Images

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Stuart Gibbs

Jacket background illustration copyright © 2016 by Thinkstock.com

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Book design and principal jacket illustration by Lucy Ruth Cummins

Map art by Ryan Thompson

The text for this book was set in Adobe Garamond.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gibbs, Stuart, 1969– author.

Spaced out / Stuart Gibbs.—First edition.

pages cm

Summary: In 2041 twelve-year-old Dashiell Gibson is a resident of Moon Base Alpha, and at the moment he is faced with a number of problems: coping with the nasty Sjoberg twins, finding out how the commander of the base has managed to disappear from a facility no bigger than a soccer field, and dealing with the alien Zan who communicates with him telepathically from afar—and who is hiding a secret which may threaten the whole Earth.

ISBN 978-1-4814-2336-6 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-1-4814-2338-0 (eBook)

1. Space colonies—Juvenile fiction. 2. Extraterrestrial beings—Juvenile fiction.

3. Human-alien encounters—Juvenile fiction. 4. Telepathy—Juvenile fiction.

5. Secrecy—Juvenile fiction. 6. Moon—Juvenile fiction. [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Space colonies—Fiction. 3. Extraterrestrial beings—Fiction. 4. Human-alien encounters—Fiction. 5. Telepathy—Fiction. 6. Secrets—Fiction. 7. Moon—Fiction.

8. Science fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.G339236Sl 2016

813.6—dc23

[Fic]

2015004025