SYSTEM FAILURE
Lunar day 252
T minus 24 hours to evacuation
“Something’s wrong with the air-recycling system,” Mom said. “It’s not providing as much oxygen for us as it should.”
Now that the cat was out of the bag, Nina had pulled her from the call with NASA in the science pod so she and Dad could break the news to Violet and me. We were all in our residence, seated on our InflatiCubes. Kira and Dr. Howard were in their residence next door.
Since none of the other kids had caught on to what was happening, they were all still in school. Although I was pretty sure their parents were going to have to tell them the truth soon. The chances of Violet keeping the secret were awfully slim.
The call with NASA, it turned out, had been about emergency procedures to shut down the moon base.
“Why isn’t the system making oxygen?” Violet asked.
“It’s making some,” Dad corrected. “Just not quite as much as it should. We don’t know why. If we did, we could fix it.”
“We’ve been trying to fix it,” Mom said. “For two weeks now.”
“And you didn’t tell us?” I failed to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
“There was a lot of debate about that,” Mom said.
“A lot,” Dad emphasized.
“But it was ultimately decided that it would be the best for all the children here if we didn’t tell them,” Mom said. “So you wouldn’t panic. Or stress out.”
“ ‘It was decided’?” I repeated. “Meaning it wasn’t your decision?”
“There was no way some families could tell their kids and others couldn’t,” Dad explained. “Because if some kids knew, they would definitely tell the other kids. And Dr. Marquez felt that children might not be able to handle this.”
“Dr. Marquez is a quack,” I said.
“He’s the moon-base psychiatrist,” Mom said sternly, although behind her back Dad made a face to indicate he agreed with me. “NASA put him here to deal with things like this, so they listened to his opinion. However . . .” She glanced at Dad, then looked back to us. “It was never something we were comfortable with.”
“The point is,” Dad said, “we spent two weeks trying everything we could to fix the system—or even to figure out what’s wrong with it. But we couldn’t, and the oxygen levels have kept dropping.”
“Not by much,” Mom said reassuringly. “Only fractions of a percentage. However, if that continues, the air here will eventually become too weak to support humans.”
“But we’re humans,” Violet said worriedly.
“We’re going to be fine.” Mom quickly moved to Violet’s InflatiCube and put an arm around her shoulders. “Once NASA realized there was potential danger, an evacuation plan was immediately put into place. Rockets have already launched from earth to get us. The first two will be here tomorrow.”
“They’ve already launched?” I asked. “How is that possible? It wasn’t on the news. And no one texted me or anything.” I was thinking specifically of Riley Bock, who had become a space fanatic since I was selected as a Moonie. She was always begging me for the latest updates. If rockets had left for the moon, she would have mentioned it. And if she had somehow missed it, at least one of the millions of other MBA fans back on earth would have said something.
“No one back on earth knows,” Dad said. “Not unless they work for NASA. The agency has been doing everything they can to keep this secret until we all get home safely.”
“But they launched two rockets,” I said. “You’d think people would notice something like that.”
“NASA claimed they were merely satellite launches,” Mom said. “Satellites launch all the time. The people who live around the Kennedy Space Center don’t give them a second thought.”
“And they’re going to be here tomorrow?” Violet asked. Her concern over the depleted oxygen had already given way to excitement. “All of us are going home tomorrow?”
Mom and Dad didn’t answer that right away. I realized why they were hesitating. “Wait,” I said. “Only two rockets are coming? Each of those only holds eight people, and that includes the pilots.”
“Right,” Dad said. “We can’t all leave in the first wave. Some people will have to stay behind for the next two rockets.”
“For how long?” I asked.
“Another week,” Mom replied.
“So we might have to wait here?” Violet asked, growing worried again. “Without oxygen?”
Mom tightened her arm around Violet. “No. The families with young children are going to be the first to leave.”
“We are?” Violet asked.
“NASA considers children’s safety their number one priority,” Dad said. “Our family will go with Kamoze and his parents on one rocket, while the Marquez family will go with Kira and her father on the other.”
I was quite sure that our priority had less to do with NASA’s concern for our safety than it did with NASA’s concern about the agency’s image. It would look pretty bad if they allowed grown-ups without children to return to earth before children. Especially if something went wrong at MBA in the interim and the children died. I didn’t want to bring that up in front of Violet, though. Instead I said, “And the Sjobergs are okay with waiting?”
Mom and Dad looked to each other awkwardly, then back to Violet and me. “The Sjobergs don’t know what’s going on,” Mom confided.
“They don’t?” I asked. “They’re going to have a cow when they find out.”
“They’re going to have four cows,” Violet agreed.
“That’s why they haven’t been told,” Dad said. “Although there is nothing they can do about this. Part of the contract they signed to come up here stated this emergency-return system very clearly. No matter how much they complain, they’ll have to wait.”
“We’re simply hoping to cut down the amount of time in which they can complain,” Mom said.
“So when are they going to be told?” I asked, then thought to add, “When were you going to tell us?”
“Tonight,” Dad answered. “We didn’t want to alarm anyone until we had to.”
“And you sent us to school?” I chided. “On our last full day on the moon? My birthday?”
“The idea was to keep you distracted,” Dad said. “Although we all felt you should be aware that your final evening here would be your final evening. So you could say good-bye to the place.”
“That’s why you took me outside this morning?” I asked.
“Yes,” Dad said. “It seemed like a shame to let you come all this way and never get the chance to play catch on the lunar surface. Plus, we didn’t have a present for you.”
“What about me?” Violet asked angrily. “I never got to play catch on the lunar surface! Or do gymnastics. Or anything.”
“You’ll get some time out there tomorrow,” Mom told her. “On the way to the rocket. Maybe you can do some cartwheels then.”
“Okay!” Violet said, her anger instantly gone.
Dad stood suddenly. “That reminds me, Vee. We need to check your space suit to make sure it still fits you nice and tight. We should probably do that right now.”
Violet leaped to her feet, already excited about the next day. “Do you think I’ll be the first person to ever do cartwheels on the lunar surface?”
“I think Neil Armstrong might have done a few,” Dad replied. “And a round-off.”
“Daddy,” Violet said sourly. “You’re lying.”
“Maybe,” Dad admitted, and then they slipped out the door, leaving only Mom and me in the room.
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier,” Mom said. “Believe me, we wanted to. We didn’t like keeping this a secret.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. Then, since Violet wasn’t around, I asked, “Is it really safe here, with the oxygen levels dropping?”
“We should be okay until tomorrow,” Mom said. “And even the people who have to wait for the next rockets will be fine. After all, over half the other humans will be gone. So they won’t be depleting the oxygen as quickly. In fact, they might even end up with more oxygen after we leave.”
“But they still all have to evacuate? One or two people couldn’t stay behind and keep the base going?”
“Why do you ask?”
I looked around our residence again. “It just seems like a shame. Abandoning this base after so much work.”
“Leaving a skeleton crew behind has been discussed. But NASA has decided it’s not worth the risk. What if the oxygen levels dropped to dangerous levels and it became too late to mount a rescue mission?” Mom walked to our single, small bureau and began taking the clothes out of it, already starting to pack for the trip home. “Space travel is hard, Dash. Harder than all of us hoped it would be. I know we have these dreams of leaving our galaxy and even visiting other planets someday. But that really might not be possible. Even if we could build a rocket that could travel that far—or go warp speed—our bodies might not be able to handle it. We are acutely evolved for our own planet. Except for that tiny little spot, the rest of the universe is absolutely toxic for us.”
I found myself thinking about the conversations I’d had with Zan. She had indicated this was the case for species other than humans as well, though she’d never been specific about her own. When I had showed her space movies like Star Wars and Star Trek, she had always pointed out how ludicrous it was that every planet the heroes visited had the exact same atmosphere and gravity as earth. She had originally found this hilarious, believing it to be a joke.
Although it now occurred to me that, no matter how much I had prodded Zan, she had never admitted whether or not any species could actually travel between planets.
“Besides,” Mom went on, “just because we abandon this place doesn’t mean it’s a failure. We made it eight months—and we could still come back.”
“We?” I asked, worry creeping into my voice.
“I mean other people could come back,” Mom corrected. “Different lunarnauts. Once NASA determines what’s going wrong here and how to correct it, we could send some people back up to repair the base and get it going again. But I promise you, our family won’t be coming. We’ve already done our time on this rock.”
I sighed, relieved, then asked, “Have there been any side effects of having the oxygen drop?”
Mom paused in the midst of cleaning out the bureau, like I’d caught her off guard.
“There have,” I pressed. “Haven’t there?”
“Possibly,” Mom agreed. “It’s nothing severe. . . . But even a slight decrease in the amount of oxygen can have effects on people. Physically, it can be a bit harder to do exercise. Our hearts might beat a bit faster. We might find that we feel short of breath on occasion.”
I thought back to the past few days. “I haven’t felt anything like that.”
“Well, you’re young. Some of the adults have had issues. And then there’s the psychological effects, which might even be stronger. Loss of concentration. Lapses in judgement. Increased irritability.”
“Sounds like the Sjobergs have had oxygen deprivation since they got here.” I was only joking, but as I thought about the last few weeks, I realized that the effects of oxygen depletion had been evident. My fellow Moonies had definitely been more irritable with one another. I had chalked that up to being trapped together in a relatively small moon base, but oxygen deprivation seemed to be an even better explanation. I also realized that I had been more irritable, especially with Violet.
“If you think the Sjobergs have been bad so far,” Mom said, “wait until they find out they don’t have priority on the rockets home.”
I imagined what Lars Sjoberg’s reaction to that would be. He had been clamoring to return to earth for weeks, but there had never been available seats on a rocket for him and his family. Now two empty rockets were going to arrive, and he still wouldn’t have seats on them. He would go ballistic. “I feel sorry for everyone who gets stuck here with them after we’re gone.”
“No kidding. Someone might end up dead.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, Mom gasped. “Oh my. That was a poor choice of words. I wasn’t even thinking about the poisoning. I was just . . .” She looked at me. “Your father says you know the truth.”
“I know someone did it on purpose.”
“I don’t think you should investigate. No matter what Nina says. In a little more than a day, we’re going to be gone from here. The last thing you need to do is put yourself in danger.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I said. “I’m playing it safe as can be until I get on that rocket tomorrow.”
Mom smiled, then returned to packing. It didn’t look as though it would take her very long. We hadn’t been allowed to bring much to Moon Base Alpha to begin with.
I probably should have helped her, but I was still processing everything I had just learned. MBA was losing oxygen. It was potentially dangerous, which was scary, but because of it we were evacuating. I would be leaving the moon soon, more than two years before I was supposed to. The news was so incredible, it didn’t seem real. . . .
And yet I also felt a pang of regret. It wasn’t like I wanted to stay, but at the same time, the way it was all ending seemed wrong. Like we’d failed.
Plus, there was still a murderer on the loose.
I wondered if that could have had anything to do with the loss of oxygen. If a slight drop in oxygen ramped up people’s irritability and impaired their judgment, then maybe someone who normally would have never considered murder might have suddenly done so. Or taken a risk when they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Or maybe it was the upcoming evacuation that had forced someone’s hand. Lars Sjoberg had sworn that he would destroy the lives of a lot of his fellow Moonies. All that had stopped him from doing it already was that his lines of communication with earth had been cut. But once he got back to earth, there would be little to stop him from trying. It was possible that someone—if not multiple people—didn’t want to give him the chance.
Once half of us evacuated the next day, we would be abandoning the crime scene, possibly forever. There was a better than 50-percent chance that the killer was heading back to earth—fourteen of the twenty-five Moonies would be on the first wave home—and even a possibility that the killer would be on my rocket with me. After all, Dr. Goldstein had been the one with the apple seeds, and now they were gone. And Dr. Goldstein had proven herself somewhat conniving before. Or maybe Dr. Iwanyi had done it; he hadn’t liked Lars either.
On the other hand, there was an almost 50-percent chance that the killer would be stuck back on MBA with Lars. Which might give them another chance to kill him—or give Lars a chance to get revenge.
Whatever the case, it seemed like there were still a lot of scenarios in which something could go wrong.
As it turned out, things were going to get far worse than I had ever imagined.