Space Case

by Stuart Gibbs

  “I found something,” he said. “It’s not much, and it’s in bad shape, but I’m guessing it’s what Dr. Holtz wanted us to see.”

  Mom called to Dr. Brahmaputra-Marquez, “Ilina, can you take Violet back to your room for a bit?”

  “Sure,” she replied.

  “Are we having a slumber party?” Violet asked, thrilled.

  “Just for a little bit.” Mom kissed Violet on the head and handed her off. Then she and Dad led me toward the control room. The Howards fell in beside us.

  “Hold on now,” Nina said. “I’m okay with the parents, but I don’t think Dashiell and Kira need to be a part of this.”

  “I think they became a part of this when they nearly died getting the phone,” Dad told her. “And frankly, I’m not about to let them out of my sight again with a killer on the loose. So why don’t you just remove that stick from your rear end and let them see what they found?”

  Nina steamed, but she didn’t say another word.

  As we filed into the control room, I caught sight of Zan, hanging back behind the other Moonies as they headed to their residences. She gave me a reassuring wink and, behind everyone’s back, followed us to the control room. No one noticed her as she stopped outside the door, watching the proceedings inside.

  Instead everyone was focused on Chang and the computer. He’d jury-rigged some wires to connect the phone to it.

  “This phone is trashed,” he told us. “We’re talking terminally ill. The ports are wrecked, the wireless is blown, and most of the files bit it out there on the moon. However, between the computer and me we’ve managed to salvage something. Given our time constraints, with there possibly being a killer on the loose and all, I only focused on the most recent items stored, figuring those would be the most relevant. Turns out, Holtz recorded a video only thirty minutes before he went out the air lock.”

  A murmur of excitement rippled through the room.

  “Well?” Nina demanded. “Show it to us.”

  “I’m about to,” Chang told her. “But it’s pretty corrupted. I tried to clean it up as much as possible, but it’s still in lousy shape. Or at least the bit I’ve seen was. I didn’t want to watch it all without you.”

  “Duly noted,” Nina said. “Now run it.”

  “All right,” Chang sighed. “You’ve been warned. Computer, play the footage.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” the base computer replied.

  A video sprang to life on the monitor before us. Only it didn’t look much like a video at all. It looked like a great sea of static with an occasional image flashing for a split second. Not that any of the images seemed to matter. The few we could see were blurry or partially blocked, as though Dr. Holtz might have had the phone hidden somewhere—or perhaps cupped in the palm of his hand.

  “I can’t make out any of this,” Nina griped.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Chang told her. “What’s important is the audio. I think Dr. Holtz only wanted us to hear this, not see it.”

  “Well, the audio’s garbage too,” Nina muttered.

  She was right. What we could hear pitched back and forth between garbled speech and a loud static buzz that sounded like a nest of giant hornets.

  “Give it a moment,” Chang told her. “It gets clearer.”

  No sooner had he said this than the audio improved. Slightly. The voices were still terribly distorted, so it was impossible to recognize the speakers, but at least we could finally understand them.

  It began in midsentence. We’d missed the beginning of the conversation.

  “. . . thought I might be seeing you this morning,” someone said.

  “That’s Dr. Holtz,” Chang told us.

  “Oh?” the other person asked. “And why’s that?” Their distorted voice was several octaves too low. It made me think of what a rock might sound like if it were trying to speak.

  “Who is that?” Mom asked.

  Chang could only shrug in response.

  “You might have fooled everyone else,” Dr. Holtz said on the video, “but not me. I figured out what you were really here for shortly after we all got to the moon.”

  “And what might that be?” the other person asked coyly. With the distortion I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.

  “To keep an eye on us all,” Dr. Holtz said. “Not for NASA, though I suspect they were forced to give their approval. My money’s on the military.”

  The other person laughed mockingly. “Dr. Holtz, I think you’re being a bit paranoid.”

  “Really? You’ve obviously been watching me. Why else would you be talking to me at five o’clock this morning?”

  There was a brief pause. Then the other person said, “Touché.”

  “So what’s the purpose of this visit?” Dr. Holtz asked.

  “It seems you’ve discovered something important.”

  “Yes. Did you eavesdrop on my conversation in the bathroom this morning?”

  The other person ignored the question. “What is it that’s so amazing?”

  Dr. Holtz hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to answer, but then his enthusiasm got the better of him. Even with his voice distorted, I could tell how excited he was. The news he’d been keeping inside just burst out.

  “I’ve identified an alien life form,” he said.

  I gasped in astonishment. Practically everyone else in the control room did too. My parents’ faces lit up with excitement.

  Even the other person on the tape seemed caught by surprise. It was quite a while before they spoke again. “Confirmed?”

  “Of course,” Dr. Holtz replied. “Many times over. The evidence is concrete.”

  “Are we talking about microscopic life here? Unicellular? Some kind of bacteria or something?”

  “No.” Dr. Holtz’s voice brimmed with excitement. “A complex life form. An intelligent life form. In fact, a life form far more intelligent than we are!”

  Another wave of elation rippled through the control room. I was almost as amped on adrenaline from Dr. Holtz’s news as I had been while fighting for my life.

  The only person who didn’t seem excited was the other person on the video. Their voice barely modulated, as though Dr. Holtz had just told them something routine, such as “I like bagels.”

  “How many of these extremely intelligent life forms have you encountered?” they asked.

  “Only one.”

  “And have they made contact with any humans besides you?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Why you?”

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Holtz said.

  There was another pause. “I think you do,” said the other person. “Don’t lie to me, Ronald. This is extremely important.”

  “I know it’s extremely important!” Dr. Holtz exclaimed. “It might be the most important event in all human history! Actual contact with intelligent life from another planet!”

  “What other planet?”

  Dr. Holtz didn’t answer right away. Something about his visitor seemed to have put him on guard. “You’ll find out soon enough, when everyone else does. I’m going to announce my findings to the base—and to NASA—this morning.”

  “No,” the other person said menacingly. “You won’t.”

  Beside me Kira shivered. Her eyes were wide with fear.

  Dr. Holtz was taken aback too. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your announcement isn’t going to happen. The people of the world aren’t prepared for something like this.”

  “Of course they are!” Dr. Holtz’s voice sounded different now. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or worried, though I would have bet on worried. “People have been hoping for a moment like this as long as there have been people!”

  “No. They’ve been dreading it. Humans have never been prepared to meet the unfamiliar. Throughout our history, every time two cultures have encountered each other, it has resulted in war rather than peace. That’s the root of all human conflict, thousa
nds of years of bloodshed: us versus them. And that’s just when people meet other people: people who are exactly like they are, save for the color of their skin or the language they speak or the god they worship. Can you imagine what would happen if humans learned that there really are other intelligent life forms out there? Ones who are smarter than us? Who know how to come to earth? There’d be a worldwide panic.”

  “I don’t think that’s true at all,” Dr. Holtz replied. “I think the people of earth will be thrilled to hear the news.”

  “That’s not a risk I’m willing to take,” the other voice told him. With the distortion it sounded extremely ominous.

  “Well, it’s not your decision,” Dr. Holtz said defiantly. “It’s mine. I’m revealing that I’ve made contact today—and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  “Oh, there is, Dr. Holtz,” the other person said. “Believe me, there is. I have a lot of people at my disposal down on earth. And at this very moment a team of them is positioned outside your daughter’s home.”

  Dr. Holtz gasped. Even with the distortion we could hear the fear in his voice. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  The video suddenly ended. There was a burst of static, and that was it.

  Everyone turned to Chang. I could see shock and dismay on all their faces.

  “Where’s the rest of it?” Nina demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Chang said. “Destroyed, I guess. We were lucky to get as much as we did.”

  “Lucky?” Nina snapped. “We’ve got garbage. We can’t even tell who confronted Dr. Holtz!”

  “But we know someone confronted him,” Mom said. “And that to keep his discovery a secret, they forced him to go out the air lock.”

  “We can’t even tell if the killer’s a man or a woman,” Nina groused. “And we don’t know how they forced Dr. Holtz out—”

  “They blackmailed him!” Dad cried. “You heard them! They threatened his family!”

  “We don’t know if that worked,” Nina shot back.

  “It would work for me,” Mom snapped. “And Dr. Holtz is dead. What else do you need?”

  “Uh, guys,” Chang said, “I know we’re all freaked out by the murder and everything, but . . . Dr. Holtz said he made alien contact! This is huge!”

  “We don’t have any proof of that,” Nina said curtly. “Only Dr. Holtz’s say-so. And as we’re all aware, he might have been going insane.”

  Dad glared at her. “I think the fact that we have a murderer on tape proves that Dr. Holtz didn’t wander out the air lock by accident.”

  “But it doesn’t prove he wasn’t crazy,” Nina countered. “He could have merely imagined this alien contact and the killer mistakenly believed him. But then we can’t question the killer, because we have no idea who they are!”

  “Check the security feeds,” Kira suggested. “Whoever was controlling the robot arm would be on them.”

  Nina shook her head. “Whoever it was shut down the security system before coming after you. All the recordings from tonight were stopped hours ago.” She pointed toward the computer. “That recording was the best lead we had.”

  My mind was racing. Despite Nina’s argument, I still believed Dr. Holtz’s story of alien contact—but the thrill of that had already been dulled by frustration and anger. I couldn’t believe that the recording I had worked so hard to get had failed to identify the killer. And yet it seemed to me that I was missing something. There was a clue I had overlooked somewhere during the last few days.

  “It’s not like the killer can get away,” Dad pointed out. “It’s someone on this base. We’ll simply have to question everyone about the events. I’m sure the killer will slip up somehow.”

  “Not necessarily,” Nina sighed. “We could go through the whole dog and pony show and end up right back where we are now.”

  “Well, we have to do something!” Dr. Howard exclaimed. “This person didn’t only kill Dr. Holtz. They nearly killed two children! And if we don’t find them soon, what’s to say they won’t try to kill again?”

  Mom turned to Chang. “Isn’t there some way you can get some other data from that recording?”

  “I’ve done my best,” Chang said. “I’m only a genius, not a miracle worker.”

  I wondered if Chang was telling the truth. Maybe he was the killer and he hadn’t tried to clean up the recording at all. Or maybe the recording had been fine and he’d done the damage himself, covering up his own presence on it.

  “Please,” Mom said. “Can’t you try?”

  Chang sighed and turned back to the monitor. “Computer, is there any way to clean up this recording?”

  “Perhaps,” the computer replied. “What would you like me to lean it up against?”

  “Not lean it up, you stupid machine!” Chang snapped. “Clean it up! Can you clean it up more?”

  “I’m sorry,” the computer said. “The recording is in very bad shape. I’m afraid this is the best that can be done.”

  Everyone sagged, looking defeated.

  Except me. I’d just realized something important.

  Computers could make mistakes. Despite all the amazing things they were capable of, they were still fallible. The base computer misunderstood and misinterpreted things all the time.

  The problem was, we tended to forget this. We tended to think the computers were perfect and trust them completely.

  I had done exactly that the day before. I’d trusted the computer when I shouldn’t have.

  “I think I know who killed Dr. Holtz,” I said.

  Excerpt from The Official Residents’ Guide to Moon Base Alpha, © 2040 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration:

  COMPUTERS

  For your convenience, MBA has been designed with the latest state-of-the-art computer technology.I The base computer can handle many of your day-to-day needs, ranging from establishing ComLinks with earth to analyzing lunar-soil samples. And since it is equipped with the latest voice-recognition software, all you have to do is ask it! The computer is always listening, everywhere, all the time, so whenever—or wherever—you need help, it will be there for you!

  * * *

  I. As of the time of construction. Computer technology will most likely have advanced by the time you read this manual.

  IRRATIONAL FEAR

  Lunar day 190

  Really early in the morning

  Everyone turned to me at once.

  “Who?” they demanded.

  “Well,” I hedged, “I’m not one hundred percent sure—”

  “Great,” Nina muttered.

  “—but there’s a way to check it out,” I finished quickly. “You see, Dr. Holtz tried to name his killer the other night—only we didn’t understand what he was saying.”

  Everyone asked questions at the same time. “When?” “Why?” “How do you know?”

  “Hold on!” Dad told them all. “Give Dashiell time to explain himself.” He then looked to me expectantly, as eager to hear my thoughts as everyone else.

  I suddenly found myself very nervous, wondering if I was right. But I pressed on anyhow. “Kira found footage of Dr. Holtz inside the air lock, right before he went out onto the moon. He was using sign language in it, but neither of us speaks sign language, so we asked the computer to translate it for us. Unfortunately, I think the computer got something wrong, though at the time we didn’t realize it. We assumed the computer was right—and that we just didn’t understand what Dr. Holtz meant. Or that he had space madness or something.”

  “What did he say?” Nina asked.

  “That he was being murdered. And that earth had killed him.”

  When everyone looked at me quizzically, I said, “That’s the part the computer screwed up. I have the footage right here.”

  Despite the fact that I’d been smacked around by a giant robot arm, my space suit had protected my watch well (not to mention myself), so it was in much better shape than Dr. Holtz’s phone had been. I touched it to the computer in fro
nt of Chang, transmitting the video file, which popped up on the screen. “You can still speak sign language, can’t you, Mom?”

  “Oh,” Mom said. “I could never speak it fluently, Dash. I only tried to learn it to communicate with my grandfather when he was sick.”

  “But you know some, right?” I pressed.

  “I suppose,” Mom said. “It’s been a long time, though.”

  “Well, try,” Nina ordered.

  I scanned through the footage until I got to Dr. Holtz signing inside the air lock. “Here,” I said. “This is where he says he was being murdered.”

  We all watched as he pointed beneath his open hand.

  “That’s the sign for murder, all right,” Mom said.

  Dr. Holtz began to make the quick series of movements with his hands.

  “This is where I think the computer got it wrong,” I told her. “Where it translated ‘earth killed me.’ ”

  Mom watched and nodded. Then she paused the footage. “You’re right,” she said. “That’s not the sign for ‘earth.’ He’s making letter signs.”

  “You mean he’s spelling?” Dad asked.

  “Yes,” Mom said. “In American Sign Language there isn’t a sign for every name. Instead you spell them out, letter by letter.”

  “Then why did the computer say ‘earth’?” Kira asked.

  “It must have thought Dr. Holtz was spelling ‘earth,’ ” Mom suggested. “And it simply interpreted that as a name. So it said ‘earth killed me’ in the same way it would have said ‘Jim killed me.’ Only Dr. Holtz was probably spelling something else and the computer misread it.”

  “So what was he spelling instead?” Chang asked.

  “Let’s see.” Mom scrolled the footage backward to the point where Dr. Holtz began spelling.

  The first thing he did was raise his hand with a finger pointing to the side.

  “Oh my,” Mom said. The color drained from her face.

  “That wasn’t an E, was it?” I asked.

  “No.” Mom still seemed to be in shock.

  “Was it a G ?”

  Everyone looked to me, surprised, then to Mom for confirmation.