Space Case

by Stuart Gibbs

  “What do you think he’s looking at?” Kira asked.

  “Let’s find out. Computer, zoom in on Dr. Holtz.”

  “Yes, sir.” The image of Dr. Holtz enlarged, got grainier, and then resolved.

  In the visor of Dr. Holtz’s space helmet we could see the reflection of a blue-green ball above him.

  “It’s earth,” Kira said. “What do you think he’s looking there for?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to be looking at something beautiful when he died instead of this ugly moon base.”

  Kira nodded, accepting that. “It happens in only a few more seconds,” she told me. “Do you want to see it?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “I don’t.” I liked the idea of my last image of Dr. Holtz being one in which he was still upright, staring at earth from the surface of the moon. “Computer, can you translate the signs he made?”

  “Yes. Here is what Dr. Holtz signed: ‘I am being murdered—’ ”

  “Really?” I looked to Kira, my heart thumping. I was at once thrilled and horrified to have been right. Kira seemed to be struck the same way. “You’re sure? He says he was being murdered?”

  The computer explained, “Well, in actuality he was simply making the hand signal for ‘murder.’ In American Sign Language, the verb forms of ‘to be’ are not signed, but are instead extrapolated from the context. One could also argue that he was saying ‘This is a murder,’ but ‘I am being murdered’ seems more appropriate.”

  Even though I’d suspected there had been foul play, it was stunning to hear it confirmed. Somehow the computer’s voice made it worse. The computer, being a computer, was completely emotionless, even when discussing such an awful event. It seemed horribly wrong to me.

  “What else does he say?” I asked.

  The computer replied, “The full transcript of his statement is: ‘I am being murdered. Earth killed me. Find my phone. Tell my family I love them.’ ”

  Kira and I kept our eyes locked on each other, trying to make sense of all that. She was the first to speak. “Earth killed me?”

  “That’s correct,” the computer replied.

  “How could the earth kill someone?” Kira asked, this time to me.

  I could only shake my head in response. “I have no idea. Maybe that’s why he wants us to find his phone—”

  “You mean that ancient cell phone he had back on earth? He was still using that thing?”

  “Yes. He said the smartwatch screens were too small.”

  “That must have been thirty years old.” Kira shook her head. “Boy, what a caveman.”

  “Dr. Holtz wasn’t anti tech,” I said defensively. “He lived on the moon, for Pete’s sake. He just liked using his old phone.”

  “So what are you thinking? That he left some evidence on it somehow?”

  “Yes. Or maybe a longer explanation for why he did this.”

  “Where do you think it is? His residence?”

  “I doubt it. If he was trying to hide his phone, that’s the first place anyone would look.”

  “What makes you think he hid it?” Kira asked.

  “If you had evidence proving someone killed you, would you leave it out where anyone could find it?”

  “Good point.”

  “Still, it’s probably worth checking his room anyhow,” I admitted. “Just in case.”

  Kira jumped to her feet. “Let’s do it now, while everyone else is still at dinner.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I need a copy of those recordings.”

  “Sure,” Kira agreed. “We need to show them to someone, right? I mean, we’ve got Dr. Holtz stating he’s being murdered here.”

  “By planet earth,” I said with a sigh. “Whatever that means.”

  Kira said, “It’s still evidence, though. Who should we give it to? Nina? She won’t be able to ignore this.”

  “She might try,” I countered. “This is probably the last thing Nina wants to see.”

  “So? This is a murder! Someone has to investigate it!”

  “Don’t worry. Someone will.” I touched my watch to the SlimScreen. The computer immediately downloaded the recordings of Dr. Holtz to it. “I know who to show these to.”

  “Who?” Kira asked.

  “I can’t tell you right now.” I hurried out the door.

  Kira did her best to follow me, though she was still having trouble walking in low gravity. “Oh, come on! I got them for you!”

  “And I owe you big for this.” I led the way down the catwalk. Dr. Holtz also lived on the upper residence level, at the opposite end from Nina. We had to pass the Sjobergs’ suite on the way. I could hear Lars raging inside. It sounded like he was on the phone, shouting at someone on earth. “I don’t care what it takes! Just get me off this godforsaken rock!”

  As we reached Dr. Holtz’s residence, my smartwatch pinged, delivering a text.

  To my surprise, the text said it was from Kira. Which wasn’t possible, as she was standing right in front of me, jostling the knob of Dr. Holtz’s door.

  Even more unsettling was the text itself.

  Dash—Be careful—or you’ll end up like Dr. Holtz.

  Kira turned back to me, frustrated. “The room’s locked. Any idea how to get in?”

  “Uh . . . no.” My mind was racing after the threatening text. Whoever had sent it must have hacked Kira’s account to hide their identity. But the message was still clear: They knew I was investigating and wanted me to stop. But was it from the killer themselves, or someone who didn’t want me snooping? And if it was from the killer, was this just a scare tactic—or would they really come for me, too?

  “Dash?” Kira asked. “What’s wrong?”

  I met her gaze and saw the concern in her eyes. I wondered if I looked as scared as I felt. My heart was pounding, and I could feel sweat blossoming on my brow. And now, here I was, with Kira, poking around Dr. Holtz’s door right out in the open, meaning whoever had sent the text would know she was helping me out.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Oh, please,” Kira sighed. “You look like you just got punched in the stomach. What’s going on?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. Not right then. I didn’t want to frighten her. “You ought to get back to your room,” I told her. “I have to go find someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone who can help us,” I said, and then ran off in search of Zan Perfonic.

  Excerpt from The Official Residents’ Guide to Moon Base Alpha, © 2040 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration:

  ROBOTICS

  As robots are an increasingly important part of life on earth, it should come as no surprise that they are integral to life at MBA as well. Since the lunar surface is so inhospitable to humans, robots will be used to handle as many tasks outside the base as possible, including maintenance, repairs, and research. If a robot can handle the job, please do not send a human outside to do it.

  Use of all robotics must be coordinated via the base roboticist. Please do not attempt to work the robots without permission. Even though they are designed to be indestructible, they can still break. Should this happen, they are extremely expensive and very difficult to replace. However, when used properly—with supervision—the robots can make your life at MBA safer, easier, and much more enjoyable.

  SPACE MADNESS

  Lunar day 188

  Bedtime

  Unfortunately, Zan was nowhere to be found. I circled the entire base three times, but she wasn’t in any of the common areas. Lots of people remained in the mess, still savoring their last morsels of fresh pie—a few were even licking their plates clean—although a lot of the temps had retired to their quarters. (Arrival day can be exhausting.) My parents and Violet had left as well.

  There were a few folks in the gym, and Roddy had taken his usual place in the rec room, jacked into the ComLink. He’s there so often he might as well be a piece of furniture.

  The science pod was empty
, as were the control rooms, save for Daphne, who was overseeing the robot arm. The Raptor rocket had brought plenty of heavy cargo that humans couldn’t carry: new solar arrays, a lunar rover, and construction materials for Moon Base Beta. All of that had to be moved with the arm, which is half robot, half crane. It’s enormous, with a span of one hundred feet, and it looks surprisingly like a real human arm and hand, minus the flesh and with steel instead of bone. There are only two differences: The “hand” has two thumbs in addition to its four fingers, which gives it better grip, while the “arm” has three joints, which gives it greater flexibility. The arm is anchored next to the rover garage outside, where it can reach from MBA to the launchpad and Solar Array 2.

  Like most robots, the arm can do its job well without much human input. All it needs is the occasional order from Daphne about what to do next. Therefore, Daphne wasn’t working that hard. She was reading an e-book, only glancing at the camera monitors every now and then to make sure everything was going well.

  However, when I looped past her on my third sweep of the base, she had stopped reading. Instead she was furiously typing at one of the computers. Lines of code filled the screen. I edged forward, wondering what she was doing.

  Daphne suddenly seemed to sense I was there. She spun around quickly, covering the computer screen with her body. “Hey, Dash!” she called, trying to sound casual, although her voice sounded higher than usual. “Are you doing laps—or looking for someone?”

  I almost asked if she’d seen Zan, but then caught myself, remembering that Zan had warned me not to let anyone know we were working together. Daphne was the least threatening adult at the station—I couldn’t imagine her squashing a bug, let alone bumping off Dr. Holtz—but Zan still wouldn’t want me tipping her off about us. “I’m looking for my folks,” I lied.

  “I think they took your sister back to your room.” Daphne laughed. “That Violet’s such a pistol. I love her. She conned three people into giving her an extra slice of pie, then got hopped up on sugar and ran around like a hurricane until she collapsed from exhaustion.”

  “Sounds like Violet all right.” I gave Daphne a wave of thanks and headed home. I figured Zan must have turned in for the night herself, and all the temps shared sleeping quarters. Despite how anxious I was to talk to her, it looked like I’d have to wait for her to come find me.

  Daphne didn’t resume typing on the computer. At least not while I was in range. Instead she made a show of monitoring the robot arm as I walked away.

  Sure enough, my family was back in our room. Violet was almost comatose after her sugar rush, murmuring nonsense while Dad tried to pour her into her Hello Kitty pajamas. Mom was seated at the table, typing on the SlimScreen.

  “Hey!” Mom said, nice and chipper. “Did you find Kira?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mmmm,” Violet sighed sleepily. “I love pie.”

  “What was the big emergency?” Dad asked me.

  “She was just trying to get everything set up in her room and couldn’t figure out the computer.” I didn’t like lying to my parents, but I knew they wouldn’t be pleased with the truth.

  “That couldn’t have waited until the end of dinner?” Mom inquired.

  “What are you writing?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  It worked. “A eulogy for Dr. Holtz,” Mom said. “Nina wants to have a ceremony for him tomorrow, and she asked me to speak.”

  “Only you?” I wanted to know.

  “No,” Mom said. “A few others will talk too. Nina. Dr. Janke. Maybe Kira’s father.”

  “I want a pony,” Violet said dreamily.

  Dad slid her into her sleep pod and gave her a kiss on the forehead. A second later she was snoring.

  “What’s happening to Dr. Holtz’s body?” I asked.

  “NASA gave permission to bury it on the moon,” Mom said. “And so did Dr. Holtz’s daughter. She said it would be the perfect place for her father to end up. Plus Katya and the others didn’t like the idea of bringing a corpse back with them on the rocket.”

  “Who’s digging the grave?” I asked.

  “No one,” Mom explained. “Daphne’s sending some robots out to do it tomorrow. It’s too dangerous to use humans for this. The crust is so thick they’ll have to blast through it.”

  I sat next to my mother at the table. “Will the body decay here?”

  “Ew,” Mom said. “What kind of question is that?”

  “A legitimate one,” Dad told her. “No, the body won’t really decay, without an atmosphere or any life forms to break it down. Instead it’ll sort of mummify.”

  I nodded, then turned back to my mother. “What are you going to say?”

  “The usual, I guess. What a great person Dr. Holtz was. How he was so committed to human spaceflight. How this place was the realization of his life’s work. Blah blah blah.” Mom frowned and put her face in her hands. “It’s so darn difficult, summing up a man’s entire life in one speech.”

  Dad said, “If anyone can do it, it’s you.” He came behind Mom and kneaded her shoulders. Mom sighed with relief and closed her eyes.

  “Mom,” I said, “you were going to tell me something about Dr. Holtz at breakfast. But you never got to because Dr. Marquez interrupted us. Something important I should know about Dr. Holtz.”

  Mom reluctantly opened her eyes. She looked a little confused, like she was trying to remember the conversation.

  I tried to jolt her memory. “I was saying this hadn’t been an accident. And you said there was something else I ought to know.”

  “Oh, right.” Mom leaned in close to me. “This is not to be repeated, though. I don’t want it leaving this room.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  Mom said, “I think Dr. Holtz’s mind might have been slipping.”

  I glanced at Dad. He didn’t seem surprised by this, so I guess he and Mom had discussed it before. “How so?”

  “Well, he didn’t seem as sharp as usual over the last few weeks,” Mom told me. “He was distracted a lot. Kind of spaced out. And then he’d be manic. Incredibly happy. Unnaturally so.”

  I thought back to Dr. Holtz in the bathroom the night before he died. “Maybe he was just excited about this big discovery he’d made.”

  Mom sighed. “Perhaps, but . . . I wonder if Dr. Holtz had even made a discovery at all.”

  “You mean, he only thought he had?” I asked.

  “It’s possible,” Mom replied, “if he was really suffering from some sort of mental breakdown. There’s a lot of precedent with this. A scientist believes they’re on the verge of something huge: figuring out some famous unsolved math problem, or developing a new physical theory. They fill up notebooks with ideas and formulas and it all looks very convincing. But when other scientists come in and look everything over . . . they find it’s all just nonsense.”

  I frowned. “But those scientists are dealing with serious mental disorders, right? Like schizophrenia. Dr. Holtz never seemed that bad to me. . . .”

  “He was talking to himself too,” Mom said.

  “Lots of people do that,” I countered.

  “Not like this,” Mom said gravely. “I came across him doing it one night. It wasn’t talking like you mean. It was like he was having a conversation with an imaginary person. Someone he actually thought was there. He wasn’t just talking. He was listening too.”

  I straightened up, concerned. “So . . . you think he was really going crazy? Like certifiably nuts?”

  “I don’t know,” Mom sighed. “This isn’t my specialty. But I brought it up to Nina and she said I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.”

  “Who else had seen him?” I asked.

  “Nina wouldn’t say. But she’d asked Dr. Marquez to start keeping a close eye on Dr. Holtz.”

  “A lot of things can go wrong with the human mind,” Dad told me. “Dr. Holtz was getting on in years. This might have been the start of Alzheimer’s or some other age-related dementia. Or pe
rhaps it was something triggered by spending so much time here at an advanced age. Maybe due to the lower concentration of oxygen in the air or something like that.”

  “You mean he might really have had some sort of space madness?” I said. “Roddy suggested that today. I can’t believe Roddy actually might have been right about something.”

  Dad looked surprised as well. “Neither can I,” he said. “Although Roddy is the son of our base psychiatrist. I suppose he could learn something now and then.”

  I looked down at my hands. “So . . . you think this all has something to do with why Dr. Holtz walked out the air lock alone?”

  “It might,” Mom said. “If he was really losing his mind, it explains why he might have done something so uncharacteristically careless like that.”

  I thought back to the footage I’d seen of Dr. Holtz in the air lock. If he was really going crazy, could he have simply imagined someone was forcing him to go out on the lunar surface to die? It made sense—and yet Dr. Holtz had seemed to me like he was in complete control of his mind. His sign language had been so deliberate. He’d had such focus. But then I was only a kid. I didn’t know squat about mental illness.

  I considered telling my parents about the footage I’d seen of Dr. Holtz in the air lock—and the cryptic message he’d left. I was tired of keeping it all a secret. But I’d promised Zan not to tell anyone about our investigation. At the very least, it seemed, I should update her first on what I’d learned, before telling anyone else. Certainly I’d be able to find her the next day—if she didn’t come find me herself.

  “So that’s why Nina didn’t want me making a stink about Dr. Holtz’s death?” I asked. “She thinks he was losing it too?”

  “I don’t know the specific reasons why Nina told you to keep quiet,” Mom answered. “But I’d say that makes sense. I’m sure NASA doesn’t want the public—or the press—to have any idea that Dr. Holtz might have been slipping.”