9 SYSTEM FAILURE

9 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?"