Halfway across the spaceship, tiny video lenses opened on the head of a robot smaller than an ant.
Those lenses translated light patterns into a digital code, which was beamed by X-ray waves into the computer that was attached to my body through the spinal wiring. The digital code retranslated in my own brain, just like light patterns that entered my own eyes. I saw what the ant-bot sawâa huge tunnel that looked about a mile across, striped with shadows from the light that came through the slits of the air-vent cover behind it.
The tunnel wasn't that wide, of course. But from the ant-bot's perspective, everything seemed monstrous. Except for the splinter of plastic from a broken DVD-gigarom cover in its left hand.
Earlier Ashley and I had found the vent cover at the closest entry point to the vent that led into Lance's bunk. We had taken the cover off and had attached the ant-botâarmed with its splinter of plasticâto the inside of the vent so it wouldn't float away until we were ready.
Which was now.
In my own mind I gave a command for the ant-bot's right hand to let go of the inside of the vent cover. Immediately the flow of air spun the ant-bot farther into the vent.
Without the force of gravity, the ant-bot bounced and danced along the river of moving air like a speck of dust. I brought the right hand over to grip the splinter of plastic. I held the tiny spear of plastic crossways in front of me like a sail and waited for the air to take me to my destination.
The light that had reached the inside of the vent through the cover fell behind me, and darkness overwhelmed the ant-bot.
It was an eerie sensation of nothingness. No light. No sound. No gravity. And because I saw and heard nothing through the robot's video or audio, there was nothing to indicate that I was still moving. For all I could tell, I would be held by this darkness forever. I told myself otherwise and waited as patiently as I could.
With nothing to help my senses understand my surroundings, time stretched far too slowly. I was almost ready to believe that I was stuck forever in the darkness when the first dim light reached the ant-bot's video lenses. It came from Lance's bunk.
With the new stripes of that light growing brighter, I tried to orient the ant-bot so it faced the vent directly. It was impossible. The air tumbled the ant-bot in unpredictable directions.
The air-vent cover loomed larger and larger so that it looked like the face of a giant cliff as the ant-bot swept into it.
The slits of the cover were so big that the ant-bot could be sucked through it with the passing air. That's another reason why I held the splinter of plastic. Like a crossbeam, the plastic slammed into the vent and held the ant-bot in place.
I gripped the edge of the nearest vent cover slit and slowly released the ant-bot's right hand from the plastic. Once it was firmly attached, I was able to direct one of the video lenses to look back in the direction I had just traveled.
It took a couple of seconds to make sense of what I saw in the striped shadows of the air-vent slits. Especially because everything seemed so gigantic from the view of the ant-bot.
But then I realized what Lance was hiding. It wasn't in his bunk. It was here in the air vent.
A DVD-gigarom. Taped to the surface of the vent.
“Where were you born?” I asked Luke Daab. “How big was your family? When did you start dreaming of going to Mars?”
We were the only two in the entertainment cluster. A giant screen filled one wall. The ship had hundreds of movies in DVD-gigarom format. Eight months was a long time to travel, and the 3-D movies really helped ease the boredom.
“Slow down. Slow down,” he said with a shy smile. “I can't think that fast.”
“Where were you born?” It was a good thing I had a list of prepared questions. My heart was not really in this interview. I was worried about what might happen to the ant-bot. And more worried about what Lance had hidden behind the vent in his bunk area. I was only here because I had agreed to meet Luke at this time and because Dad was too busy to see me right now.
“Key West.” Luke scratched his face. “It's at the southern tip of Florida.”
“Near Cuba,” I added, thinking of my geography lessons.
“Near Cuba,” he confirmed. “But remember, when I grew up, Cuba still wasn't one of the states of America. And shortly after it joined, the United States led the way for a world-federated government. Things have really changed since I was your age.”
“Sounds like you miss it,” I said without thinking. I had my list of questions to go through, and I should have stuck with it so this interview would end as quickly as possible. I had lots to doâas soon as Dad was finished with his computer check. Strange glitches had been showing up, and they were driving him crazy.
“When I was a kid,” Luke said, his face twisting, “we had freedom. I could fish when and where I wanted. Sail across the water without a satellite camera filming me. My family could go on vacation without reporting it to the government first. There were no microchips to track everything a person did.”
“From what I understand,” I said cautiously, “people haven't lost much freedom and for that small loss of freedom have gained a lot of security. Theyâ”
“You don't know what it was like! You haven't spent any time on Earth, but you still buy the arguments about a controlled economy and lack of crime!”
My eyes must have opened wide in surprise at his out-burst. It seemed so unlike the Luke I'd seen quietly move about the spaceship for the past seven-plus months.
“Sorry,” he said, the shy smile back in place. “That probably answers another one of your questions. Why I wanted to go to Mars. I thought a planet with no people on it might be a place of freedom.”
“And ⦠?”
“You can call me a maintenance engineer in your articleâ” he smiled sadlyâ“but no matter what job title I get, I'm still a janitor. And janitors don't get treated much differently on Mars than they do on Earth. I didn't get much of a chance to see the planet.”
“Oh.”
“Don't get me wrong. It was still worth it. I was there when the dome was built, and this is my first trip back to Earth. If I hadn't liked it, I would have applied to come back much earlier.”
“I guess 15 years on Mars was long enoughâ¦.” This was leading me to the one question Ashley and I wanted everyone to answer: Why they were going back to Earth. What reason they had for being on this ship with Blaine Steven and Dr. Jordan. If it seemed like they didn't have a good reason, it might be the first hint that something wasn't right.
“Maybe not,” Luke answered. “But my father is really, really ill. I decided if I didn't go back now, I wouldn't have a chance to help my mother. As you can imagine, they are both very old.”
I scanned the rest of my questions. There were four left, but I was itching to get to Dad and tell him what I knew. Luke had already answered the most important question about his reason for leaving Mars.
“Thanks, Mr. Daab,” I said. “That really helps.”
“That's it?”
I nodded. “That's it.”
“Just as well,” he said. “I have lots to do.”
The sad part was that I think he knew I just wanted to get out of there. And even sadder, I think he expected it because he was a janitor.
I tried not to think about it anymore as I looked for Dad to tell him my news.
“Let me get this straight,” Dad said sternly. “You made an unauthorized use of the ant-bot and invaded the privacy of one of the members of the ship? Then you left the ant-botâworth 15 billion dollars of technological researchâattached to the inside of the air-vent cover in his bunk?”
I squirmed. A person wouldn't think that weightlessness would ever be uncomfortable, but even floating in midair I couldn't find a position that felt right. “I thought that if I found something thatâ”
“That the results would justify whatever way you did it?”
By the coldness in Dad's voice, I knew I was wrong to think
yes
. Even more, I was wrong not to consult him, as pilot, first. “Ashley and I didn't invade his privacy,” I said quietly, trying to find a way to defend myself. “We didn't spy on him. We just went into the place where you had wanted me to vacuum earlier to search for the same thing. Remember? You asked us to look for whatever might be behind the vent covers in any of the bunks.”
Dad sat on his pilot's chair. He had swiveled it away from the controls of the navigation cone as I'd entered. The black, star-studded sky, visible through the clear shell of the navigation cone, framed his broad shoulders. His eyes bored into mine.
“Earlier, you were doing it under the pilot's express directions. Now without the pilot's authorization, you have, by government law and by military ship regulations, engaged in a criminal act of utmost seriousness.” The coldness did not leave his voice. “Furthermore, now that I have knowledge of your crime, I must take action against you. If not, again by government law and by military ship regulations, I too am guilty of this serious crime. Regardless of your intentions, any court-martial assembly would have no choice but to strip me of my pilot's license and possibly sentence me to jail time.”
I closed my eyes as all of this sank in. To me, it had been a good solution to helping Dad solve the ship's crisisâwithout getting anyone else involved. I'd never dreamed I'd cause so much trouble.
“Now let me speak to you as a father, not the pilot,” Dad said with a sigh.
I opened my eyes as the coldness left his voice.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Tyce,” he said gently, “you've placed me in a very difficult position. I'm not afraid to risk my career as a pilot. You're far more important to me than that. But to protect you, I would have to break my oath as a pilot. I would have to live a lie, and I can't live that wayâ¦.” He let his voice trail off into silence as he looked away from me. “Yet to do what the law and my oath require of me will hurt you more than I can bear.”
I could think of no reply.
“Tell me,” Dad said, still staring off into the emptiness of the solar system. “Did you find something that threatens the safety of the ship and passengers? some sort of explosive? anything like that?”
“No,” I said. “Butâ”
“Stop there!”
I did.
“I don't want to hear what you found.”
“But ⦔
A long, long silence followed before he began again. “By the pilot's code, the safety of ship and passengers takes priority over any other matter. I could make a case in military court for protecting you and acting on your information if we faced a threat. Otherwise ⦔
Again Dad sighed. He turned and faced me. “I have no choice.” He picked up a cordless microphone from the console of the controls. Putting it to his mouth, he pushed a button on the side of it. He spoke quietly, entering the date and time into the audio log of the computer.
“Captain's report,” he continued. “This is a formal report of a privacy violation enacted by passenger Tyce Sanders against chief computer technician Lance Evenson. As this is a first-time offense by said passenger, he is placed on a two-week probationary period. He is also instructed to make a formal apology to Lance Evenson within the next 24 hours.”
Twenty-four hours?
That was strange. If it was as serious as Dad said, why wouldn't he make me apologize immediately?
Dad clicked off the microphone and set it aside.
“I'm sorry,” I said, hanging my head.
“Me too,” he said. “The worst of it is that it sounds like I should know what you found.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But as it stands right now, if you told me, I would not be able to act upon illegally obtained information. I can only act if there is danger to the ship and passengers or if it was obtained by direct orders from the pilot.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tyce, the rules and regulations of space travel have been set up to safeguard passengers. But rules and regulations are black-and-white. They can never be perfect and can never anticipate every situation. Nor can they perfectly deal with gray situations like this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You understand that since you are on probation, if you violate any other rules of space travel, I must lock you in your bunk for the duration of the trip.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Having said that, I now give you a direct order to do your best to deliver me information that has been found in such a way that no court could dispute the legality with which it has been obtained.”
“Sir?”
Dad looked at his watch, then smiled at me. “The clock is ticking, Son. In 23 hours and 56 minutes, by direct and recorded orders from the pilot of this ship, you are going to have to explain to Lance Evenson what you did and apologize for your actions.”
“Sir?”
“Much as I didn't want to, I first had to address what you did by strictly following regulations, especially if any of this comes to trial. But my first priority as captain is to get this ship to Earth, and I will now move past the regulations, which don't cover a situation like this. What I'm telling you is that you now have 23 hours, 55 minutes, and 35 seconds to undo your mistake and find a way to get me the information you feel is vital to the continued operation of this ship. When we arrive on Earth, I will report everything. Including my instructions to you. If my handling of this situation is wrong, I intend to share whatever punishment you might receive.”
From: “Rawling McTigre”
To: “Tyce Sanders”
Sent: 03.06.2040, 11:39 a.m.
Subject: Re: questions
Tyce,
Sorry I don't have anything to tell you at this point. If I learn anything that will be helpful, I'll let you know as soon as possible
.