11 SPACE MADNESS

11 SPACE MADNESS Lunar day 188 Bedtime Unfortunately, Zan was nowhere to be found. I circled the entire base three times, but she wasn't in any of the common areas. Lots of people remained in the mess, still savoring their last morsels of fresh pie—a few were even licking their plates clean— although a lot of the temps had retired to their quarters. (Arrival day can be exhausting.) My parents and Violet had left as well. There were a few folks in the gym, and Roddy had

taken his usual place in the rec room, jacked into the ComLink. He's there so often he might as well be a piece of furniture. The science pod was empty, as were the control rooms, save for Daphne, who was overseeing the robot arm. The Raptor rocket had brought plenty of heavy cargo that humans couldn't carry: new solar arrays, a lunar rover, and construction materials for Moon Base Beta. All of that had to be moved with the arm, which is half robot, half crane. It's enormous, with a span of one hundred feet, and it looks surprisingly like a real human arm and hand, minus the flesh and with steel instead of bone. There are only two differences: The "hand" has two thumbs in addition to its four fingers, which gives it better grip, while the "arm" has three joints, which gives it greater flexibility. The arm is anchored next to the rover garage outside, where it can reach from MBA to the launchpad and Solar Array 2. Like most robots, the arm can do its job well without much human input. All it needs is the occasional order from Daphne about what to do next. Therefore, Daphne wasn't working that hard. She was reading an e-book, only glancing at the camera monitors every now and then to make sure

everything was going well. However, when I looped past her on my third sweep of the base, she had stopped reading. Instead she was furiously typing at one of the computers. Lines of code filled the screen. I edged forward, wondering what she was doing. Daphne suddenly seemed to sense I was there. She spun around quickly, covering the computer screen with her body. "Hey, Dash!" she called, trying to sound casual, although her voice sounded higher than usual. "Are you doing laps—or looking for someone?" I almost asked if she'd seen Zan, but then caught myself, remembering that Zan had warned me not to let anyone know we were working together. Daphne was the least threatening adult at the station —I couldn't imagine her squashing a bug, let alone bumping off Dr. Holtz—but Zan still wouldn't want me tipping her off about us. "I'm looking for my folks," I lied. "I think they took your sister back to your room." Daphne laughed. "That Violet's such a pistol. I love her. She conned three people into giving her an extra slice of pie, then got hopped up on sugar and ran around like a hurricane until she collapsed from

exhaustion." "Sounds like Violet all right." I gave Daphne a wave of thanks and headed home. I figured Zan must have turned in for the night herself, and all the temps shared sleeping quarters. Despite how anxious I was to talk to her, it looked like I'd have to wait for her to come find me. Daphne didn't resume typing on the computer. At least not while I was in range. Instead she made a show of monitoring the robot arm as I walked away. Sure enough, my family was back in our room. Violet was almost comatose after her sugar rush, murmuring nonsense while Dad tried to pour her into her Hello Kitty pajamas. Mom was seated at the table, typing on the SlimScreen. "Hey!" Mom said, nice and chipper. "Did you find Kira?" "Yes." "Mmmm," Violet sighed sleepily. "I love pie." "What was the big emergency?" Dad asked me. "She was just trying to get everything set up in her room and couldn't figure out the computer." I didn't like lying to my parents, but I knew they wouldn't be pleased with the truth. "That couldn't have waited until the end of

dinner?" Mom inquired. "What are you writing?" I asked, trying to change the subject. It worked. "A eulogy for Dr. Holtz," Mom said. "Nina wants to have a ceremony for him tomorrow, and she asked me to speak." "Only you?" I wanted to know. "No," Mom said. "A few others will talk too. Nina. Dr. Janke. Maybe Kira's father." "I want a pony," Violet said dreamily. Dad slid her into her sleep pod and gave her a kiss on the forehead. A second later she was snoring. "What's happening to Dr. Holtz's body?" I asked. "NASA gave permission to bury it on the moon," Mom said. "And so did Dr. Holtz's daughter. She said it would be the perfect place for her father to end up. Plus Katya and the others didn't like the idea of bringing a corpse back with them on the rocket." "Who's digging the grave?" I asked. "No one," Mom explained. "Daphne's sending some robots out to do it tomorrow. It's too dangerous to use humans for this. The crust is so thick they'll have to blast through it." I sat next to my mother at the table. "Will the

body decay here?" "Ew," Mom said. "What kind of question is that?" "A legitimate one," Dad told her. "No, the body won't really decay, without an atmosphere or any life forms to break it down. Instead it'll sort of mummify." I nodded, then turned back to my mother. "What are you going to say?" "The usual, I guess. What a great person Dr. Holtz was. How he was so committed to human spaceflight. How this place was the realization of his life's work. Blah blah blah." Mom frowned and put her face in her hands. "It's so darn difficult, summing up a man's entire life in one speech." Dad said, "If anyone can do it, it's you." He came behind Mom and kneaded her shoulders. Mom sighed with relief and closed her eyes. "Mom," I said, "you were going to tell me something about Dr. Holtz at breakfast. But you never got to because Dr. Marquez interrupted us. Something important I should know about Dr. Holtz." Mom reluctantly opened her eyes. She looked a little confused, like she was trying to remember the conversation.