8 UNEXPECTED HELP

8 UNEXPECTED HELP Lunar day 188 Afternoon "I knew Dr. Holtz," Kira told me. "Back on earth. He and my father worked on some projects together. They told us about his death as we were landing. They said it was an accident, that he made an unauthorized moonwalk—but that doesn't sound right to me." I ran my fingers through my hair, worried. Nina had warned me not to tell people Dr. Holtz had been murdered—and I'd already done it. Of course,

it wasn't exactly my fault. How was I supposed to know the lousy lunar contractors had made the walls too thin? But still, if Nina found out about this, on top of all the other things she was upset at me about... for all I knew, she'd sentence me to remain on the moon until I was sixty. "Look," I said. "I'm not really supposed to be investigating this at all..." "Who were you talking to in your room, then?" Kira asked. "I got the idea it was someone in security." "It's hard to explain." From where I sat on the catwalk, I was still visible to everyone down by the air lock—including Nina—so I faced forward, away from Kira, and templed my fingers in front of my mouth, trying to give the impression that I wasn't talking to anyone at all. "But it was an adult, right?" "Er... right." "So then, you've been asked to do it. It's not like we'd be snooping around on our own." "Well, we'd still be in trouble if we got caught." "Let's not get caught, then." Kira grinned. "I'm serious," I told her. "You just got here. You don't want to get off on the wrong foot with Nina."

"I'll be careful. I can handle this. I've done worse." I was about to ask, "Like what?" but before I could, down in the staging area, Nina turned toward me—as though she had sensed I was talking about her. She couldn't see Kira—but the sight of me simply sitting on the catwalk was enough to get her angry. "I told you to wait in my office!" she yelled. "It's locked!" I called back. Nina scowled and kept staring at me. Kira took a step back, making sure she was out of Nina's eye line, then mused, "I wonder if she had something to do with Dr. Holtz's death. It's kind of suspicious, ordering everyone not to investigate a murder, isn't it?" I started to deny this, but then thought about it. I put my hand over my mouth, trying to look thoughtful as I covered my lips. "You're right. It is." "So let me help, then. I'm pretty good with computers myself." "Can you hack?" "Yeah, a bit. What do you need?" "The security tapes of Dr. Holtz going out the air lock this morning." Kira frowned. "Oh. That's not going to be easy." "I know. I'm not sure if even Roddy can do it."

In the staging area, Nina started heading my way. "Nina's coming!" I warned. "Better go before she sees you." Kira didn't question this. She quickly ducked back into her room. "I'll see what I can get you." There was a gleam of excitement in her eye as she closed the door. Nina reached the base of the stairs. If Kira had been a half second slower, Nina would have seen her. Instead Nina only saw me, sitting by myself. She came up the steps to the catwalk. I hopped to my feet to meet her. "Who were you talking to?" Nina asked. Apparently, covering my mouth with my hand hadn't fooled her. "Violet," I lied, pointing down to the rec room. "She was down there. She came out into the hall and wanted to know where our parents were. I told her and she went back in." Nina cased both levels of the hallway, trying to determine if I was lying. The halls were empty; there was no one else around for her to presume I'd been talking to. Nina shifted her attention back to me. "I want you to go into your room and stay there. You're grounded until I say otherwise."

"What?" I asked. "You can't do that! You're not my mom!" "At this base I have the authority to delegate any punishment I see fit. I gave you a direct order to stay out of the staging area and you disobeyed it." "What was I supposed to do? Let the Sjobergs beat me up?" "Do you know how difficult it was to requisition those eggs?" Nina demanded. "NASA didn't want to send them. I spent hours working every angle I could. They were going to be a treat for everyone up here. A special reward for their hard work. And now that's not going to happen. Every last egg is broken, and after this disaster NASA will never agree to ship any more. Which means it will be three years until I taste a fresh egg again!" Oh, I thought, so that's what all this is about. For all her posturing that I had disobeyed orders, Nina was really upset that she'd lost her precious eggs. Sure, she was claiming she'd requested them for everyone, but she wouldn't have spent hours on it unless she'd really wanted them herself. I understood where she was coming from, though. We all have our own food obsessions at MBA. You have no idea what you'll really miss until you get

here. Personally, I'd have thought I would want ice cream more than anything else. But now that I'm on the moon, for some reason I always find myself craving picante sauce. I couldn't imagine what would happen if a jar had been shipped up for me and then ended up broken. I might have been desperate enough to lick everything up off the floor. And yet I was still ticked off that I was getting punished for this—while the Sjobergs were getting off scot-free because they were rich. "What am I supposed to do in my room all day?" I asked. "You haven't updated your video log in over a week," Nina told me. "Start with that." "That'll only take five minutes," I protested. "No," Nina said, "I want you to take your time with this. Think about it very carefully. Don't say one word about Dr. Holtz's death being suspicious —" "You mean, I can't say anything about his death?" "You're welcome to talk about it. In fact, I encourage you to. The public knows about the death by now and they're eager to hear what we all have to say. So tell them what a great man Dr. Holtz was. Let them know you're upset he's gone. But do not, under any circumstances, even hint that there might