Ambush (14 page)

But we'd have to find the traitor sometime in the next few days.

Great as the idea was, I knew I should clear it with Dad first. This, I figured, was as good a time as any to go over and talk to him about it.

I folded up the computer and placed it behind the netting of the shelf beneath my bed. Scooting out the hatch, I maneuvered my way down the corridor to Dad's hatch.

I knocked first, keeping a tight grip on a nearby handhold so when my knuckles hit his hatch, the counterforce wouldn't float me backward.

“Yes?” Dad answered immediately from the other side.

“It's me.”

I heard the
blip-blip-blip-blip-blip
as he entered his code into the keypad. The hatch door slid open with a hiss.

“Come on in,” he said.

I did. He closed the hatch behind me.

I didn't like the expression on his face. “Did I wake you?”

Usually he was up late, going over ship reports.

“No.”

“Good. For a second I thought you were upset.”

“I am. But not at you.”

Now I really didn't like the expression on his face.

“Tyce,” he said gravely, “remember I said I was going to check the escape pods?”

I nodded. “You found the bomb?”

“No, not yet. Worse. Both escape pods have been disabled by a computer malfunction that Lance can't seem to fix. There is no way to leave this ship safely.”

CHAPTER 8

“How about one of us uses the ant-bot to find out if Lance Evenson has something hidden in his room?” I asked Ashley.

We were in the exercise room, halfway through the next morning. Ashley sat at a leg-press machine, which, of course, I never used. I sat at a bench-press machine. Sweat covered me. I'd been pushing the weights hard, knowing that once I stepped onto Earth, my muscles would be working against gravity more than double what I'd faced on Mars.

“I thought of that last night as I was falling asleep,” she said. “But I don't know if we can.”

“Why not?”

“I'm not sure it's physically possible on this spaceship.”

“We're both wired,” I said. Which we were.

“Still won't work,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow. The way that Dad did. At least I thought it was the way Dad did.

Ashley giggled. “You need more practice.”

“Huh?”

“With that eyebrow. I saw you the other day. Trying it in a mirror.”

“Ant-bot,” I said, hoping my face wasn't too red. “Why won't it work?”

“There's no gravity that would allow the ant-bot to crawl.” Ashley pointed at a nearby handhold. “You and I are big enough to grab those and pull forward. But the ant-bot would just float around aimlessly. Even if we found a way to let it travel, how are you going to get into Lance's bunk? You don't have the access code to his hatch door. It's not like last time, where your dad was using the mainframe computer to get us into different places on the ship.”

“One step ahead of you,” I said. “There's another way to get in. Through the air vent. Even without gravity on this ship, there's still air movement. That's why we have the vents. I'm saying we put the ant-bot in the right air vent and let the air blow it all the way down to his bunk. Then we leave it there to watch him later.”

“Might work,” she said. “Just might work.”

“Of course it will. We could try it this afternoon and—” I stopped as someone else floated into the exercise room.

Susan Fielding. In the regulation blue jumpsuit. She had a towel wrapped around her neck. As usual, she had an e-book with her.

“Hello,” she said in her quiet voice. “Do you want me to come back later?”

“No,” I said quickly. Dad had given Ashley and me permission to work on a feature article. This would be a great time to start learning more about the crew. “In fact, we were hoping to get the chance to spend some time with you. Ashley and I would like to interview you.”

“Me?”

I nodded.

“I'm … I'm … not sure. Is this very important?”

I nodded again. More important than she could guess. Unless, of course, she was the traitor. Then there was nothing for her to guess.

“I was born in Chicago,” Susan said.

The three of us floated comfortably beside the weight equipment.

“Both my parents were scientists,” she continued. “So it was only natural that I discovered the same kind of interest. I spent 10 years at a university, then another 3 in specialized training for the Mars Project.”

I groaned. “Thirteen more years of school.”

Ashley elbowed me. I bounced off her elbow and floated away. I had to find a handhold and use it to push myself back toward them.

“It's not that bad,” Susan said, giving me a shy smile. “Not if you love the research and learning like I do.”

“No kidding. I mean, genetics. Mom explained the basics to me. To think that scientists are able to engineer—” I snapped my mouth shut so quickly that my teeth clacked.
Able to engineer different types of animals. And under the dome there had been an illegal attempt to …

“You're thinking about the Martian koalas, aren't you?” Susan said. Her pale cheeks began to flush. “I wasn't part of that project. And I was just as angry as anyone about the genetic manipulation of those animals. If you're going to use this article to accuse me of it, maybe we should stop this little interview right now.”

“I'm not accusing you,” I said. “I was just thinking about the koalas. How could I not? But—” I was stuck.

“But the article will be much better if readers see how angry you were about it,” Ashley said to her. “As a genetic scientist and as a person.”

Susan relaxed.

Good save, Ashley,
I thought. I also realized that I really
did
want to write this article. It would be interesting, getting the different opinions of people on the ship. It was too bad that a possible hidden bomb and an onboard traitor were the other reasons for writing it.

“So 13 years of work, just to get to Mars … ,” Ashley prompted the scientist. “And a eight-month trip across the middle of the solar system to get there. Do you think it was worth it?”

Susan nodded. “Every minute. Not just the science part. To be able to watch sunrises and sunsets on a different planet? To walk on the Martian sand and wonder about the universe? Incredible. And the bonus was that I got to work so hard on the genetic stuff too,” she said, her voice growing louder and more enthusiastic.

“But you only stayed for one three-year shift,” I said, almost without thinking. “Most scientists stay a lot longer after putting in all that effort to get there. And if you loved it so much, why leave?”

Susan shrank into herself, and her face became stone-cold.

Grabbing her e-book, she tucked it under her arm. “Obviously this is a real interview. Just like most of the media on Earth.

Rude. I've had enough.” Without saying good-bye, she yanked at a handhold. It threw her forward toward the hatch, and she barely ducked in time to make it through.

“Really know how to charm them, don't you?” Ashley said, hand on her hip in her traditionally annoyed pose.

I tried a weak grin. “You still like me, right?”

“Humph.”

“Come on. She's hiding something. Why would she suddenly leave Mars?”

“Humph.”

Obviously Ashley didn't have an answer to that.

Which is what worried me the most.

CHAPTER 9

I floated into the computer control center. Aside from the navigation cone, it was the most important part of the ship. Dad explained it to me this way. If the
Moon Racer
was like a human body, the computer control center was the brain of the ship and the navigation cone, as it operated the movement of the ship, was the arms and legs that responded to the brain. With one slight difference. Since the pilot was the head commander in space, the navigational system—which depended on the computer control center—only worked after the pilot keyed in his password.

Other than this override from the navigational system, the computer control center monitored air, heating, communications, electrical, and all the dozens of other miniature systems that made life possible on the ship.

For such a crucial center, it didn't look like much. There was a mainframe computer attached to the wall, with a monitor in front and another monitor to the side. On the opposite wall, a second and third computer, each with a monitor, served as emergency backups. A straight-backed chair faced the main computer. That was it. All was lit by the soft white glow of the recessed argon tubes.

Lance Evenson sat in front of the computer, his big shoulders blocking most of the screen.

He wasn't alone. Luke Daab, tool belt strapped to his waist, had a couple of computer wires in his hand. Beside the mainframe, he'd taken off some wall panels. The mess of different-colored wires looked like a tangle of snakes. So close to Lance, Luke looked even smaller and more shrunken than usual.

I coughed discreetly to let them both know I had entered the room.

Luke glanced at me, then away with his usual shyness.

Lance turned and frowned at me. “What is it,” he demanded. Not a question. But an almost angry statement.

“Um, Ashley and I are doing interviews for an article we want to write for people on Earth,” I said. I didn't think Lance would agree to it, but I had to try. “We're wondering if you—”

“Not a chance,” Lance snarled. “Trouble with too many people is that they don't mind their own business. Including you.” He shifted and faced his computer monitor.

Blips and lines danced with random movement on what little of the screen I could see past his massive body.

I coughed again.

“What is it,” Lance said in his same angry tone, not bothering to look away from the computer.

I had two reasons for being here. One was to make sure Lance was in the computer room and wouldn't find Ashley and me at the air vent in the corridor near his bunk. And the other reason was just as important.

“I'm expecting an e-mail from Rawling,” I said. “But it hasn't shown up on my comp-board.”

“We're 40 million miles from Mars,” Lance growled, still watching the computer. “These things take time.”

“I sent it late last night,” I said. “I'm pretty sure he would have replied by now. Is there any chance it's somewhere on the mainframe?”

“Are you accusing me of keeping your private mail?”

“N-no … ,” I stuttered. “Not at all. I'm just wondering—”

“That's another one of your problems,” Lance said. “You wonder too much. I'll look into it. Now go away.”

As I grabbed a handhold and prepared to push off, I noticed Luke Daab looking at me. Sadness seemed to fill his tiny, wrinkled face.

Then I realized something that made me feel guilty. I had totally ignored him. Like always. Like most people did, because he was a glorified janitor, almost invisible as he did the maintenance duties no one else wanted to do.

“Mr. Daab,” I said, “would you be able to find time for an interview?”

“Yes,” he said, suddenly smiling. “Thank you very much!”

In one way I felt better for asking him. And in another his eagerness made me feel even worse for first ignoring him. “How about this afternoon?” I said, hiding my guilt.

“Great,” he said.

“That's great with me,” I said as I pushed away and floated out of the computer control center.

It
was
great. By then Ashley and I would have had a chance to explore behind the vent in Lance's bunk. And maybe by then, we would have proved the chief computer technician was guilty of a lot more than just a bad temper.

CHAPTER 10

“Ready?” Ashley asked.

“Ready,” I said.

“Checklist,” she said.

On my back in the robot lab, I was strapped to the bed so that I couldn't move and accidentally break the connection between the antenna plug in my spine and the receiver across the room.

“One,” I said, “no robot contact with any electrical sources.”

My spinal nerves were attached to the plug. Any electrical current going into or through the robot would scramble the X-ray waves so badly that the signals reaching my brain would do serious damage.

“Two,” I said, “I will disengage instantly at the first warning of any damage to the robot's computer drive.”

My brain circuits worked so closely with the computer circuits that any harm to the computer would spill over to harm my brain.

“Last,” I asked Ashley, “is the robot battery at full power?”

“Yes. And unplugged from the electrical source that charges it.”

“I'm ready,” I said.

“Let's go, then.” Ashley placed a soundproof headset on my ears. The fewer distractions to reach my brain in my real body, the better.

It was dark and silent while I waited for a sensation that had become familiar and beautiful for me. The sensation of entering the robot computer.

My wait did not take long. Soon I began to fall off a high, invisible cliff into a deep, invisible hole.

I kept falling and falling and falling….