“Or disqualifying us from our specialties,” Mickey said. “That’s what worries me. I’ve trained for so long. If they won’t let me be certified, what am I going to do?”
Roger didn’t look up from his game. “You could always—”
The door opened, cutting him off. Roger jumped up from the console, his face deathly pale.
It was Dr. Platas. “Come on,” she said. “We’ve reached a decision.”
They sat at the table across from the three council members. Dr. Ellman tented his fingers and gazed at the three young men with a certain cool detachment that made Sean’s heart sink. For perhaps half a minute he simply stared at them. Mickey stirred uneasily, and Roger was jiggling his feet nervously.
Finally, Dr. Ellman said, “We have to admit that some good came out of your, ah, escapade. In all likelihood, the Prep Team would have perished if you had not broken the rules to go after them. However, we can’t be certain of that. Because you took the only available shuttle, the authorities at Marsport could not launch a proper rescue effort. We have to consider that, too.”
He took a deep breath. “Against the admitted good you’ve done, you have all three broken the rules of Marsport. I don’t know whether to congratulate you or censure you, Mr. Doe. You are once again first in an endeavor. We’ve never had to have a trial in the colony before. Perhaps it is fortunate for you and your friends that we don’t have a brig or a prison wing—at least not yet.”
Mickey groaned softly, and Roger sat frozen, no longer drumming his heels. Here it comes, Sean thought.
Dr. Ellman said, “We have to administer some form of punishment. You are lucky that we are in a struggle for survival, and that we care for your education. It is the decision of this hearing that you will continue in your schooling and in your work assignments. However, for the next three months, you will be confined to your quarters at all times you are not in school or working at your assigned jobs. That is all.”
Sean dared to breathe again. All? He could hardly keep from laughing. The council had just sentenced the three of them to sleep in their own rooms—that’s what it amounted to. Well, he amended mentally, we’ll lose weekends, but still, it’s only for three months. I can live with that.
“However,” Dr. Ellman continued, “Mr. Doe, you were the ringleader. The council agrees with me that your situation calls for somewhat harsher measures.” He nodded, and Lt. Mpondo rose, went to the wall, and opened a storage compartment. Inside hung a blue Pathfinder pressure suit. Sean swallowed, recognizing the number on the helmet as his own.
Dr. Ellman said, “We are revoking your surface privileges for six months, Mr. Doe. This suit is no longer yours. You will not be allowed to check out even an Excursion suit. You will be allowed only a standard yellow emergency decompression suit with a thirty-minute oxygen supply. That is all.”
The three council members got to their feet, and Mickey, Sean, and Roger rose too. Mickey said, “Thank you, Dr. Ellman, Lt. Mpondo, Dr. Platas.”
A beat later, Roger also stammered his thanks. Sean muttered something too, but his heart wasn’t in it. He thought of the other Asimov Project kids in their blue Pathfinder suits, and his heart sank. Ellman had done it. He had found a way to set Sean apart from the others, a way to take him right out of the team. This was going to hurt.
CHAPTER 11
A month later, Sean had almost changed his mind. It wasn’t that very much was different. As he had first thought, for five days out of every week his punishment was little more than having to sleep in his own room. But he found that he missed the free time. Being stuck in his room for two days out of the week, eating his meals there, reading and studying, and trying to entertain himself, got old fast.
Worse was his loss of surface privileges. Worst of all, perhaps, was the way the others tried so hard not to mention their trips out of the domes. Sean sometimes felt that he had a horrible disease and the others didn’t want to mention it.
Still, he got to see Jenny during class times. She was happy that the colony was at last getting a more than adequate supply of water. Lake Ares was safe for the next ten or twelve years, anyway. And then—well, as Jenny put it, water was coming in to the South Pole every day. In ten years, who knows? Perhaps the atmosphere would let surface water exist. They might get rain, or at least fog. That was something.
A step forward, Sean thought. What’s that old Earth saying about a long journey beginning with a single step? They were on a journey to the future, one that had brought them 35,000,000 miles. Every step moved them a bit farther along.
Sean wasn’t completely lonely. He, Roger, and Mickey could visit one another during their confinement to quarters, and as often as not the other guys would hang around the dorm wing to keep them company. And he could visit Amanda, though it was some weeks before he got up the nerve to do that.
When at last he did, they went for a walk. Sean had no idea what Amanda was up to—she led him through work stations, through the library, through recreation areas. People spoke to him, and he responded. Most of them had smiles for him and encouragement:
“Way to go.”
“Hang in.”
“Three months will be over before you know it.”
Back at Amanda’s apartment, she asked, “Have you been thinking over our last conversation?”
“Yeah. I mean yes,” Sean said. “I see what you mean.”
“Most people we passed today seem to admire you.”
Sean shrugged. “But they know I broke the rules.”
“They know you’re paying for that too.” Amanda leaned forward. “Sean, it’s good to have the respect and the admiration of people. It’s better to earn it. And it’s best of all to be willing to risk that if you have to make an unpopular decision, but one that you know is right.”
“I know,” Sean said. “I’m sorry.” He felt miserable. “All my life I’ve wanted to belong somewhere. I couldn’t have let my friends die. I had to do something. I’m sorry for what I did, but I’d do it again.”
“Well, honesty is a virtue,” Amanda said. “I’m sorry, too. I’m proud of you, Sean … son. I’m very proud of you.”
They sat and talked for hours. It was a time that Sean was to remember often in times to come.
It was a time when he felt that he truly belonged.
OUTCAST
#I The Un-Magician
by Christopher Golden ε Thomas E. Sniegoski
TIMOTHY IS A FREAK, a weakling, an impossibility. He’s the only person in existence without magical powers and has spent his entire life hidden on a remote island.
When Timothy is finally taken back to the city of his birth, he finds he is marked for death. Assassins are watching his every move, and the government wants him destroyed. Timothy can’t imagine what threat he could possibly pose; after all, he wields no power in this world.
Or does he?
The Outcast quartet begins August 2004
* * *
Aladdin Paperbacks · Simon ε Schuster Children’s Publishing Division www.SimonandSchuster.com
002
LOOK FOR THE FINAL BOOK IN THE MARS YEAR ONE TRILOGY
Marsquake!
The colony is racing to complete its deep drilling project on the shoulders of Olympus Mons to tap the underlying heat of Mars for power generation. When an unexpected underground cavity collapses, a devastating quake damages a number of the buildings in the colony, including some of the greenhouses in which food is grown.
The scramble to repair and rebuild the greenhouses becomes vital, but the threat to the colony’s food source is nothing compared to the dangers found in some of the previously undiscovered lava tubes and caves that lead far below the Martian surface….
Available February 2005
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