Waste of Space

by Stuart Gibbs

  Meanwhile, I led Violet toward the air-lock staging area, knowing our parents would meet us there with the oxygen. There wasn’t any time to spare waiting around for them. I was trying to soothe Violet and keep her from getting scared, although she was too looped out to really grasp what was going on. Instead I was ending up getting scared, because she was acting even sillier than usual. “Know what else I’d like besides a unicorn?” she asked. “Some dinosaurs. The ones that are all gray and fuzzy and adorable with huge ears.”

  “Uh, Violet,” I said, “I think those are koalas.”

  “Right! Koalas! That’s what I want!”

  Nina came rushing down from her residence, toting the emergency canister from her room, the mask already strapped to her face. Because of this, she was completely clearheaded and began barking orders. I didn’t really grasp what she said, though, because it was all highly technical, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind, and none of it was directed at me anyhow. “Chang, placate the orbital dingus flange! Stephen and Rose, diffuse the bicaudal ventricles! Daphne, oscillate the flammable terrapins!”

  Or something like that.

  The Sjobergs burst from their residence like a herd of spooked cattle, shoving one another out of the way and all yelling that they ought to be first to evacuate. Although they had two emergency canisters in their suite, they hadn’t remembered to bring either one.

  Through it all, the sirens kept wailing and the base computer continued calmly announcing that we needed to evacuate immediately. Whoever had programmed this had probably expected that it would be soothing, but it had the opposite effect, like someone repeatedly reminding you that you only had a few minutes left on a math test when you were trying to focus on the test itself.

  Mom raced over to Violet and me with her oxygen canister. She clapped the mask over my nose and mouth before I could even protest that Violet should have it first.

  My first breath of oxygen had a startling effect. My head cleared almost instantly, as though a cloud had evaporated inside my skull. I immediately grasped exactly what I had to do next and how to do it. After a few more breaths, we forced the mask onto Violet’s face. I saw clarity return to her eyes within only a few seconds.

  “Both of you, suit up to go outside,” Mom said. “I have to stay back here to fix the system.”

  “What?” Violet asked worriedly. “Why?”

  “Because it has to be done and I know how to do it,” Mom said. “Your father is coming outside with you, but he has to work on the problem out there, so I need you two to stick together.” She shifted her focus to Violet. “Your brother is in charge. Stay close to him and do what he says, all right?”

  Normally, Violet might have protested, but now she grasped that this was important and that she had to listen. “All right.”

  Mom said, “It’s a good thing your father checked your suit with you today, so we know it still fits.”

  “It does,” Violet agreed. “Though it’s a little tight. I’ve grown two inches since we got here!”

  “Two inches? My goodness. Your grandparents won’t even recognize you when we get home.” Mom’s tone was light and easygoing, but I knew it was all an act to keep Violet calm. It worked like a charm, though. Violet didn’t seem very worried, despite everything that was going on, and even I felt a bit more relaxed myself. “Now, even though this is an emergency,” Mom continued, “we still have plenty of time to evacuate. You don’t need to rush putting your suits on. Let’s take it easy and not make any mistakes. I’ll stay with you until you get into the air lock to make sure everything is done right.”

  I opened the space-suit storage and started removing our gear. Mom stayed close by with the emergency oxygen, helping us out and giving us breaths from the mask so that our minds stayed clear.

  Kira was a few feet away, getting her suit while her father helped her.

  Someone suddenly shoved me from behind. “Out of the way, idiot!” Patton Sjoberg snarled. He snatched his own suit from storage, nearly clocking Violet in the head with his helmet.

  “You watch it, you big bully!” Violet shouted.

  Patton sneered at her, and I got the sense that, if he hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out of the base, he would have shoved her down just to make her cry. Then he set about putting his suit on.

  Nearby, none of the other Sjobergs were behaving much better. They were rudely jostling people aside—mostly children—in order to grab their suits, as if the rest of us were merely objects that had gotten in their way. Since the Sjobergs had skipped many of the emergency meetings, they were at a loss as to how to put their suits on properly. Lily was trying to put her boots on the wrong feet, even though they were very clearly labeled LEFT and RIGHT, while Sonja was putting her suit on backward. Given their rude disregard for the rest of us, I wouldn’t have been surprised if no one bothered to help them suit up, but Nina came to their rescue. “Listen up!” she ordered them. “I’m going to show you how to get your suits on properly. Now pay close attention—or you will die.”

  The Sjobergs all clammed up and actually listened as she explained what to do.

  I held out Violet’s suit for her and she clambered into it.

  Dad came along. He had a large red tool kit marked EMERGENCY in five languages. “Everything all right here?” he asked us calmly, as though we were merely packing the car for a day at the beach.

  “We’re good,” I told him.

  “Great,” he said. “I’m going to suit up. Don’t go out without me.” Then he went off to retrieve his own space suit.

  Dr. Marquez had given Dr. Brahmaputra-Marquez oxygen, so she now appeared to have regained her senses and was ordering her children around like a drill sergeant. Cesar and Inez were already halfway suited up, although Roddy was having trouble. He was obviously fighting panic, and his refusal to work out over the past few months was coming back to haunt him. He barely had the strength to support his heavy suit.

  I knelt and started to snap Violet’s boots onto her feet.

  “I can handle that, Dash,” Mom said. “It’s time for you to get ready yourself.”

  So I got back to my feet and climbed into my own suit.

  Even though Mom was letting me have puffs of oxygen when I needed them, the chaos and the stress of the evacuation were wearing on me. It probably didn’t help that, except for a brief nap, I’d been awake since two a.m. I had to focus so closely on suiting up and not making mistakes that I stopped noticing what was going on around me. It was as though the periphery of my range of sight had slipped away. My vision was tunneling slightly due to the lack of oxygen. I was vaguely aware that, despite Nina’s insistence that the Sjobergs double- and triple-check to make sure that their suits were on safely, they had completely ignored this in their rush to get outside. Additionally, Chang made an announcement that, to speed the evacuation, some people ought to come to the emergency backup air lock in the gym with him, but I didn’t notice who actually went. When everyone was wearing matching space suits, it was very hard to grasp who was who.

  Eventually I got my suit on properly. And Mom got Violet into hers. It was so heavy, it was difficult for Violet to move around in it, even though she’d been doing her exercises.

  A group of five people passed into the main air lock and shut the door behind them, preparing to go outside. Because they were suited up, I had no idea which five people it was.

  I clamped the helmet down over my suit and locked it into place. The clamor of the alarms faded, and the suit’s oxygen system activated. Now my clarity of mind wouldn’t be yo-yoing as my oxygen level rose and fell, which was a relief.

  Mom locked Violet’s helmet into place as well, which gave Violet a steady oxygen supply too. Mom could now affix the mask from her emergency canister over her face and breath easy for the first time since the emergency had begun.

  “You each have at least five hours of oxygen in your tanks,” Mom told us. She had to yell so that we could hear her through our helmets. “Alt
hough it will last up to twice as long if you don’t overexert yourselves and focus on breathing slowly. That means no goofing around out there. Stay close to the base, keep within sight of each other, and take the time to enjoy the view.”

  “How’s your oxygen?” I asked.

  “Fine,” Mom said, pointing to the indicator on her canister. It was well into the green “safe” zone. “And there are plenty more of these. We’re going to get this problem fixed long before you need to come back in. Now, let’s put you guys on radio channel seventeen so you can communicate with me and each other.”

  Violet and I switched to channel 17. “Can you hear me?” I asked her.

  “I can!” Violet exclaimed. “Hi, Dashiell!”

  “Great!” Mom shouted, then plucked a radio from her belt and spoke to us through it. “Now let’s do your safety checks.”

  Another group of Moonies stepped into the air lock. The first group had already headed out onto the surface. Along with Dad, who was currently snapping his helmet on, we were the only people in suits left inside the base. Either we were being poky, or everyone else wasn’t exercising as much caution with suiting up as we were.

  Dad clicked to channel 17 and we all went through our safety checks. There no longer seemed to be such a big hurry, as we were in our suits with our own personal oxygen supplies, so even if the oxygen in the base suddenly disappeared, we’d be okay.

  For the next few hours, at least.

  Eventually Dad and Mom pronounced that our suits were on properly. Mom gave us each a kiss on our helmets, warned us once again to stay together, and then headed off to deal with the oxygen crisis.

  Dad, Violet, and I stepped into the air lock and shut the door behind us. The chamber depressurized, and then the indicator light turned green, signaling that it was safe to head outside. We opened the outer door and stepped onto the surface.

  Even though I had been outside less than twenty-four hours earlier, everything felt very different this time. The lunar surface itself looked exactly the same, since the slow rotation of the moon meant the sun was still up—and would be for days to come—but everything else was different. On my previous venture outside, Dad had been in charge, looking after me. This time, I was the one with responsibility, taking care of Violet, which added a whole extra level of stress to the anxiety I already felt.

  And this time, it was crowded. Before, Dad and I had had the whole moon to ourselves. Now there were people everywhere. Obviously, the actual number of Moonies outside was small, given the size of the moon itself, but still, no matter where I looked, there was someone in a space suit. With the reflective visors down on their helmets, I couldn’t tell who anyone was. Everyone looked exactly the same. The only exceptions were Violet, Kamoze, and Inez, who were so much smaller than everyone else that they looked like dwarf astronauts.

  “I’m heading to the other side of the base to the oxygen regulators,” Dad informed Violet and me over channel 17. “Both of you stay here, close to everyone else. The moment we get this fixed, you’ll be able to head back inside. Since you’re the youngest, you ought to have priority.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Gotcha,” Violet said. “Have fun!”

  Dad laughed. “I’ll do my best,” he said, then waved good-bye and bounded toward the northern side of the base.

  The sound of his breathing cut out from my radio, which meant he had switched to a different radio channel, probably so he could talk to Mom and Chang about the repairs without Violet and me interrupting.

  I watched him disappear behind the rover garage, then turned back to Violet.

  She was gone.

  I had a moment of panic, then spotted her running across the lunar surface. Or doing her best to run across the lunar surface, which wasn’t very good at all. After months in low gravity without her space suit, she had completely forgotten how to move with additional weight. She only made it ten steps before she stumbled and fell onto her stomach.

  “Oof!” she cried, then tried to get up and failed at that, too. Instead she could only wiggle her arms and legs around uselessly, like a turtle flipped on its back. “Dash! Help! I’m stuck!”

  Even though she had only gone ten steps, those were ten low-gravity steps, which had still carried her a good distance from the air lock. She lay on the ground in the direction Dad and I had gone to play catch, away from the small crowd by the base.

  I took my time heading over to her, partly because any time she was on her stomach was time she wasn’t running off somewhere else, and partly because the sight of her writhing around was kind of funny. “Didn’t Dad just tell you to stay close?”

  “I am close,” Violet protested.

  “You were running away.”

  “I was trying to have fun. Dad didn’t say we couldn’t have fun.”

  “You’re welcome to have fun out here. But you have to be careful.”

  “I was being careful.”

  “No, you weren’t. You can’t just run off. You have to stay with me. And you have to go slowly at first until you get the hang of things. You don’t want to make a mistake out here.” I knelt down to help Violet back to her feet. . .

  And froze, struck by a thought.

  We didn’t want to make mistakes on the surface, because mistakes could be deadly.

  And yet Lars Sjoberg had survived for the opposite reason. Whoever had tried to kill him had made a mistake.

  “Dash!” Violet yelped. “Why aren’t you helping me?”

  “Sorry,” I said, returning my attention to her. Her little arms and legs were windmilling wildly. “I was thinking about something.”

  “What?”

  “Chang said that if he had wanted to kill Lars, he wouldn’t have made any mistakes. But whoever actually tried to kill Lars got it wrong. They didn’t use the right amount of poison.”

  “So?”

  I couldn’t simply grab on to Violet’s suit and haul her to her feet. My thick gloves made it hard to get a purchase most places, and I didn’t want to use one of the many tubes coming from the back of the suit. They controlled things like her air supply and temperature regulation; if I accidentally pulled one of those free, Violet would be in serious trouble. Instead I needed Violet’s help to get her to her feet again. I needed to roll her onto her back, as that would make it easier for her to hold on to me. So I wiggled my arms into the moon dust beneath her belly.

  “Whoever tried to kill Lars went through an awful lot of trouble,” I explained. “They had to steal the apple seeds. They had to make the cyanide. They had to poison the lutefisk without being seen. Injecting the right amount of poison should have been the easy part. But that’s where they made their mistake.”

  “Maybe there weren’t enough seeds to make enough poison,” Violet said.

  With a heave I flipped Violet onto her back. “Maybe. But what would be the point of only partly poisoning someone?”

  “Maybe the person hated Lars, but didn’t want to be a murderer.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think that they must have—”

  “Dash!” Violet screamed suddenly. “Look out!”

  A shadow fell over me. My reflex was to spin around, but that was almost impossible to do in the space suit. Especially from a kneeling position. I couldn’t even turn my head to look behind me.

  I felt something tug on the back of my suit.

  A second later, an alarm sounded inside my helmet. “Warning,” the same calm computerized voice from the base announced. “Your oxygen hose has been detached. If it isn’t reconnected in three minutes, you will asphyxiate.”

  I knew the hose couldn’t have simply come loose. My family and I had checked it four times, making sure it was tightly attached. Whoever was behind me had pulled it out on purpose.

  Someone was trying to kill me.

  Excerpt from The Official NASA Procedures for Contact with Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life © National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Department of
Extraterrestrial Affairs, 2029 (Classification Level AAA)

  OFFICIAL GREETINGS

  In the (hopeful) event that the secondary contact proves to be friendly, rather than hostile, the primary objective of the encounter ought to be to welcome the IEL to earth and begin to foster peaceful relations between our species. Therefore, the first message will most likely be to extend warm greetings to the IEL (though what form this message is delivered in will be left up to DEXA’s linguistics team). Ideally, the president and other world leaders (including the leader whose country contact has occurred in—assuming they are not despotic) will be among the first members of humanity to communicate with the IEL, but given travel times, it may not be feasible to wait for them. Therefore, the senior US government representative on location will most likely be tasked with extending the initial message of greetings, and they (as well as all other representatives of the USA present) should do all they can to make the IEL feel welcome and comfortable on our planet.

  18

  IMMINENT SUFFOCATION

  Lunar day 252

  Quite possibly the last minutes of my life

  “Stop it!” Violet screamed at whoever had attacked me. Her voice was high-pitched and terrified. She understood what was going on, but she couldn’t do anything to help me. She was still stuck on her back. “Leave my brother alone!”

  On the radio channel, along with her screams, I could hear something else: the sounds of my attacker breathing heavily. They had been listening in on the same channel we had been using. Either the exertion of attacking me was forcing them to breathe louder than before—or I stupidly hadn’t realized they were eavesdropping until it was too late.

  “Violet!” I yelled. “They pulled my oxygen hose! You need to . . .”