Space Hostages

by Sophia McDougall

“Anything you want to say to me, Alice?” Dad asked pointedly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  I knew I owed him that.

  But when he hugged me again, I was looking at the two tiny moons of Mars over his shoulder, and I realized something a bit awful.

  It wasn’t really true.

  I wasn’t sorry the way I should be. I hated to think of how scared he must have been. But when I thought of what I should have done that day back in San Diego—stayed behind, heard about the hostage crisis from trillions of miles away—I only felt glad I hadn’t. I thought of the red spot of Jupiter, Yaela’s glowing night creatures and green skies echoing with joyous wingbeats. And of course I wanted to hurry back to Wolthrop-Fossey and curl up in bed for a week with endless cat videos and cups of tea.

  But how was I supposed to be sorry I’d seen those things?

  Dr. Muldoon appeared out of the invisible ship, stumbling out of empty space. She looked thinner and more disheveled than when I’d last seen her. But she was smiling.

  “Hello, Valerie,” said my mum.

  “We’ve been taking care of Ormerod for you, Dr. Muldoon,” said Noel.

  Ormerod squeaked and ran to her, turning happy Morror colors.

  A young man wearing a thick parka thrown on over a lab coat ran out of one of the domes.

  He looked delighted to see Dr. Muldoon. “Valerie,” he cried. “Thank god you’re back! How are you?”

  “Traumatized! And very excited!” said Dr. Muldoon, clutching Ormerod. “I never thought I’d make it home! But I’ve seen such amazing things! Purple seas! A city floating in the acid clouds of a gas giant! The food was terrible! I need to write several papers for the Royal Society and speak to a therapist!” She turned to us. “And none of you lot are dead. Ha-ha!”

  Under the circumstances, I thought I’d hold off on complaining about Josephine’s gills.

  Lena emerged from the ship. She looked composed, her hair in a perfect chignon, her pace steady.

  “Hello, Lena,” said Josephine.

  “Josephine,” said Lena, in her solemn, inscrutable way. And then she startled everyone by flinging her arms around her sister and bursting into tears.

  “I thought I’d never see you again!” she sobbed, clutching Josephine. “Are you really all right?”

  Josephine looked shocked, and went sort of limp in Lena’s arms, mumbling, “Yes,” into her shoulder.

  “James . . . tell me someone’s making tea,” Dr. Muldoon said.

  So Dr. Muldoon and James led us inside the base, through a greenhouse and past a laboratory, into a cozy little apartment where a large rainbow-striped rag rug lay on the floor and a kettle was singing on a little stove.

  “Oof,” she said, flopping into a chair covered by a patchwork quilt. “It’s good to be home.”

  Josephine chewed her bottom lip. “Are you . . . going to stay here for long, then?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “A while, I think,” said Dr. Muldoon absently, curling up with Ormerod while James made the tea. “It’s been a busy year.”

  “Will you . . . come back, though?” Josephine began, and then began gabbling: “I . . . would be so happy if you’d still keep in touch, at least sometimes. I know you’re very busy and I’m so sorry I didn’t get into university, but, but I’ll try so hard to get it right next time, and—”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said Dr. Muldoon. “What?”

  “What?” said Josephine. And then, “I mean . . . I know you must have been disappointed.”

  Dr. Muldoon was staring as if Josephine had grown an extra head to go with the gills.

  “Josephine,” she said, “did you think you had to prove something to me?”

  Josephine turned her new telescope over and over in her hands.

  “I thought—I think—that some of your work is at university standard,” Dr. Muldoon said. “I think you’re exceptional. I didn’t want to hold you back when you wanted to push forward. But you’re thirteen. I never meant you had to go to university now. It’ll still be there when you’re fourteen, or eighteen, or forty-two. You don’t have to do everything younger and better than anyone else to be worth being interested in, Josephine.”

  Josephine didn’t know what to say. Lena was frowning, her fingers steepled against her lips. “May I see that?” she asked, and reached for the telescope.

  Josephine let her have it. “Hmm,” Lena said, in much the same way Josephine had. She contemplated the inscription.

  “I don’t really know what to do with it,” Josephine confessed.

  “It’ll go well enough in your bag of oddities, won’t it?” asked Lena briskly. “Or else it’ll make an attractive paperweight.”

  Josephine gave a small smile.

  Lena appeared to reach a decision. “Josephine,” she asked, “would your situation be materially improved if you were to come and live with me?”

  Josephine’s face brightened at once, and a weight seemed to fall away from her. “Oh, yes,” she said.

  “Excellent,” said Lena. “Perhaps we’d benefit from a complete change of scenery. We could even leave London.”

  Josephine’s expression fell. “I love London.”

  “Yes,” agreed Lena. “But the healthy fresh air and country amusements . . .”

  Josephine continued to look very dubious.

  “Warwick University has a first-class science department.” Lena glanced at me. “And it’s close to Wolthrop-Fossey.”

  “Oh,” said Josephine, and looked at me, and began to smile. And so did I. “Then that would be brilliant,” she said.

  There was a knock at the door, and one of the EDF soldiers looked in.

  “The . . . er, spaceship wants to talk to you all.”

  Helen had closed her ramp and was hovering over Schiaparelli Lake, the waves flattening under her thrusters.

  “You’re leaving too, aren’t you?” said Carl. We all expected that, I think.

  “As long as that’s all right?” said Helen anxiously. “Is it all right? The other spaceships can take you the rest of the way home. . . . Does anyone mind very much if I . . . go and look around, a little?”

  “Of course it’s all right,” Josephine said. “You can do whatever you want.”

  “We want you to be happy, Helen,” I said.

  “You’re the best spaceship I’ve ever flown,” said Carl.

  “Thank you,” said the Helen. “Thank you all.” She hesitated. “What’s going to happen to my cap—him?” she asked tentatively.

  “He’ll stand trial, and unless something goes horribly wrong, he’ll go to prison,” said Mum.

  Helen made a sighing noise. It must be hard for her, I thought, not loving him anymore, even if it was a good thing.

  “You might be needed as a witness,” added Mum.

  I tried to imagine a witness box large enough to contain the Helen.

  “I’ve sent all my logs to the EDF database,” said Helen. “So I was thinking I would start with Neptune. And then . . . the ice volcanoes of Enceladus. And then . . . did you know there is a planet made of diamond?”

  “Say hi to the Goldfish,” called Noel, “if you ever go back to Yaela.”

  “Don’t stay away forever,” I said. “Come back and tell us what you’ve seen.”

  “Come back and I’ll send you more books!” said Josephine.

  “I will!” cried the Helen, rising. “I will!”

  And we waved as she soared away into the pink Martian sky.

  Josephine tried to get a last look at her through her telescope, smiled ruefully when that didn’t work, and pointed it at the distant tree again instead.

  She frowned. “That tree has got flowers growing on it,” she said. “Orange ones.”

  “What?” said Dr. Muldoon. “I didn’t seed any flowering trees on Mars.” She took the telescope and sighted down it.

  “It must have mutated,” said Josephine.

  “I don’t know how that got there,” said
Dr. Muldoon, sounding provoked and delighted all at once, handing back the telescope. “I don’t know how it can be alive.”

  Josephine looked at her telescope again with a slightly more indulgent expression and put it away in its pouch.

  You can’t see Earth from outer space anymore. It’s hidden inside the invisibilty shield the Morrors built so the Vshomu don’t get in. As we flew home, all we could see was the moon, circling a dark patch of sky.

  The EDF ship was a lot less fancy than Helen, all khaki and beige and uncomfortable seats. We’d been debriefed; we’d told the government people everything we could think of about the Grand Expanse and the Krakkiluks and the Eemala and how we’d kind of signed the Earth up for an alliance with Yaela and they might want to do something about that.

  “You know what we’re going to tell you, right?” said Dad. He and Mum were standing side by side. On this, a team.

  I was pretty sure I did. But I didn’t say anything, just in case I’d made a mistake.

  But I hadn’t.

  “I clearly got it wrong last time,” said Mum.

  “No more space,” said Dad.

  I didn’t argue. If I had a kid and she went to space, and all the things that happened to me happened to her, I probably wouldn’t even let her go to the supermarket.

  But I knew that even though it was crazy—one day soon I would want to go back. Well, not to go back, to go on. I was still greedy for more—Neptune, and cities in gas clouds, and ice volcanoes, and planets made of diamond. . . .

  It was nice to think that Helen was out there somewhere. Going wherever she wanted.

  We passed through the light shield. And there, suddenly, was Earth, blue and beautiful and shining.

  It’s a whole planet, I reminded myself as we plunged toward it. It’s full of things I’ve never seen. Even Wolthrop-Fossey has to have secrets—paths and hollow trees and houses ruined by the ice, things that maybe everyone’s forgotten. Josephine and I could try to find them.

  So I guess I’ll have to make do with that for a while.

  But I could see green aurorae dancing over the poles, and beyond the rim of the Earth, the endless fields of stars.

  If I ever do get another chance—well then.

  No guarantees.

  EPILOGUE

  Hi, Alice.

  Thank you for emailing me this. I finished reading it last night.

  Initial thoughts.

  Here. I think you should add a clarification. Mars can be as far as 249 million miles from Earth when both planets are at aphelion, and as close as 34 million miles when Earth is at perihelion and both are in opposition.

  Here. I did admire his apparent accomplishments before they turned out to be fraudulent, but I’m sure I can’t have said I thought Rasmus Trommler was a genius.

  Here. I’m not going to talk much about this part, but you make it sound as if I deliberately threw the cat statuette at you! I didn’t!

  Here. I knew you and Carl were scared when I took a while to surface after we hit the sea on Yaela. I didn’t realize quite how scared. I apologize.

  Here. I would have rendered the WOya word for Krakkiluk as more like Krakloo’ch. There was a soft but noticeable fricative on the last syllable.

  Here. Are you sure you want your dad to know you weren’t really sorry?

  Also Here. Similarly, is it wise, even six months on, to let your parents know you might go running off to space again, given the opportunity? They’re going to read this, presumably?

  Passim: You start a lot of sentences with “and” and you frequently use constructions such as “me and Josephine.” I know that’s how you talk, but for publication surely it should be “Josephine and I”?

  There are quite a lot of typos. I will send you a list tomorrow. In particular: your spelling of Sklat-ki-Sklak is wildly inconsistent.

  As for everything else, you’re right: there are advantages in being able to tell people to “just read the book” when they pester us with questions. But it still seems more full of drama and feelings than strictly necessary, and it is still very strange to have lived it once and then see it all again.

  I admit, I spent this morning walking along the Avon feeling peculiar and thinking over how I would write this to you. There were passages I intended to ask you to take out.

  But I liked reading about the ruined city on Yaela by night. About the Wurrhuya flying. How we all ate pizza on top of the Helen. It was almost like being there again, but this time without having to be frightened. It also made me miss the Goldfish, and Helen.

  Then I thought of something Thsaaa asked after we got back to Orbit Station One.

  “Could you clarify something for me?” they said before we got into the Space Elevator. “I have been confused.”

  “I’ll try,” I replied.

  “What was it that Alice revealed in her book that you wished to remain a secret?”

  I cited the relevant passages.

  “I don’t understand,” said Thsaaa. “That you mourned the loss of your mother—surely this must have been common knowledge?”

  “It isn’t that simple,” I said.

  It isn’t, you know that. But Thsaaa said, “It is the strangest thing about humans—that you make it so hard for others to know you. I thought at first it was only that I did not understand the face movements as I understand colors. But then I learned that you try to seem blank, even when you do not feel so. You can see, now, that I am confused and slightly embarrassed. But why should I not feel like that? Why should you not know it?”

  “Well, humans aren’t Morrors,” I said.

  We are not Morrors. But I concede that perhaps Thsaaa had a point.

  So yes, go ahead and publish the book. Yes, I think you should incorporate Thsaaa and Noel’s material. Thank you for not mentioning what was in my father’s card to me, as requested.

  In answer to your other question, Dad and I had a ChatPort conversation yesterday. It was awkward, but not wholly unpleasant. I made an amusing remark and he laughed slightly.

  Dr. Muldoon will be visiting Earth next month. I’ll be going to London. Do you want to come?

  Love,

  Josephine

  P.S. You said you hadn’t got a title. All I could think of was Space Hostages, but that’s surely too lurid even for you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Alyson Day, Abbe Goldberg, and the rest of the team at Harper Collins—as well as for all your work on the book, thanks for showing me the New York skyline and for listening to me scream in a bad American accent in a Manhattan bookshop. Thanks to Lynne Missen at Penguin Canada—especially for the packages of books! Many thanks to Sarah Hughes, Hannah Sandford, Maggie Eckel, and Katy Cattell at Egmont. Thanks for patient, thoughtful editing and surprised reminiscences of Tonbridge Grammar!

  Continuing thanks to my agent, Catherine Clarke, for her wisdom and indefatigability—and for the crucial suggestion when I couldn’t decide whether Carl or Josephine should be getting thrown out of the airlock: why not both?

  Thanks to Zoe Pagnamenta for nimble agenting abroad.

  There was much nomadism (both enforced and elective) during the writing of this book. Thanks to Maria Dahvana Headley, who let me sleep on her feather bed in Brooklyn surrounded by her curios and cats; to Glen Mehn and Clare Gallagher for the spare room—and laptop support!—during the summer of 2014; and to Sarah Rees Brennan for wine, pizza, and cupcakes in both London and New York.

  As always I have to thank my mother, who has been helping me wrangle stories since before I could talk.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Courtesy of Sophia McDougall

  SOPHIA McDOUGALL studied English literature at Oxford and is the author of Mars Evacuees as well as plays, poetry, and the Romanitas trilogy (Romanitas, Rome Burning, and Savage City). She lives in London. You can visit her online at www.sophiamcdougall.com.

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  CREDITS

&
nbsp; Cover art © 2016 by Goro Fujita

  Cover design by Joel Tippie

  COPYRIGHT

  SPACE HOSTAGES. Copyright © 2015 by Sophia McDougall. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015947629

  ISBN 978-0-06-229402-9 (trade bdg.)

  EPub Edition © January 2016 ISBN 9780062294043

  * * *

  16 17 18 19 20 PC/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST U.S. EDITION, 2016

  First published in the U.K. by Egmont UK Limited, London, England, in 2015.

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