“Perhaps, earthling, we shall tour the dome later.” I was back inside, with my robot body carrying the cage.
But Ashley wasn’t listening to Bruce. Her attention was on the cage. “What is that?” she asked, pointing.
“A lost, lonely Martian animal,” I said.
“An alien!”
“A lost, lonely Martian animal. Are you deaf?”
Ashley shook her head in evident disgust at the robot and the robot voice. “Whoever it was who made you smart enough to talk to people should have done something about that voice.”
“Earthling is not funny,” I said.
She was ignoring me again, trying to look in the cage. Fortunately, it was midevening, and most of the scientists and techies were in their minidomes. I had counted on that.
“Please take this to the kid named Tyce,” I said. “You will find him at the ramp that leads up to the second level.” I handed her the cage. “Earthling, do not open it,” I said.
“I’m tired of this ‘earthling’ stuff. My name is Ashley.”
It was my turn to ignore her. I spun around and wheeled away.
“Hey!” she said. “Come back here!”
Too late. I was gone.
I opened my eyes in the wheelchair in the computer lab.
I had parked Bruce the robot at his power charger. Later tonight, I’d plug him in. But now I had to make it to the bottom of the ramp as quickly as possible.
I gripped the wheels of my chair and shoved forward. My legs might be useless, but any of the scientists or techies who arm-wrestled me always lost. I worked my arms hard as I raced to meet Ashley at the bottom of the ramp.
I could see her ahead in the dimness of the lights set at evening level. She stood near the ramp, looking in all directions. The cage was at her feet.
Seconds later, I pulled up. “Hello,” I said.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Rude,” Ashley said sarcastically, her hands on her hips. “Going to take off on me again without any warning? Between you and that dumb robot, it’s enough to—” She stopped as she noticed what I was doing. “Hey! Bruce told me not to open the cage. You can’t—”
I’d already done it—opened the cage. The little Martian creature crawled forward. It paused, then scampered away.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Ashley said. “Now what are we going to do?”
“Follow,” I said calmly. “Think you can keep up with me?”
“Sure, but how are you going to follow it?”
I grinned and pulled a handheld computer unit from my lap. “GPS. We have them on Mars too.”
“Great. What are you going to do? Throw it at that thing? It’s long gone.”
I flicked on the switch. Immediately, it began beeping.
“Come on,” I told Ashley. “This should be fun.”
CHAPTER 24
It was fun.
While I was in the robot body, crossing the sand from the greenhouse tent back to the dome, I had attached an emergency tracking device onto the back of the little, furry Martian koala. It meant that now I’d be able to track it wherever it went in the dome.
I hoped that if it was able to smell water, it would also be able to smell its partner, the little guy I’d taken away from it.
Beep-beep-beep-beep.
I left the GPS in my lap as I wheeled forward. Ashley stayed close behind. The signal grew louder as we neared the laboratories at the far end of the dome.
“What’s this about, anyway?” Ashley asked.
“I’m not 100 percent sure,” I said. “But I think it’s about illegal experiments and some people trying to hide those experiments.”
I kept pushing as I spoke. I thought about the rod in my spine—and how the operation that had placed it there had left me crippled. “Someday I’ll tell you what it’s like to be experimented on when you aren’t given the chance to decide for yourself.” Just as I suspected that someone was experimenting on the Martian koalas.
Beep-beep-beep-beep. The signal grew louder and quicker.
We were almost there. We faced a row of laboratory doors.
Beep-beep-beep-beep.
“Look!” Ashley exclaimed.
I looked where she was pointing. At the far end of the row, the little Martian creature scratched at a door.
I pulled up.
The sign on the door had big bold letters: Authorized Personnel Only.
“Try the door handle,” I suggested.
“I’m not authorized.”
“Neither is the little guy trying to get in.”
“He’s got an excuse. He can’t read,” Ashley fired back.
I liked her. She was quick. “Fine, then,” I said. “Neither can I.”
She sighed and tried the handle. It was locked.
I leaned forward and knocked on the door.
“Go away,” a voice shouted from inside.
I knocked louder.
This time, no voice answered.
“Inside that room,” I told Ashley, “are things that aren’t supposed to be happening. For all we know, someone is trying to kill or hide all the experimental animals.”
“Who can we report this to?” Ashley said, shocked.
“No one,” I answered. I felt bitter and sad about Rawling. By now I’d figured that he was involved somehow. “The director of the Mars Project isn’t even interested in stopping this.”
“Who else knows about it?”
“You and me.”
“Do you think,” she asked, “if more people knew what was inside, we could stop this?”
“Maybe,” I answered. “Should we try to break down the door?”
The little creature at our feet clawed and scratched to get in.
“No. I’ve got a better idea.” Ashley tilted her head back and screamed louder than I knew any person could scream. She screamed as if a madman were chasing her down. She screamed as if she were in a spaceship headed directly for an asteroid. She screamed as if a huge alien had pulled off one of her arms.
I plugged my ears.
She kept screaming.
It worked. All across the dome, lights began to flick on. Within 30 seconds, dozens of people were running toward us.
Ashley finally stopped. And grinned. “Not bad, huh?”
I grinned back. “Not bad at all.”
CHAPTER 25
By the time I was ready for sleep, I wasn’t ready for sleep.
Sure, the clock said it was late, but I was still too excited from all the things that had happened since Ashley screamed to the world.
I’d already explained everything to my parents. Now they were asleep, and the minidome was quiet.
That left me one thing I could do—write in my journal and explain it to the old man I would someday become. I fired up my computer and began to tell the rest of it.
Ashley’s scream brought dozens of people. Many of them wore pajamas because they’d been asleep or were getting ready for bed. The little Martian koala was still trying to get inside the door, and that was all the proof we needed to convince everyone that inside the lab we’d find at least one more.
It turned out there were dozens in plastic boxes that had been their homes. By the time we got the door open, most of them had been crammed into a storage box.
Dr. Jim Harrington, the head scientist on the illegal experiment, had figured he’d been caught and was trying to get rid of the evidence. We’d stopped him just before he was about to load the genetically altered koalas on a platform buggy and drive them miles away from the dome. He’d planned to leave them to die, trapped in the box. Now it’s going to be up to the director to decide what to do.
What would the director do? In the morning, I was going to find out because I intended to sit in Rawling’s office until he told me everything else.
I shut off my computer and wheeled over to my bed. I pulled myself out of my wheelchair and got under the covers, then reached over to shut off the light.
I lay awake in the d
arkness, thinking about everything.
But I wasn’t alone. Happy mewing sounds came from a basket in the corner of the bedroom. The two little Martian koalas the robot had captured were snuggled against each other.
I wasn’t quite sure what to name them yet. I was just happy that they were finally back together.
Five minutes later, they began to snore.
Wonderful.
CHAPTER 26
I found Rawling at his desk. He lifted his head as I rolled in.
“Good morning,” he said.
“If you say so.”
He nodded. “You have every right to be mad at me.”
“Why should I be mad? Just because you suddenly pretend I don’t exist? And that the alien I found doesn’t exist? I thought that’s what friends always did to each other.”
Rawling sighed and stood. He took a piece of paper from his desk and walked it over to me. “My letter of resignation as director,” he said, handing the paper to me. “Take a look at the date.”
I scanned the letter. It was very short and very polite. It was dated yesterday. “So?” I asked.
“I wrote it and signed it yesterday afternoon. Before you found the experimental lab. Not after. You probably don’t trust me anymore—and I don’t blame you—so I can bring up the computer file and show you the last time I worked on the letter to prove I’m not lying.”
I gave him back the letter.
“Tyce,” he said, his voice softening, “it’s important to me that you know I resigned because of what was happening. I was on my way over to explain to you last night when all that screaming brought us to the lab.”
Rawling returned to his desk, sat down, and faced me. “Here it is in a nutshell. Yes, unethical secret experiments had been performed with the blessing of the previous director, Blaine Steven. Dr. Harrington’s goal was to take an Earth species and genetically alter it to survive on Mars. He picked koalas because they survive on vegetation and have a relatively low consumption of energy. His ultimate goal was to create a creature that needs low oxygen, builds a thick layer of fat and fur to protect it against cold, and will eat the bamboo corn that will be planted around the planet.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Dr. Harrington claims the koalas are intended to be a future food source. But I’m not sure I believe him.”
“Because … ,” I said slowly as I processed this information.
“I’ll get to that in a minute. It’s one of the reasons I resigned. But I want to explain what they were doing out in the cornfield.”
I nodded. Rawling looked weary. I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or stay angry.
“Remember the oxygen crisis in the dome? Remember how ex-Director Steven arranged for oxygen tanks to be stolen?”
I nodded again.
“You might not have noticed,” Rawling said, “but 20 tanks were stolen, and later only 18 were recovered. I finally found out where the missing two tanks went. To the secret experimental lab. Steven had approved it to keep as many of the experimental animals alive as possible.”
“Instead of trying to keep scientists or techies alive?”
“Steven and Harrington thought people were going to die anyway. So why not at least keep these important experiments alive?”
I shook my head in disgust.
“At that time,” he continued, “Dr. Harrington realized he didn’t have enough oxygen for all his animals to survive. So he released most of them onto the surface of the planet, expecting them to die. He didn’t realize how close this new generation was to being able to survive outside the dome. The creatures survived long enough to make it to the greenhouse tent, which evidently had just enough traces of oxygen and water to keep them alive.”
I was beginning to understand. “Which Harrington did not know until Timothy Neilson was attacked in the cornfield.”
“Not exactly attacked,” Rawling said. “These animals are vegetarians. But they were desperate for water. You know no space suit is completely sealed down to a microscopic level. These creatures could smell the trace amounts of moisture that leaked from Neilson’s suit. They swarmed him, and he panicked at the sight of what he thought were aliens. When he fell, they ripped holes in his suit looking for the water.”
“When I captured one of the koalas, Dr. Harrington realized they could survive outside the dome.”
“Yes,” he said. “Remember, I said I would get him to help us. Only instead of helping, he took over the operation. I didn’t have much choice. Not when he patched me by radio phone to a high government source on Earth who forced me to cooperate in trying to hide the existence of these things. When Neilson woke up from his coma, he was also threatened and forced to lie. From that point on, I was effectively out of it. Nothing to say. Nothing to do.”
“That’s why you wrote the letter of resignation.”
“Yes. And no.”
I squinted, puzzled.
“I couldn’t believe these experiments were simply to create a future food source. Think about it. Once the scientists learned to genetically alter animals to live on the surface of Mars, do you think they’d leave it at that? Or would they try to alter humans next? That’s where all this genetic stuff gets scary. Knowledge itself is not good or evil. It’s what people choose to do with it. Between Steven and Harrington and the high government source on Earth, you’ve already seen what can happen. I have no doubt that future genetic technology would be used on humans. But not on adult humans who have a choice.”
I let out a deep breath. “On human embryos, right? Because that’s where the DNA changes have to be made.”
“Exactly. My decision yesterday was to take all of this public. But only if you decided I should. That’s why I was looking for you when the screaming started.”
“Me? Why should it be up to me?” I asked, stunned by the responsibility he was giving me. After all, I was just a kid.
Rawling got up again. Walked around the room. Sat down. “I know you hate being in a wheelchair. I know how much it means to you to have the freedom of that robot body. You’re the first human in history to be given that kind of opportunity.”
His lips tightened in anger. “As director, I had the power to stop the experimentation. I had the power to bring it to light. And I definitely should have done what was right instead of trying to cover it up and hide it from you.”
“What does this have to do with the fact that it was going to be my decision?”
“I was being blackmailed. I was told that if I didn’t find a way to keep these experiments secret, you’d be sent back to Earth when the shuttle left in a few months. Away from your family. Away from all you are about to learn on Mars. Away from the freedom of that robot body.”
“You were covering this up to protect me.” The words came slowly out of my mouth.
“I thought I was. Until I realized something. You of all people know what it’s like to be experimented on without permission. And here I was, making another decision about you and your future without your knowledge. That was as wrong as covering up what I knew about the experiment.” Rawling looked me square in the eyes. “I hope you can forgive me.”
“Sure,” I said. “We’re friends.”
Even as I spoke, I was haunted by guilt. I don’t know what I would have decided. Keep my freedom and allow the illegal experiments to continue? Or give up that precious freedom and do what was right—make the experiments public knowledge? I was just glad the decision had been taken from me by Ashley’s great screaming job in front of the secret lab.
CHAPTER 27
Half an hour later, I was back in our minidome. Mom had already left for her lab. That left me, my father, and the two little Martian koalas. They were asleep in a basket in the corner. As usual. Koalas on Earth sleep 22 hours a day, and one of the reasons that species had been picked for experiments on Mars was the low amount of energy they burned.
I had things to do too, like telling Ashley what I’d found out from Ra
wling. But I needed to speak to my father first.
On my way past the sleeping koalas, I stopped and smiled. Their eyes were shut, and they made tiny snoring noises.
I had that smile on my face when I stopped in front of my father. He was drinking coffee and reviewing some technical notes when I cleared my throat. “Dad?” That word came out of my mouth as a surprise. I was so used to thinking of him as “my father,” like some uncaring person who bossed me around whenever he showed up.
But I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what he’d said to Rawling in the lab. “Let me tell you this. Mess with Tyce, and you mess with me. Got it? As Tyce’s dad, I won’t fight his battles for him, but I’ll fight his battles with him.”
“Dad?” I said again. It felt less strange.
He still held his coffee, but his eyes were on my face, not on the technical notes.
“Yesterday,” I began, “I was really hurt about something. Rawling suddenly decided not to talk to me, and I couldn’t figure out why. It was like we suddenly weren’t friends anymore. Only I had no choice about it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dad said.
“It’s all right now,” I explained. “We had a chance to talk about it.”
“Good.”
“Yes. And no.”
Dad gave me a strange look. Probably the same strange look I’d given Rawling when he’d used those same words a half hour earlier.
“Good because I found out he had a reason for what he did. Bad because it hit me that I’d been doing the same thing to someone else. You.”
He set his coffee down.
“You see,” I said, “it’s not fair for me to do my best to ignore you because I’m mad about stuff. If you have no idea why I’m mad, you probably feel the way I did when Rawling treated me as if I didn’t exist.”
Dad smiled, but he looked sad. “Now that you mention it …”
“Anyway,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he said. “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”
“How much time you got?”
“As much as you need,” Dad said. “Let’s talk.”
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