Ambush

by Sigmund Brouwer

  I typed two words.

  Explosive device?

  This was Blaine Steven’s answer on the screen:

  I distinctly heard the word bomb. Which terrifies me. And should terrify you. Because I am not the only one they want dead.

  CHAPTER 4

  “What are you doing?”

  Stuck against the far wall of one of the spaceship’s bunk areas, I had little room to move. The bunk was hardly more than a bed on a large shelf, with other smaller shelves below. Each of those shelves had loose netting in front so the objects on them would not float out.

  “What are you doing?” came the angry demand again. The man who floated headfirst in the hatchway to the bunk wore the regulation blue jumpsuit. But all I could see were his head and shoulders since the rest of his body hung out in the corridor. I knew he didn’t look regulation in any other way. His upper body was an upside-down triangle, his waist narrow and his shoulders and chest so heavily muscled that he barely fit into the hatchway. His neck seemed as wide as his head. Because he cut his dark hair so short, the first thing you noticed about his square face was his ears, which stuck straight out from his head. Not that anyone would ever mention it to him.

  Turning my head to look at him was an awkward move, considering I was on my back. Or on my side. Or upside down. It’s hard to tell in the weightlessness of interplanetary travel since all positions feel the same. But in relationship to the ceiling, I clung to a handhold bar on the wall, with a vacuum tube floating beside me. So I probably looked like a fly, with my legs tucked beneath me in the cramped quarters of the bunk.

  What made me look like a thief, however, was the fact that I had undone the netting of his shelves.

  “What are you doing?” Lance Evenson repeated one more time. As his body showed, he was a workout freak and had a reputation for using his size to frighten people. It worked. I was frightened at his anger. “And tell me why you’re in my bunk area without my permission!”

  I wasn’t going to tell him I was looking for a bomb. No, when Dad had sent me out with a vacuum tube, he’d been very clear we needed to keep it a secret. One, as Dad had warned, we did not want to let the traitor know we knew about the bomb. And two, we didn’t want to panic the others.

  “I’m … I’m … cleaning.” I pointed at the vacuum tube. It was about as long and as wide as my arm, with a powerful little motor hidden inside. It was designed to pick up crumbs and dust that hung in the air.

  “I can see you’re cleaning,” he snapped. “What I want to know is why you have invaded my privacy and what you expect to clean among my personal possessions on the shelf.”

  Although his official title was chief computer technician, Lance Evenson’s job was considered to be far, far more crucial than the duties of most techies. Computers were the lifeblood of space exploration. In the dome on Mars and on a spaceship. Power equipment, machines, engines—all depended on computers. Positional information and the calculation of space orbits depended on computers. All communications depended on computers. And all those computers depended on the chief computer technician for maintenance and repairs. No one reached the status of chief computer technician without years of training and experience. It was easier to become a doctor than a chief computer technician. And for good reason. Doctors were responsible for one life at a time. A chief computer technician was responsible for every life under the dome. Or on a spaceship.

  “My dad asked me to vacuum everywhere,” I said. “He told me it’s part of regular duties on a long flight like ours. Good as the filters are, he wants to stay on top of the dust and particles so there’s absolutely no chance of clogging anything important.”

  “Humph,” Lance said. “That’s news to me. I don’t remember doing it on my trip to Mars.”

  Which had been nearly 15 Earth years ago. Lance had been on the Mars Dome since it had been established. This was his first trip back to Earth. Having a man of his knowledge and expertise to help if anything went wrong was fortunate for the rest of us.

  “News to me too,” I answered. “I’d rather be in a simulation software game right now. But this is my first flight, and how can I disagree with my dad? Especially because he’s the pilot.”

  I said that as a way to remind Lance that he, too, had to follow the pilot’s orders. Chief computer technician or not, in space the first rule was that the pilot had total authority.

  “Fine, then.” Lance pulled himself through the hatchway and, with a slight push, sent himself toward me. He put out an arm and stopped himself against the wall beside me. “Give me the vacuum tube. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I don’t mind doing it,” I said, trying to shrink back from the closeness of his large body. “I’m nearly done in here anyway.”

  “I don’t care. I want you out of my bunk.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. I pushed off the wall, toward the hatch. I grabbed the handhold bars on each side. As I began to pull my body forward, like a worm about to squeeze out of a hole, Lance’s voice stopped me.

  “Pilot’s order or not,” Lance said harshly, “I don’t want to catch you in here again. If there’s something you need in my bunk, you talk to me first. And I’ll be telling the same thing to your father. Got that?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Good. Then get out of my sight. And close the hatch door behind you.”

  I poked my head through the hatchway and looked both directions up and down the corridor. Although there were only nine people on the ship, we’d all learned early to check before shooting out of our bunks. Weightless or not, collisions still hurt.

  Once the rest of my body was out of the hatch, I flipped over, like a fish doing a somersault in water. I secured the hatch, grabbed the nearest handhold bar, and shoved off to find Dad. He’d want to know about this.

  Lance Evenson was the only person so far to react like this. So I was willing to bet that he was hiding something.

  CHAPTER 5

  Of the entire ship, my favorite area was the navigation cone, which formed the ship’s nose. For two reasons. One, the telescope was located there, and I’d spent every evening that I could at the telescope under the dome on Mars. And two, because standing in the cone was like being perched in outer space.

  The cone was the only place with a view. The rest of the ship behind it was made of a titanium alloy, and the bunks and work areas had no windows. They were lit by the pale whiteness of low-energy argon tubes set into the walls.

  The cone sat in front, where it looked like an awkward addition. But because there’s no air in space or any gravity to pull a structure apart, the ship was designed much differently than if it had to fly in an atmosphere.

  Essentially the entire ship was a large circular tube, moving sideways through the vacuum of space. The outer part of this large tube held the docking port, two emergency escape pods, an exercise room, all the passenger bunks, and work-area compartments. The inner part of the circle formed a corridor, which we traveled by grabbing handholds and pushing forward or backward, entering the bunks or work areas through circular hatches with slide-away covers. From this corridor, four main hatches led to tubes that extended downward like spokes and met at a center hub. From this center hub one short tube led backward to the pyramid-shaped, ion-drive engine. Another short tube led forward to the pyramid-shaped navigation cone.

  Here in the navigation cone, the titanium structure of the rest of the ship had been replaced by material that looked and functioned like glass but was thousands of times stronger and more expensive. All the walls of the pyramid were made of this space glass, including the floor. The computer and control console sat on this glass floor, as did the pilot’s seat. That’s why I liked it so much. Pushing from the hub into the navigation cone made it seem like a person was floating directly into clear outer space. This sensation frightened some people, but because in gravity situations I spent so much time in a wheelchair, I loved the illusion of freedom.

  This time, however, pushing f
rom the confined tube of the hub into the navigation cone to visit my dad gave me little pleasure.

  Not with the news I had to deliver.

  “Nothing,” I told him. “I found nothing unusual except one cranky chief computer technician.”

  I explained to Dad what had happened during my search.

  Sitting before a computer screen and the ship’s controls, Dad leaned back, hands locked behind his head. His face showed little expression as he listened.

  “What do you think?” I asked when I finished. “Sounds suspicious, doesn’t it?”

  “First, we don’t know for sure that there is a bomb or a plot. Remember who the information is coming from. Second, even if there is a plot, I highly doubt Lance Evenson could be part of a master plot like this. And even if he did intend to hide a bomb, we’d never find it. He’s brilliant.”

  “But he made it clear he didn’t want me in his bunk. That must mean something.”

  Dad grinned. “It means he’s one of the most stubborn, opinionated, and cranky men I know. If you’d been in there trying to give him money, he still would have kicked you out. Just because you didn’t ask permission to go into his bunk ahead of time.”

  I wanted to protest. But before I could say anything, Ashley arrived, bobbing through the air, holding a vacuum tube identical to mine.

  I was still getting used to it, watching the way that everyone moved in weightless conditions. Whichever direction a person pushed, he or she would continue to move in that direction until hitting something, grabbing something to stop, or pushing off in a different direction.

  Most bizarre of all was what happened to liquids that spilled. In gravity situations, of course, all of it fell straight down and splattered. Not on a spaceship. Droplets would move slowly in every direction, in big and little blobs, and with enough time and patience you could herd the droplets by capturing them in a container. (This made bathroom arrangements very interesting.)

  “Mr. Sanders,” Ashley said after her quick hello to both of us, “are you sure this isn’t some kind of trick that you and Rawling decided to play on me and Tyce?”

  Dad raised an eyebrow. I admired the move and had been practicing it myself. But only when no one was around.

  “What I mean,” she said, “is that maybe this is a way to fool us into cleaning the ship. You know, getting us into every corner and hidden space with a vacuum tube.”

  Dad shook his head with a sad smile. “I wish it was.”

  Ashley sighed. She floated on her side in midair, as if she were on an invisible sofa. “I was afraid of that.”

  “Nothing, huh?” I asked. I was on my stomach in midair, facing her and Dad. The constant hum of the air circulators surrounded us, as the filters removed carbon dioxide and replaced it with oxygen generated from special tanks.

  “Nothing. I’m scared of finding it. And scared of not finding it,” she said, pushing back the short black hair that floated around her face.

  I knew exactly what she meant. We absolutely had to find the bomb to have a chance of surviving this trip. But if we did find it, would we discover that it couldn’t be moved or safely disarmed?

  “I’ll agree with you,” Dad answered intensely. Then he frowned. “What’s worse, I’m not sure we have much time.”

  Dad unlocked his hands and leaned forward. Normally any movement like that in weightlessness meant he would keep falling forward unless he grabbed at the armrests of his chair. But because pilots needed to be stable during any maneuvers, small Velcro patches on the seat of his jumpsuit kept him attached to his chair.

  “It’s like this,” he said. “It’s unlikely that whoever planted the bomb is suicidal. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Ashley and I said together.

  “Which means he is not going to explode the bomb unless he can get away.”

  “Agreed,” we said again.

  “So think about our escape pods.”

  I was beginning to understand. There were nine of us on the Moon Racer. Each of the escape pods was capable of holding 10 people, supplying them with enough food and water and oxygen for 3 weeks. The Moon Racer carried 2 escape pods because it often had up to 20 passengers.

  “If he’s going to blow up the Moon Racer,” I said, “he’ll use the space pod to escape first. That means he needs to be less than three weeks away from any shuttle that can pick him up.”

  “Exactly,” Dad said. “If I were him, I’d use the Moon Racer’s direction and momentum. Once we were three weeks from arrival, I’d eject in the direction of Earth and turn on my distress signal in the escape pod. Any one of dozens of Earth-Moon shuttles would be able to pick up the pod once it’s within orbit range.”

  Ashley’s lips tightened and her almond-shaped eyes flashed. “And we are now within the escape pods’ range of Earth.”

  “Give or take a couple of days,” Dad said. “The important thing is to keep this among the three of us and to find different ways to search.”

  I knew what I’d be doing. Watching Lance Evenson. And I had an idea how to do it.

  I caught Dad frowning at me, as if he were reading my mind.

  I was wrong.

  “Just had an idea,” he said. “Did either of you check our escape pods for a bomb?”

  My eyes widened. “Hadn’t thought of it.”

  “I’ll check them both,” Dad said quickly, as he turned on the autopilot controls and then got out of his seat. “If the bomb is in one, he must intend to use the other.”

  “Finding it in an escape pod would solve the problem, wouldn’t it?” I said. “If we can’t disarm the bomb, we’ll just eject the pod into space and not care where it blows up.”

  Great solution. Except, as it turned out, I was wrong about that too.

  CHAPTER 6

  “You know what’s weird?” Ashley asked me.

  Except for the usual background humming of the Moon Racer’s air circulation units, it was quiet. She and I were at our usual early evening meeting place. In the Moon Racer’s observation quarters.

  It was the same size as the robot lab, but there was no computer or X-ray receiver. Instead, a telescope tube fit through the upper panels and extended beyond the ship. Eight months to Mars and eight months back is a lot of travel time, and Earth scientists use a lot of the recorded information from this telescope. After all, there’s no atmosphere to interfere with the view, and the camera shots and real-time visuals from this telescope are amazing.

  I spent hours here, looking at clusters of galaxies and supernovas and the different planets of the solar system. It never failed to stagger me, wondering where all this beauty came from. It never failed to lead me to thoughts about God.

  “I’ll bite,” I said. I was floating upside down beneath the telescope tube, staring at Mars, wondering what Mom was doing there right now. And if Rawling had started a new project without me. The swirls of red made me homesick. “What’s weird?”

  “Just yesterday, Dr. Jordan wanted to ask me questions.”

  “What!” I would have jumped if there were any gravity. I switched my attention from Mars to Ashley.

  “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not that big a deal. I was going down the corridor, and Luke Daab was doing some maintenance work on the hatch door to Dr. Jordan’s prison bunk. Luke said Dr. Jordan wanted to ask me a question. I didn’t even go inside. I just stuck my head through the hatch. Dr. Jordan was cabled to the wall, of course. And Luke Daab was right beside me, so I knew I was safe.”

  “What did he ask?” I didn’t feel any better because of what I’d heard. Blaine Steven was bad enough, but compared to the evil Dr. Jordan, Blaine seemed like an innocent baby.

  “About my escape. You know, the Hammerhead.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Not a chance. You know it makes me sick to even think of him. I hope he wonders for the rest of his life. Especially since you know how easy it was.”

  I did. The test had taken place from a shuttle that orbited Mars.
Just before the test began, Ashley had loaded a spare space suit into the Hammerhead. Because only the dark helmet and visor were visible to us inside the shuttle, it looked like she was at the controls. Instead, she had remained inside the cargo bay, speaking to us as if she were actually on the space torpedo. She controlled the first part of the Hammerhead’s flight, long enough to set its course for impact on the distant moon. It fooled all of us, including Dr. Jordan, into thinking she had died during the crash. After the shuttle landed on Mars, she sneaked out of the cargo bay unnoticed and hid in the dome until it was finally safe to appear again.

  “Oh. Was that all he wanted?”

  “That was his only question.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “That is weird.”

  I should have given it more thought. Dr. Jordan didn’t do anything without a reason. But I noticed the look on Ashley’s face. She was scared.

  “It’ll be all right,” I said.

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “You’re thinking about the others in the experimental group.” The kids that Ashley and I were supposed to try to find. That was why we were headed back to Earth.

  She gave me a small smile. “You know me pretty well.”

  Ashley was part of a small group of Earth kids who had been operated on to be able to handle robot controls remotely. Dr. Jordan had forced her to go to Mars with a simple and effective threat. If Ashley didn’t do exactly as she was told—including maintaining the pretense that she was his daughter—the kids in the experimental group would be killed. That’s why she’d made it look like the Hammerhead failure killed her.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said. “Dr. Jordan and Blaine Steven are military prisoners. Word was sent from Mars to keep that highly confidential. Those kids will be all right. I mean, that’s why you and I are going back to Earth. To break them loose. They’ll be exactly where you left them.”