I stumbled on my next step and tumbled head over heels into the undergrowth.
“Elana?” Anton’s voice cracked on the words. “What are you doing here? How did you get up here?”
“I took the second shuttle the moment I realized what Dani and those children were up to.”
“You—you should have told me you were coming—”
“Why? Would it have stopped you from betraying me?”
“Betraying you!” He gasped. “We had a plan, yes, but I’ve been talking with our guests, and I think there’s a way—”
“First Dani, now you. And you wonder why I’m here myself?” She sounded more annoyed than truly angry. I recalled what Dani had said about Elana back at the biostation. You don’t get to be the leader of the Shepherds and the head of a multibillion-dollar tech company without making sure that the people who work for you are obeying your orders.
“Elana, what are you doing?” Anton asked.
“I’m taking care of our problem,” she replied. “Once and for all.”
20
NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
I DIDN’T WAIT TO HEAR THE REST OF THE CONVERSATION. ELANA MERO was up in the stem of the space station with Dad and Dr. Underberg, and she was very, very angry. I took off, my strides more like jumps as I weaved through the forest back to the entrance to the spoke tunnel. The others followed behind me.
“Come on!” I started up the ladder, taking the rungs two at a time. The lack of gravity helped as I leaped up rung after rung. I felt like a jungle cat . . . at least, until I was two-thirds of the way to the top, where the gravity grew low and I was passed by Eric, who was actually running on his hands and feet up the side of the wall.
“Go, go!” Nate shouted from behind me. I was barely using the rungs now, just a touch here and there to push myself higher as I reached the weightlessness of free-fall.
Up ahead, I saw Eric slide through the hatch door. The window was closing. I dove in, flying into the wall in the corridor on the other side. I turned around and looked back, but the lights had gone red and the hatch was closed. I saw Anton’s face as it rotated out of sight. We had forty seconds until it opened again, but not a moment to waste.
“They’ll follow us,” Eric assured me, and took off down the hall toward the back end of the station. I pushed off and flew after him, kicking and pushing off the walls to propel me through the chambers. Eric glided through the air like some strange bird, shooting through small hatches with perfect aim while I struggled to angle my body right, crashing and bumping into edges.
Behind me, I could hear Anton, Howard, Nate, and Savannah bursting out of the tunnel when it reopened, but I concentrated on moving. I had no idea what we’d find when we got there. Elana, maybe, or a whole host of Shepherds.
But it was something even worse. An alarm sounded somewhere, and with it, a recorded announcement.
Warning. Fire detected on adjoined spacecraft. Danger from artificial atmosphere contamination. Air lock closed.
“They’re locked out!” I cried.
At last we flew through the final portal into the last chamber, the one with the air lock to Knowledge. Indeed, the air-lock door was shut tight, and Elana Mero hovered in front of it, frowning furiously.
“What did you do!” my brother bellowed, and launched himself at her. She spun in the air and caught him, twisting his arms up behind his back. Eric cried out in pain.
I wasn’t sure what to do. How could I pull him away from her with nothing to grab on to?
“Let go of me!” my brother screamed. He yanked his knees up to his chest and kicked out at her, catching her arm and her face. Elana yelped as her grip on his arm slipped. Eric shot back toward me and we collided against the wall near the entrance door.
“Eric!” I sighed with relief and wrapped my arms tight around my brother. Elana rolled off the wall, rubbing her jaw.
“She’s quick,” he warned me. “Quicker than Dani.”
“Elana!” Anton’s voice boomed as his large form sailed through the door into the chamber. “Stop!”
She spun to face him and her hair followed, the usually sleek bob floating up around her face like a sharp black halo. “What in the world do you think you’re doing up here?” she raged at him. “You had strict orders—”
“No one gives me strict orders on Infinity Base,” he snapped back. “You may call the shots at Guidant, but this is my territory. And I thought it was worth another try.”
Warning. Fire detected on adjoined spacecraft. Danger from artificial atmosphere contamination. Air lock closed.
“What is this?” Anton pushed past her to tug at the air-lock door.
“It was supposed to be a small, controlled explosion. But clearly I can’t count on anything working the way it’s supposed to, can I?” Her expression was one of bored frustration, as if she were having trouble with her phone instead of an explosion. “The fire will probably do the trick, though.”
“Dad!” I sobbed.
Anton rushed to a screen and started jabbing at it furiously. “Maybe he’s unblocked the closed-circuit video. There!”
The view of Dr. Underberg’s command terminal appeared. There was fire burning in the background, and smoke hung thick in the air. Dr. Underberg was slumped forward in his chair and my father was floating beside him. His face was blackened and smeared with blood.
“Dad!” Eric shouted. “You’re alive.”
Dad startled at the noise, then looked around. “Eric? Where are you?”
We waved our arms. “On the screen!”
“The screen’s on fire,” he said, then coughed heavily. “Everything is on fire.”
“Dr. Seagret.” Howard pushed past me. “There’s a fire extinguisher right next to the command terminal. You have to put it out before the artificial atmosphere causes an explosion. Do you see it? All you have to do is pull down and aim. The trigger will release like shooting a gun.”
I sighed with relief. At least someone here knew how Underberg’s spaceship worked.
Dad coughed again, but felt around on the terminal to pull the extinguisher free.
“There’s a lot of smoke,” he said, over the sound of the extinguisher. “I don’t know if I can get it all.”
I hurried back to the air lock. “Open this door!” I shouted to Anton. “I have to get my father!”
“It won’t open,” Anton said. “The fire might cause an explosion and destroy the base.” He whirled on Elana. “What are you going to do, kill all of them?”
Elana snorted in disdain. “These people will never understand us, and these children have been far more trouble than they are worth.”
“They brought us Omega City,” Anton replied.
“And they unleashed Dr. Underberg on us. Before, he was contained, a little old man, buried underground. Now he has what he needs to destroy everything we’ve built. Anton, if his information gets out, it will be the end of Guidant. The end of everything we’ve worked for.”
“And if we don’t have another generation of Shepherds, we’ll be at an end, too,” said Anton.
“You sound like Dani,” Elana scoffed. “What’s next, babies? I thought you’d decided against all that nonsense.”
“Just because I don’t want to add to overpopulation on the planet doesn’t mean I don’t think we need to recruit. And these kids are smart.”
“Oh, I know they are smart. They’re smarter than you. You think you have them convinced, or are they just biding their time until they’re out of your territory?”
I breathed in sharply and hugged Eric as tightly as I could.
“You were supposed to get rid of them,” Elana said, “not play tour guide.”
“And you were supposed to make sure that they were in the pods,” Anton fired back. “I guess we both made errors.”
“Dani tricked me,” cried Elana. “She’s been tricking us all, for months. She’s been helping Underberg!”
Warning. Fire detected on adjoined spacecr
aft. Danger from artificial atmosphere contamination. Air lock closed.
They were having a debate while my father fought for his life.
“Please!” I begged Anton. “Please, you have to tell us how to open the door.”
He looked at me sadly. “It can’t be opened.” Then he turned back to Elana. “And, on that topic, what is this about you not letting Dani into Omega City?”
What did any of that matter now?
“HELP US!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
They both looked at me. Elana tsked. “Little girl, the grown-ups are talking.” She shook her head, as if appalled by my behavior. I was pretty appalled by hers.
I’d known for years that the Shepherds didn’t care whose lives they ruined to get their way, but now I was floating here watching it happen. To me.
“You can’t imagine that I’ll let this stand,” Anton said.
But she just shrugged. “I think the organization is going to side with me. Sorry, Anton. It would be a pity to lose you, but the Shepherds have survived the defection of greater minds than yours.” She gestured through the air lock toward Knowledge and I shook with rage. That was my father in there.
Anton looked pretty angry himself. “You might have killed all of us. You might have destroyed this base.”
“Don’t be dramatic. You’re as bad as these kids.”
Nothing seemed to bother her. It was all a game. She would win and everyone else would lose, as long as the rules worked in her favor. It was like Dani had said back on Earth—Shepherds had their own rules of right and wrong, and it colored everything they did. Good and bad, dead and alive, us and Them.
If you weren’t with the Shepherds, you were against Them. And that meant you had to be destroyed. Suddenly, it hit me.
Dani had been misinformed. There was a difference between truth and lies. There was such a thing as right and wrong, even for the Shepherds. And I was staring right at it.
“Elana doesn’t care about Infinity Base.” My voice was cold and bright as a bell. “She doesn’t care about the Shepherds or their dream of the stars. All she cares about is her own power. She’ll destroy everything you’ve built if given the chance.”
Anton hadn’t believed me, back in the centrifuge ring. I had to make him believe me this time. It was harder to dismiss it now that she was here and setting spaceships on fire.
I pointed an accusing finger at the head of Guidant Technologies. “She said she would. Back on the ground. She said she’d do what she had to, to make sure Guidant was safe, that her secrets were safe. Even if it meant killing us. Even if it meant destroying Infinity Base. And now she’s here to do it.”
Anton grew very stiff, his large, gangly form stretching from one side of the room to the other. He turned his head toward Elana. “You didn’t say that.”
“I certainly didn’t say it to her. She’s nothing.”
It was an answer designed for a Shepherd, but Anton wasn’t buying it. “But . . . you wouldn’t say it.”
Elana sighed and shut her eyes for a moment. “I can’t believe I have to explain this again. This base costs money. Lots of money, that Guidant is responsible for. Guidant is our future.”
“Infinity Base is our future.” If he could have stamped the ground he stood on, he would have.
Elana rubbed her temples with bone-deep weariness. “Do you have any idea how delusional you sound?”
Her words fell like a slap. I don’t know if she even realized it. Anton’s face was a mottled mask of confusion and fury. I was so close.
Us. And Them.
“See?” I said. “She doesn’t care about the Shepherd mission or the future of the human race. Not like Dr. Underberg. Not like my dad.” I stumbled over the last word as I thought of my father, trapped on the spaceship. But freaking out wasn’t going to help. It was just like when he told us to pretend to be Shepherds. We had to convince Anton that we were the ones on his team.
Except this time, we actually were.
The undeniable truth of my words was washing over Anton. Elana saw it, and her expression changed. “That’s not so,” she said quickly. “I’ve poured billions into this station—”
“She buried Omega City.” I kept going. “She tried to ruin my father—”
“Shut up,” she said dangerously, looking angry for the first time. As angry as she’d been back at the biostation when she kidnapped Dad and Nate.
It was working. “She doesn’t care about anything but her tech company,” I insisted. “And if you let her, she’ll destroy everything you’ve built, just like she did to Underberg.”
“Anton.” Elana’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “You can’t be listening to this. It’s ridiculous. After all the money I’ve given you for your little projects?”
“My little delusional projects?” Anton shot back. “And what about Dani? “You’ve cut her out of everything—”
“With good reason!” Elana exclaimed. “She’s been sabotaging us. She obviously couldn’t be trusted.”
I took a deep, shuddering breath. I could do this. I could. “Dani’s probably dead. And if you let Elana get away with this, we’ll all be next.”
Elana shot toward me, arms outstretched. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you stupid little girl—”
Out of nowhere, two flashes of silver slammed into her.
“Leave my sister alone!” Eric cried as he and Savannah shoved her across the chamber. Nate came flying after them.
“Guys!” he shouted. “Guys, settle down.”
Elana started shrieking and kicking.
“Okay, then,” he amended. “Let me help.”
Anton’s face was set in hard lines and he moved to one of the cabinets. “Elana,” he said grimly, “you’ve become a danger to yourself and others on this station.” He pulled a packet out of a cabinet and crossed over to where Elana was struggling to pull herself free from the three kids holding her. “I have no choice but to stop you.”
I recognized the tranquilizer dart in his hand. I guess he and Dani did have a lot in common. He stuck the needle into Elana’s neck. She struggled for a few moments more, then slumped. Her dark bob floated over her face.
Anton stood over her, shaking his head. “I really, really hate doing that.”
In that moment, I believed it. Anton might be crazy, but he had never once been violent. He’d killed a lot of bees, but he really did seem to want to save the human race.
And maybe he could still save Dad.
Warning. Fire detected on adjoined spacecraft. Emergency detachment imminent.
Detachment? Like they were going to cut the spaceship loose? “Stop!” I screamed. I ran back to the screen.
Howard was still at the microphone, speaking as calmly to my father as if he’d trained his entire life for this moment. He might not even have noticed the commotion going on around him. “Dr. Seagret, put down the extinguisher. You need to engage your life-support systems. Find a helmet.”
On-screen, Dr. Underberg groaned and shifted. I saw him say something to my father, but couldn’t make out what it was. Dad looked up and around.
“What’s a PRE?” he asked the sky.
Howard jumped back in. “It’s a personal rescue enclosure. I didn’t know they were ever used. It’s like a bubble made of space suit material for emergency abandon-ship scenarios. Maybe there’s one near the hatch. . . .”
The screen went dark.
“Get them back!” Eric shouted. “Get them back!”
Warning. Fire detected on adjoined spacecraft. Emergency detachment in progress.
There was a horrific clunking sound from the docking port, and then a mechanical whirring.
“Stop!” I cried at the machinery. “You can’t detach them!”
I lunged at the air lock, as if it would do any good. Savannah sobbed.
Howard was still listing instructions for my father. I had no idea if he could hear any of them.
At the other end of the air
lock, I thought I saw movement. For a second, I thought it might be Dad, making it through, but then the window fogged up and I realized it was Underberg’s ships moving away.
I couldn’t even scream.
The others were shouting around me, though.
“Nate,” said Anton, and his voice was as even-keeled as Howard’s has been. “Help me get in my EVA.”
“What’s that?” he asked, frantic.
“His space suit,” said Howard. “Help him get into his space suit.”
How were they so calm? How could they be so calm? I tried to remember that Anton had trained for this. Like a real astronaut. And Howard—well, he’d practically trained. In his head, anyway.
Eric grabbed on to me, and so did Savannah. “Where are they?” he whispered.
Howard stood at the screen and pulled up another view, this one external. I could see the tail end of Infinity Base, and beyond it, the hulking, misshapen mass of the conjoined Wisdom and Knowledge, floating a few yards away. From here, they didn’t even look like they were on fire. And maybe they weren’t. After all, a fire needed oxygen. Just like Dad and Dr. Underberg.
“Look!” Howard exclaimed, pointing at the screen where Knowledge and Wisdom were floating ever farther away. I couldn’t look. I couldn’t.
“Gillian,” Howard said softly, and wonder of wonders, I felt his hand touch mine. I looked up at his face, and he was looking in my eyes. I’d forgotten how pretty his eyes were, since he never looked at me. Like Nate’s. A moment passed, and I realized I was breathing again.
He turned back to the screen and pointed. There, bobbing right at the edge of the camera’s view, was a tiny white-and-silver ball. “He must have deployed it.”
Hope fluttered in my chest. “Is he inside?”
Howard squinted at the image, looking for the clear panel that would reveal the contents of the ball. “I think . . . I see a head?”
Dad! I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“How long can he last in there?” Eric asked.
“They are supposed to come equipped with an hour of oxygen,” said Howard. “I don’t know, though. They were never used. And they only fit one person.”
Infinity Base Page 18