3 THE SPACE TOILET INCIDENT INVESTIGATION

3 THE SPACE TOILET INCIDENT INVESTIGATION Lunar day 216 Well after bedtime Given where our conversation had left off, I was desperate to get back in touch with Zan and find out what danger lay in store for the earth. But I had no way to contact her. Zan only appeared to me when she wanted to and that was that. There was nothing I could do but wait for her to show up again. In the meantime, the Sjobergs reported me to the moon-base commander. That was Nina Stack, who was as tough and straitlaced as any person I'd ever met. Nina had come to NASA from the military and she still acted

like she was in it. Behind her back, all the kids called her "Nina the Machina," because she had the same range of emotions as a kitchen appliance: none. She knocked on the door of our residence while my parents and I were getting ready for bed. Violet was already snoring in her sleep pod. We had set our wall-size SlimScreen to project a nighttime view of Hapuna Beach in Hawaii. We were from near there, on the Big Island, and it always made us feel like we were back home, rather than stuck in a tiny outpost on a barren rock floating in space. Nina didn't even say hello when Mom opened the door. That type of normal human interaction was alien to her. Instead she said, "I need to speak to Dashiell in my quarters." I had already informed my parents of everything that had happened that night. Everything that didn't involve Zan, at least. "Dash should not get in trouble for this," Mom told Nina. "He was protecting himself from Patton Sjoberg." "I'm not here to punish Dashiell," Nina said flatly. While everyone else at MBA dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts, Nina always wore her official NASA flight suit. Even this late at night, it looked as though it had just been ironed. "However, I am

required by NASA to get his statement as to what occurred in the space toilet incident." Mom opened the door wide and waved Nina inside. "Fine. Then you can do it right here." Nina remained on the catwalk outside our residence. "Rose, my orders are to get Dashiell's statement, not yours or your husband's. To prevent you from interfering, this really ought to be done in my quarters." Mom started to protest, but I cut her off. "It's okay. I'll go." I turned off my e-book and headed for the door. "This can't wait until morning?" Dad asked. "It's bedtime for all of us." "We have an extremely busy day tomorrow, so I'd prefer to get this done now," Nina said. Without so much as a good-bye—or an apology for disturbing everyone so late—she turned away and led me down the catwalk to her residence. This didn't take long, as Nina lived right next door to us. All the residence doors at MBA have electronic sensor locks linked to our smartwatches. Nina waved her watch in front of the sensor pad and the dead bolt automatically slid open. It was only the second time I had ever been in

Nina's quarters. The previous time had been a month before. Nothing had changed. Although Nina's residence was larger than my entire family's (or anyone else's quarters, save for the Sjobergs" "tourist suite"), she had almost nothing in it. Furniture was too big and bulky to haul much of it to the moon, so except for the standard bureau, SlimScreen table, and inflatable cubes that served as chairs, Nina's only extra item was a spindly self- assembled desk. We had all been allowed to bring a few personal items to MBA, but Nina hadn't bothered with any of those. Her SlimScreen wasn't on, leaving only a blank gray wall. Even the view out Nina's window was exactly the same as it had been before. Since there was no wind, rain, or any other type of weather on the moon, every speck of dirt was probably exactly where it had been not only a month earlier, but for the last hundred thousand years as well. Nina sat on an InflatiCube on one side of her desk, then pointed me to the one on the other side. "Sit," she said. Like I was a dog. I sat anyhow, trying not to make waves. I wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible. The InflatiCube, being cheap plastic, made a farting

noise as I put my weight on it. This happened a lot with those. Most people at MBA found this funny— Violet in particular—though Nina never found anything funny. I had never seen her laugh once in the four months we'd been on the moon. "I'm revoking your communication privileges with earth," she told me. "For the next two weeks, you will not be able to use the ComLinks for any purpose other than school." "What?" I asked. "I thought you said I wasn't going to be punished!" "Use of the ComLinks is a privilege, not a right," Nina said robotically. "Therefore, temporary suspension of your privileges is not technically a punishment...." "It's still not cool! I thought you said you were going to take my statement on the space toilet incident!" "There's no need for that. I have reviewed the security footage from the men's bathroom and observed what happened." "I did that in self-defense!" I argued. "Patton was trying to strangle me!" "The space toilet is not intended for use in self- defense," Nina told me. "It is only designed for the

hygienic disposal of human urine and feces. Should you have broken it, the fabrication, shipping, and installation of a replacement would have cost NASA over half a billion dollars." "Well then, the Sjobergs should pay for it. A half a billion dollars is petty cash to them." "This isn't merely about the cost, Dashiell. There are only three toilets for all the men on this base. A reduction of those by a third could have severe consequences, especially given the unfortunate effects of some of our space food on everyone's digestive tracts." She was probably talking about the chicken parmesan, which often sent us Moonies to the bathroom for extended periods of time. Sure, everyone could have avoided it, but it had already been shipped to MBA, and on the moon our options for dining out were limited. The nearest pizza delivery was 238,900 miles away. "Are Patton and Lily losing their ComLink privileges too?" I asked. "Seeing as they were trying to beat me up?" Nina broke eye contact with me for a second. "For the Sjobergs, the ComLinks aren't a privilege. They paid for them, so usage is guaranteed."