by Stuart Gibbs
“Oh yes. She once attacked a paparazzo with a high-heeled shoe. And when she caught a butler trying to steal some of her lingerie, she tackled him and bit part of his ear off.”
“And NASA let her come up here?”
“They didn’t know. Like I said, the Sjobergs spent a lot of money to keep her bad behavior under wraps. But she’s not the only enemy Dr. Holtz had up here. There’s also Mr. Grisan.”
“He didn’t like Dr. Holtz either?”
Dr. Marquez started to say something but then changed his mind. “Actually, I can’t speak to that.”
“Why? Did Mr. Grisan tell you something in confidence?”
“No. In fact, Mr. Grisan doesn’t have any sessions with me.”
“He doesn’t?” I asked. “I thought everyone was required to do that.”
Dr. Marquez shrugged. “Not him. I don’t know why. I asked my superiors at NASA, but they said to forget about it and just let him be.”
“So then why did you suggest him?”
“I don’t think he and Dr. Holtz liked each other. I once overheard Dr. Holtz telling Nina he didn’t think Mr. Grisan could be trusted.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. That was all I heard. It’s no basis to accuse Mr. Grisan of anything. I should never have mentioned it. You got under my skin, and I made a mistake.” Dr. Marquez nervously nibbled on his thumbnail.
“So is there anyone else you suspect?” I asked.
“I’ve said too much as it is.”
“I’m not asking for anything you heard in a session—”
“The point is, I shouldn’t even be playing this game.” Dr. Marquez was calming down now, seeming to realize that he’d blabbed too much. He corkscrewed his index finger in his ear, digging out a glob of wax. “No good can come out of making accusations. No one had anything to do with Dr. Holtz’s death except Dr. Holtz. He made an error of judgment and died by accident. End of story.”
“But you just accused two people yourself,” I said. “You really think this was an accident?”
Instead of answering, Dr. Marquez sniffed the earwax, wrinkled his nose, then flicked the wax across the room, where it stuck to the wall. “Let’s talk about you, Dashiell. Why do you continue to insist there’s a conspiracy at work?”
I sighed. Dr. Marquez had regained his composure. I wasn’t going to get any more out of him. Now I’d be stuck talking about my feelings for the next hour.
Although I had pried two new leads out of him. Which was very unsettling. A day before, I’d thought that everyone at MBA had loved Dr. Holtz. Now, everywhere I looked, I uncovered more people with a grudge against him—any one of whom might have wanted him dead.
Excerpt from The Official Residents’ Guide to Moon Base Alpha, © 2040 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration:
ASSEMBLY
Although MBA is equipped so that all lunarnauts have multiple ways of communicating with one another—e-mail, phone, ComLink, etc.—sometimes the best way to disseminate information is still the good, old-fashioned group meeting. Therefore, on the first Monday of every month, a mandatory assembly will take place in the rec center for all lunarnauts over age 18. Said meetings will be run by the moon-base commander (unless he or she assigns someone else that duty) and shall cover any topics deemed necessary. If there is something you would like discussed with the group, please submit it to the MBC several days ahead of time.
In addition, the MBC has the right to call additional meetings whenever he or she deems necessary—and for whatever residents he or she deems necessary as well. In these cases, the assembly should be considered mandatory for all whose presence is requested.I Furthermore, if there is a group of lunarnauts whom you would like to call an assembly for, please submit your request to the MBC at least seven days in advance for scheduling purposes. And remember: Everyone enjoys an assembly far more if the person leading it is organized and enthusiastic and doesn’t waste their time, so please conduct yours accordingly.
* * *
I. Except in the case of severe illness.
IMPOSSIBLE TRAVEL
Lunar day 189
Afternoon
The memorial service was held for Dr. Holtz that afternoon. Attendance was mandatory.
The Sjobergs didn’t show up anyhow.
Everyone else came, though. Even the kids were asked to be there, so the rec room was unusually crowded. There were so many people we’d had to bring extra InflatiCubes from our rooms—and some of us still didn’t have a place to sit. I had to stand in the back with Kira. Unlike the other funerals I’d been to before, this one was weirdly casual. No one had anything formal to wear on base. Instead we all looked like we were dressed for a Sunday barbecue.
Although lots of people had been asked to speak about Dr. Holtz, Nina ran the proceedings, which was probably a mistake. Her speech about Dr. Holtz was merely a flat, emotionless laundry list of everything he had done in his life. And I mean everything. Short of what he ate for breakfast every day, it didn’t sound like any fact had been left out. I could barely keep my eyes open—and I wasn’t alone. The little kids passed out within a few minutes. Most of the adults were struggling to stay awake as well. Dr. Howard was slumped against the wall, unconscious, his tongue lolling out of his open mouth.
My parents were up front. They had to be, as Mom was going to speak. Violet was curled up in Dad’s lap, snoring softly.
“In 1998,” Nina droned, “Dr. Holtz published his first paper in the International Journal of Astrophysics and Space Science, concerning the effects of long-term spaceflight on the human intestinal tract . . .”
Kira leaned over to me and whispered, “I have to tell you something about Dr. Holtz.”
Before answering, I glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to us. It seemed disrespectful to talk during the memorial—but listening to Nina one more minute was going to put me to sleep, and that wasn’t particularly reverent either. Besides, we were a good distance away from everyone else. “What?” I whispered back.
“I had an idea for a lead this morning. I figured I could hack the computer and check MBA’s phone logs for the night Dr. Holtz died to see who he was talking to when you overheard him in the bathroom.”
If I hadn’t been in the middle of a funeral, I would have smacked my forehead. NASA certainly would have kept a log of all phone calls made at the base. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to check it myself. “And? Did you do it?”
“Well, I tried, but . . . there’s no record of Dr. Holtz making a call at two thirty that night. In fact, there’s no record of anyone making a call at any time around then.”
I frowned, concerned. “That’s not possible. I heard him. Someone must have erased the call logs.”
“That’s what I figured. And who do you think has the authority to do that?”
I looked toward the front of the room. “Nina.”
“Exactly.”
Nina was still delivering the eulogy without any passion whatsoever. “Dr. Holtz followed his landmark work on the digestive system with a detailed analysis of how zero-gravity travel affects the spleen . . .”
I said, “Although if you and Roddy can hack the computer, there are probably other people who could have done it too—and they could have tampered with the call logs.”
“True,” Kira admitted. “So have you come up with any leads besides Nina?”
“Plenty.”
“Who?”
I glanced around again. Chang Hi-Tech and Dr. Marquez were both close enough to overhear us. Neither appeared to be eavesdropping, but they could have merely been pretending not to. “I can’t go into it right now. But what I really need help with is finding Dr. Holtz’s phone.”
Kira nodded. “Have you figured out how to get into his residence?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t there anyhow.”
Kira’s eyes suddenly lit up with excitement. “Maybe the evidence on it is the call from the bathr
oom the other night! Maybe he recorded it—so we’d know who he was talking to—because he knew someone would erase the call logs.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “Of course, that doesn’t do us any good if we can’t find the phone.” I suddenly got the feeling someone was watching us and cased the room. Everyone was still doing their best to listen to Nina and stay awake—except Roddy. Even though he was sitting in the third row, he was facing backward, staring right at us. Or really, he was staring at Kira.
Kira noticed him too, then quickly averted her eyes.
Roddy broke into a big, wolfish smile. He slicked back his hair and, even though Nina was speaking, hopped to his feet and slipped out of his row.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“What’s he doing?” Kira asked, keeping her eyes down.
“Coming our way.”
“Why?”
“Um . . . I guess because he likes you.”
At the front of the room Nina droned on. “Eventually, Dr. Holtz completed the first significant analysis of how spaceflight affected pregnancy and subsequent generations of many species, including rats, mice, and cockroaches . . .”
Roddy sauntered back to where Kira and I were standing. “Hey, there,” he whispered, in what he probably thought was a suave tone. “What are you guys doing back here?”
“Nothing,” Kira told him.
“Doesn’t look like nothing to me,” Roddy said. “Were you talking about me?”
“No,” I said. “We were talking about Dr. Holtz—”
Roddy turned to Kira, ignoring me completely. “How’d those codes I gave you work out? You find what you needed?”
“Yes, thanks.” Kira shrank back from Roddy, looking a bit uncomfortable.
“You ever need anything else like that, let me know.” Roddy grinned. “I know the computers here inside and out. It’s not like there’s anything else to do in this crummy place.”
“This place isn’t that crummy,” Kira replied.
“Give it a few weeks,” Roddy told her.
“We’re on the moon,” Kira reminded him. “Have you forgotten how amazing that is? Every kid back on earth is jealous of us. We’re going to go down in history. Someday, when humans are traveling to other galaxies, they’re going to look back at us and be thankful for the first steps we took for them.”
Roddy laughed. “You think we’re going to travel to other galaxies? Honestly?”
Behind Roddy’s back I shook my head at Kira, warning her not to get Roddy started on one of his rants. I’d heard the one about space travel a dozen times already.
Kira ignored me, though. “Of course,” she said. “Someday.”
“Fat chance,” Roddy told her. “We’re not even close to interstellar travel, and we never will be. Right now the fastest spacecraft humans have ever built travels at one hundred sixty thousand miles per hour. At that rate it’ll still take a decade just to get past Pluto. The closest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is four and a quarter light years away. It would take us seventeen thousand years to get there. Seventeen thousand years! That’s equal to all of human civilization, from the cavemen to now. Just to get to some rock that, for all we know, might be even worse than this place.” Roddy folded his arms across his chest proudly. He probably figured Kira would be impressed by his knowledge.
Instead she was annoyed at him for picking a fight with her. Now she lashed into him. “Two hundred years ago, people thought that humans living on the moon was impossible. A hundred years ago, no one had even landed on the moon. Or even imagined the Internet. Or smartwatches. Or virtual reality. Or evaporators. You have no idea what humans will invent in the next century.”
“It won’t be warp-speed travel,” Roddy told her. “That’s a pipe dream.”
Meanwhile Nina was still slogging through Dr. Holtz’s accomplishments. “As we moved further into the twenty-first century,” she was saying, “Dr. Holtz began to focus his research on the lower end of the human digestive tract . . .”
Nearby, Chang lost the battle against sleep and toppled, unconscious, onto the floor.
Everyone looked his way. Nina frowned but soldiered on, unfazed. “His work on the low-gravity toilet was a blessing to us all.”
I noticed Zan Perfonic was standing on the far side of the room in a clump of temps. She gave me a barely perceptible nod, then returned her attention to Nina.
Meanwhile Roddy was still pressing his case against space travel. “By the way, that seventeen thousand years? That’s only to get to the closest possible planetary system. It’d more likely take twice that—at least—to get to anything resembling earth. And for all we know, we’ll show up on that place and find out it’s covered with seas of flesh-eating acid and inhabited by brain-sucking leeches. Whoopee. That’ll be fun.”
“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Kira said.
“Why?” Roddy flashed his wolfish grin again. “Because I’m destroying your argument?”
“No,” Kira snapped. “Because we’re at a funeral, you nimrod.”
“So let’s go somewhere else.” Roddy waggled his eyebrows suggestively, completely unaware that Kira was annoyed with him. “If you want, I can help you hack the system again.”
Kira wormed away from him and sidled up to me. “Not now. We can’t skip out on the memorial.”
“Why not?” Roddy asked.
“It’s mandatory,” Kira said. “I don’t want to get in trouble for blowing it off.”
“Who’s gonna notice?” Roddy waved a hand to the crowd. “Everyone’s here. In fact, it’s the perfect time to hack the system. No one’s paying attention to security right now.”
I snapped to attention. Roddy had a good point. If someone was going to get up to no good, this was the perfect time to do it. I scanned the room, taking everyone in, suddenly thinking there was something wrong I had missed before.
“I don’t want to miss this,” Kira told Roddy. “I liked Dr. Holtz.”
“So did I,” Roddy sighed, “but this is lame. Nina’s so boring she could lull a Restless Venusian Flugleworm to sleep.”
“Other people are going to speak soon,” Kira said.
“Not soon enough,” Roddy muttered.
I realized what was wrong in the room. Everyone on base hadn’t gathered there. One person was missing. “Do you guys see Daphne?” I asked.
Kira and Roddy quickly turned their attention back to the funeral.
“She must be here,” Roddy said. “Daphne never misses an assembly.”
“Well, I don’t see her,” Kira said. “Where do you think she is?”
“I don’t know,” I told them. “But I think we’d better find out.”
Excerpt from The Official Residents’ Guide to Moon Base Alpha, © 2040 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration:
VIGILANCE
As a lunarnaut, you will be part of the first community of humans to ever live on a celestial body besides earth. While this is certainly exciting, please keep in mind that, as pioneers of lunar living, you may encounter the occasional problem. Therefore, we ask that every lunarnaut—no matter what your age—be extremely alert for any sign of trouble. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears tuned! If you notice anything that seems wrong, report it to the base commander at once. Don’t be shy. There is no shame in reporting something that turns out to be a false alarm. We have taken every precaution to make sure that MBA is the safest, most durable building ever constructed, but in the very unlikely chance that something does go wrong, a vigilant crew is the best defense against disaster!
SKULLDUGGERY
Lunar day 189
Afternoon
Roddy didn’t bother making an excuse to leave the memorial service. He just scurried right out the door. Kira was close on his heels, excited to investigate.
I held back, though. If Daphne was the killer—which was hard to believe, but still possible—then she’d be dangerous. I tried to get Zan Perfonic’s attention without being too obvious about it,
waving at her.
She looked my way—but so did several other people. So much for not being obvious.
I pointed out the door, trying to indicate it was urgent.
Wait, Zan mouthed.
“Dash!” Kira hissed from the hallway. “C’mon!”
I reluctantly stepped out of the room, hoping Zan would follow. Kira was waiting in the hall, but Roddy was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He ran on ahead,” Kira told me.
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“What am I supposed to do? Tell him we suspect her in Dr. Holtz’s death?” Kira paused. “Is she a suspect in Dr. Holtz’s death?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But she’s definitely up to something.”
“Then maybe we should find her before Roddy does and messes everything up.”
I glanced back into the rec room. Zan was still watching me, but she didn’t seem comfortable leaving the service yet. She hadn’t taken a step toward the door.
“All right,” I said.
“He went this way.” Kira bounded toward the main air lock. She tried to go quickly, but she was still having trouble in low g, so she flew too high and nearly banged her head on the catwalk.
I caught her leg, yanked her back down, and helped her along. We hooked right through the staging area and quickly came upon Roddy. He was flattened up against the wall of the administrative offices, doing his best to stay out of sight. Kira and I stopped in our tracks. Roddy pointed through the office window and mouthed, In there.
I gingerly took a few steps forward until I could see through the office window. Sure enough, Daphne was on the computer. She was typing frantically, bringing up page after page of information, pausing every few moments to touch her watch to the screen and download something. She certainly wasn’t supposed to be there. She had the same look that Violet always has when she’s sneaking candy without permission.
