Space Station Rat (13 page)

Everything on the space station had a function and was supposed to be shipshape. This was important, Rat knew. Because just beyond the metal walls was the black airlessness of space—deadly as the needle the scientists used on failures.

A good reason to keep vents closed.

A good reason never to chew wires.

With a tiny shove, the grate swung into the vent.
Click!
It stuck to the magnet she had glued to the wall. Rat peered into the dark duct and saw in her mind its length, the many curves and twists, the interconnections that led to a dozen, a hundred, a thousand more pathways. If anyone surprised them, this was her secret way out. It would be a long, slow journey, dragging the heavy cast all the way back to the boy's room.

Rat moved around to the front of the blue triangle. The boy finished adjusting the control panel, then tugged on the door handle to bring his feet into contact with an orange diamond accelerator panel. The rebound reaction threw him straight at her.

Rat casually drifted toward the green square next to the blue triangle.

When the boy was halfway across the room, she touched it lightly with a forepaw. The acute-angle reaction sent her sailing in a wall-hugging circle around the room. She flattened her ears against the rush of air.

The boy smacked a red square to go shooting off toward an end wall. He'd never catch her, going that way. But then he managed to get a toe on a yellow octagon. It pirouetted him into the same wall-hugging arc as Rat. He was closing fast.

Rat lashed a brown rectangle with her tail. The reaction peeled her out of danger in a widening spiral. The boy sailed to the other side of the room. Hit. Stuck.

Rat stuck, too. She smoothed a few ruffled lavender hairs on her shoulder.

“I don't understand,” he said, breathing hard. “I've practiced for
weeks.
You've had only a few days. But you know all the neatest panels. How come?”

“Because you do not study,” Rat signed, but he could not read her paw signals from so far away.

Rat was lucky. A map of the strange room existed in her head along with the map of the space station. She only had to travel a path once, to feel the effect of a rebound panel once, and it became part of her brain. But the boy needed to study.

Rat noticed his knees flex, readying for a spring.

She kicked off.

Stupid cast! It made her a fraction late. The boy got the angle. His grasping fingers reached toward her. Closer. She could see the pattern of his fingerprints. The hands of all the scientists who'd ever eached into her cage appeared in her mind. Hands in the gloves that stank of rubber. Hands with needles and probes …

She wrenched the jetpak control. Gas hissed. The boy missed.

“Cheater!” He was not watching where he was going.
Smack!
The rebound panel tossed him head over heels.

Rat fired the jetpak a few times. She hovered in the middle of the room while the boy bounced out of control around her.

The boy finally used his own jetpak to come to a stop near her. They floated nose to nose. The boy was annoyed. “Why do you
do
that? You play chess by the rules. Why not this game? Huh?”

She signed, “Hands.”

The boy glanced at his hand, puzzled. “But you let me touch you all the time now.”

“Not you,” Rat signed. “Scientists.”

“Oh, Rat, I'm sorry.”

Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep.

The warning alarm.
Someone was coming!

Rat squeezed the jetpak control hard. A great belch of gas erupted. Her body jerked forward. The broken leg, with its heavy cast, was slower to accelerate. It lingered behind, stretching weak muscles backward.

A stab of pain. Rat lost her grip on the control and went flying in crazy zigzags. She yanked the useless leg in close to her body. The pain lessened. She could steer again. Without even needing to look, she aimed for the blue triangle. Twisting the control to maximum, she rocketed into the air vent.

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Rat Trap
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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank all the members of the Monday night writers' group for their invaluable critique and support; especially Jeanne Walsh for her attention to the fidelity of Rat's voice, and Seth Wheeler for teaching me to run on a space station. Also, thanks to my editor, Regina Griffin, who loves Rat as much as I do, and my agent, Nancy Gallt, who persisted in handling
Space Station Rat
despite a certain aversion to rodents.

About the Author

Michael J. Daley's career as an author has been inspired by a lifelong love of science, spaceships, and science fiction. He writes his stories on a solar-powered laptop in a five-foot-square tower room. This keeps him well acquainted with the cramped conditions in spaceships! When not traveling among the stars, Daley lives in Westminster, Vermont, with his wife, children's author Jessie Haas.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Michael J. Daley

Cover design by Jesse Hayes

ISBN: 978-1-4976-3748-1

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM
OPEN ROAD MEDIA

Rat Trap
,
the Sequel to
Space Station Rat

Also by Michael J. Daley