yelling at the rest of us. His voice was still hoarse from all the yelling he’d done at me out on the surface, but that didn’t stop him. “Lily didn’t attack anyone!” he declared. “She was acting in self-defense!”
“By all accounts, that does not appear to be true,” Nina said coldly.
“It is !” Lily exclaimed. “I was minding my own business when the Gibsons attacked me!”
“That’s right!” Patton agreed, lamely trying to back up his sister. “I saw the whole thing! Dash and Violet just jumped her!”
These were such bald-faced lies that even Lars couldn’t bring himself to agree with them. Instead he shot his children a withering look, apparently annoyed at them for pushing things too far.
Nina gave the Sjoberg twins a withering look of her own. Both instantly fell silent.
“I have already examined the security footage from the cameras mounted outside,” Nina said. “It is clear that Lily attacked first, and without provocation. Furthermore, I have reviewed the radio transmissions from right before the assault. It appears that Lily was eavesdropping on the conversation between Dashiell and Violet. Dashiell was about to reveal that Lily was behind the murder attempt on her father, so Lily attacked him to keep him quiet.”
This provoked a variety of reactions around the room. Most of the adults seemed stunned by the accusation, although Lars and Sonja were particularly mortified. Meanwhile, Lily turned even paler than usual, while Patton gaped in astonishment. “You tried to kill Daddy?” he accused.
“I didn’t!” Lily gasped.
Patton didn’t seem to believe her. But then, he didn’t seem to be upset with her either. Instead he burst into a fit of hysterical laughter, as if his sister trying to kill his father was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“I wasn’t about to accuse Lily,” I announced, trying to be heard. “She’s not the one who poisoned Lars.”
Patton stopped laughing. “She’s not?”
“No,” I said. “She was only trying to protect the person who did poison him.”
Now everyone’s attention shifted toward me.
“So who did it?” Mom asked.
“Lars Sjoberg poisoned himself,” I said.
This produced a whole new round of shocked, stunned, and astonished reactions.
For a moment Lars Sjoberg looked like he’d swallowed a whole bag of human excrement. Then he recovered and started shouting again.
“That’s a lie!” he yelled, jabbing a finger at me. “This boy is a menace! He simply cannot be trusted!”
“I trust him,” Nina said. This caught me off guard, as it was the closest thing to a compliment I had ever received from Nina. In fact, it might have been the closest thing to a compliment anyone had ever received from Nina. “And I am going to listen to what he has to say. If you don’t wish to stay here for it, you are free to leave.”
“But—” Lars began.
“On the other hand,” Nina told him, “if you do choose to stay for it, then I expect you to keep your mouth shut and not make a scene for once in your life. If you can’t do that, then I will have Dr. Kowalski and Dr. Balnikov forcibly escort you from the room.”
Lars fell silent, although he was obviously still enraged. I half expected to see steam pouring from his ears.
Chang smiled. He seemed excited by the prospect of getting to forcibly escort Lars out.
Nina looked back to me. “Please, Dashiell. Tell me how you arrived at this conclusion.”
Everyone’s attention returned to me. I took a step back, uncomfortable with being on the spot and wondering if I was right. But then I looked to my parents, who smiled at me reassuringly, giving me confidence. “I figured it like this,” I said. “If someone was actually looking to kill Lars, they didn’t do it right. They didn’t put enough poison in the lutefisk, even though there was poison left over in the syringe. That was a dumb mistake. But this whole base is full of very smart people. They wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. In fact, I’m sure pretty much everyone here could have come up with a better way to kill Lars than poisoning his lutefisk. A way that wouldn’t have left any evidence behind, maybe. Instead, the killer botched the job, which doesn’t make sense—unless they were trying to botch the job. The craziest thing about this crime is that nearly everyone here at MBA was a suspect. Almost everyone had a good reason for wanting Lars dead. But I could only think of one person who would want Lars sort of dead.”
“Why are we even listening to this?” Lars exploded. “It is utter nonsense! Why would I want to be sort of dead?”
“Because you wanted all of us to think someone was trying to kill you,” I said. “But you didn’t actually want to die.”
“Of all the idiotic things I have ever heard,” Lars said, “this has to be the dumbest!”
“Gentlemen,” Nina said to Chang and Dr. Balnikov. “Please escort Lars out.”
“It’d be my pleasure,” Chang said happily. He and Dr. Balnikov seized Lars by the arms.
Even though Lars was a big man, he was no match for both of them. “All right!” he cried as they dragged him toward the door. “You win! I will be silent!”
Chang and Dr. Balnikov looked back to Nina, waiting for orders.
“Let’s give him one more chance,” she said, then glared at Lars. “But one more word and we finish this without you.”
Lars nodded meekly.
Chang and Dr. Balnikov didn’t toss him out the door, but they both kept vise grips on his arms.
Dad looked to me. “Why would Lars want us to think someone had tried to kill him?”
“So he could go home,” I said. “He definitely hasn’t been happy up here, but NASA hasn’t been able to find a spot for him or his family on any of the rockets back to earth. . . .”
Mom piped up, realizing where I was going with this. “But if there’s a threat to his life, NASA protocols mandate sending a rocket, no matter the cost.”
Everyone looked to Lars, aware that this made a twisted sort of sense. Lars didn’t give anything away, though. He just glared angrily at Nina.
Dr. Balnikov looked at Lars curiously. “You were willing to poison yourself to get a rocket home?”
Lars stubbornly refused to answer.
“It could work two
ways,” I explained. “Either it would create a medical emergency for Lars without killing him, or he could claim that his life would be in jeopardy if he stayed here. I actually overheard Sonja claiming that to Nina this morning.”
“That wasn’t a plot!” Sonja argued. Her broken nose was still swollen, but she had regained her ability to talk properly. “I was legitimately worried for my husband!”
“I doubt that,” Dr. Balnikov grumbled. “You were just looking for an excuse to get home.”
“Either way, she had a valid argument,” I said. “Lars was counting on that when he poisoned himself.”
“So this was only about getting off the moon?” Chang asked. “Not about framing me for murder?”
“I think framing you was kind of a bonus,” I said. “Lars thought he could go back and send you to jail.”
This didn’t seem to surprise everyone nearly as much as some of my other revelations had. Everyone knew Lars had a serious grudge against Chang.
“Lars stole the apple seeds from the greenhouse a while ago,” I went on. “He could have made cyanide at any time. He’s definitely smart enough to have figured out how to do that. But he waited for just the right moment to poison himself. He didn’t do it on a random night. He did it on a night when he knew Chang had already been sneaking into the mess hall.”
“How did he know that?” Mom asked.
“The Sjobergs’ room is directly over Chang’s room,” I explained. “I realized today that you can see through the greenhouse into the mess hall from Chang’s door, which means there should be a similar view from the Sjobergs’. The walls are so thin here, I’m sure the Sjobergs could hear Chang leaving his room at night. Any one of them could have simply opened the door a bit and watched him enter the mess hall. Once they saw him go into the storage unit that held the lutefisk, they knew the time was right to set him up.”
“Why was Chang getting lutefisk?” Dad asked.
“He wasn’t,” I replied. “He was getting rassolnik.”
“Rassolnik?” Dad repeated, confused.
“It’s a pickle-and-kidney soup,” I said. “It’s some kind of Russian delicacy.”
“Oh,” Mom said, then looked to Dad with understanding. It seemed that both of them already knew about Chang and Dr. Balnikov.
“Pickles and kidneys?” Patton Sjoberg cringed in disgust. “Blech. That sounds horrible.”
“It’s a lot better than your horrid lutefisk,” Dr. Balnikov said defensively.
“I never said lutefisk was good,” Patton shot back. “I think it tastes like cat pee.”
Nina stepped in before the discussion could get out of hand. “There’s no point in arguing which culture has the worst food here.” She looked to me. “You think Lars poisoned himself last night because he saw the opportunity to frame Chang?”
“Right,” I agreed. “He—or someone else in his family—saw Chang fiddling around in the food storage and realized the time was right. So Lars waited a few hours, then went down to the storage area, got some lutefisk out, and returned to his room to poison himself with it. Which explains why he was eating lutefisk in the middle of the night, instead of during normal waking hours.”
“Lots of people snack in the middle of the night,” Sonja Sjoberg said protectively.
“Maybe,” Chang said. “But very few of them snack on lutefisk. That’s just weird.”
“You should talk!” Sonja howled. “You were getting pickle-and-kidney soup in the middle of the night!”
“Anyhow,” I said. “It was all done to set Chang up.” I turned to Nina. “This morning you told me that there wasn’t any point in going through the video footage to see if anyone had poisoned the lutefisk. But then, later on, you said you had changed your mind. What made you do that?”
Nina looked surprised to be put on the spot like this. “I’m allowed to change my mind.”
Mom asked, “In the middle of preparing for an emergency evacuation, you suddenly decided to take the time to go through last night’s security footage?”
Nina wavered for a moment, then said, “I got an anonymous tip. Someone slipped a note under my door suggesting that I check the footage from midnight to one a.m.”
“And you didn’t think that was suspicious?” Chang asked.
“On earth, the police get anonymous tips all the time,” Nina countered.
“I’m guessing this one came from Lars Sjoberg,” I said. “Or maybe Lily delivered it for him. And then, to seal the deal, one of them planted the syringe with cyanide in Chang’s room.”
“But Chang’s door was locked,” Mom argued, then looked to Chang. “Wasn’t it?”
“The security protocols at this place are crap,” Chang said. “Anyone with half a brain can override the door locks. The override is built into the system in case Nina ever needs to do it. And Lars knows his way around a computer system. He’s fiddled with the one here before. He might be a pig, but he’s not an idiot.”
Lars bridled at this, but he still remained silent. It was obviously getting hard for him, though. With Chang’s latest needling, he began to tremble with rage.
Dad returned his attention to me. “Why do you think Lily was involved? Why not just Lars?”
“Because Lily must have known what Lars was up to all along,” I said. “And she knew Nina was having me investigate. So she eavesdropped on Violet and me out on the lunar surface, and when I started to say who the real killer was, she tried to kill me herself to keep it quiet.”
“Then what’s to say Lily wasn’t the only killer all along?” Dr. Balnikov asked.
“What?” Lily gasped.
“Everything that has been mentioned, she could have done on her own,” Dr. Balnikov said. “Watching Chang get the rassolnik, tipping off Nina, planting the syringe. And we know she tried to kill two people: Dashiell and Violet. So maybe this all started because she tried to kill her father first, and she simply got the amount of poison wrong. Everything else she has done has been to protect herself.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
The adults all paused to consider that as well. Rattled, Lily looked to her father. It seemed to me that she was expecting him to come to her defense.
He didn’t. Instead he lowered his eyes to the floor.
Lily instantly flooded with rage. “You don’t have anything to say to that?” she demanded.
Finally Lars spoke. “It seems possible,” he said.
Lily went ballistic. “How dare you?” she screamed. “After all I’ve done for you, you’re going to throw me to the wolves?” To everyone’s surprise, she launched herself across the room at Lars, seized him by the neck, and started choking him.
Chang and Dr. Balnikov had to let go of Lars and direct their attention to prying his own daughter off him. Only Lily turned out to be stronger than they expected. Despite their best efforts, her hands remained firmly clamped around Lars’s neck. She shook him angrily, screaming at him in Swedish.
Lars’s eyes bugged out as his own daughter choked him. His pale flesh quickly purpled.
Most of the other adults leaped into action to separate Lars and his daughter. Only Sonja appeared unsure what to do. She looked back and forth between both family members, torn as to who to help.
Patton leaned against the wall, laughing hysterically, enjoying the show.
Everyone finally managed to pull Lily off Lars. Lars stumbled backward, gasping for air. “It was her all along!” he told all of us. “My own daughter . . .”
Lily pleaded her case to the rest of us simultaneously. “It was him! He wanted to frame Chang! When I caught him doing it, he forced me into helping him! He said he’d cut me out of his will if I didn’t!”
“Those are lies!” Lars argued. “We have always known Lily had a homicidal streak. But we can no longer protect her. You have seen for yourself how dangerous she is—”
“You low-down, dirty snake!” Lily screeched, then launched herself at him again. This time Chang and Dr. Balnikov int
ercepted her, but she still struggled against them, determined to throttle her father. “I didn’t try to kill you before, but I obviously should have! What type of monster poisons himself and then lets his own daughter take the fall for it?”
“What type of daughter tries to kill her own father and then claim that he did it himself?” Lars retorted.
“Stop it!” Sonja wailed. “Stop it right now!” Her words were so shrill and desperate, everyone obeyed, no matter what they were doing. Even Lars and Lily froze in the midst of their fight.
Sonja apparently couldn’t take this anymore. She was quivering in anger. Slowly she raised an accusing finger and pointed it at her husband. “You have done a lot of terrible things in your life, and I have stood by you, but not this time. Not now. I don’t care if you take all my money away. I am not going to let you do this to our daughter.”
“Sonja, please . . . ,” Lars pleaded.
“No!” Sonja shouted. “Enough is enough!” She looked to all the rest of us. “Lars isn’t well. He has spent the last few weeks here plotting and brooding, determined to do anything he could to get us off this stupid moon.”
“Sonja . . . ,” Lars said, angrier now.
“I told him this would never work,” Sonja continued. “But there was no talking him out of it. Being trapped up here has been driving him crazy. So I let him go ahead with it. But I never expected it would come to this. To accusing his own daughter of murder just to save his own pathetic skin. Lily never tried to kill anyone.”
“Except me and Violet,” I said.
Sonja ignored this, as though it wasn’t that important. She glared at Lars. “Lily is innocent. This is all her father’s doing.”
“Sonja!” Lars bellowed. Unable to hold his tongue any longer, he started shouting at her in Swedish. Sonja shouted right back at him, and then Lily joined in for good measure. Swedish is a very guttural language. Three people yelling at one another in it sounded kind of like a room full of geese trying to hock up phlegm.
Patton sat on an InflatiCube and watched. He seemed to be having the best day of his life.
It occurred to me that there was an irony to all of this. Lars had gone through so much trouble to get off the base, unaware that steps were already under way for everyone to evacuate. If he had only waited another day, he would have found out his whole plot was unnecessary.
