Waste of Space

  Even so, it wasn’t like I was happy that something bad might have happened to one of them. But I would much rather have had something bad happen to a Sjoberg than anyone else at MBA.

  All the other Moonies were so focused on the Sjoberg residence that no one noticed Dad and me returning to base through the air lock.

  Then Mom emerged onto the catwalk. Violet trailed behind her in purple Squirrel Force pajamas, still half asleep. Except for Nina’s residence, ours was the closest to the air lock, almost directly above it. Mom glanced toward the staging area, probably wondering if Dad and I had made it back from outside. So Violet looked our way as well and caught Dad in the act of closing the inner air-lock door. She was suddenly wide awake. “Were you just outside?” she exclaimed.

  Even though Violet was quite loud, there was enough going on that no one else heard her. Except Chang Kowalski. He spotted us, but instead of saying anything, he simply gave Dad a conspiratorial wink and continued on toward the Sjobergs’.

  Dad decided to deal with Violet’s question by ignoring it. He quickly sealed the inner air-lock door, then called up to Mom. “What’s going on?”

  Before Mom could answer, Violet demanded, “Why did Dash get to go outside again and not me?”

  Mom shushed her and said, “I’ll explain later.”

  Violet put her hands on her hips and gave the biggest pout she could. “It’s not fair!”

  She was making a big enough scene now that other Moonies paused to look at us, but by this point, there was no way to tell that Dad and I had just come through the air lock. Now that we’d shrugged off our space suits, we were in our usual, everyday clothes. As far as anyone else knew, we might have been coming from the communal bathroom, which was on the opposite side of MBA from our residences.

  “Violet, please . . . ,” Mom began.

  “I never get to do anything fun!” Violet argued.

  In exasperation, Mom simply clamped her hand over Violet’s mouth and told Dad, “I don’t know what’s happening. I only heard Sonja scream.”

  Violet continued trying to argue, even though Mom’s hand was over her mouth and we couldn’t possibly understand her.

  By now the rest of the Moonies had gathered around the door to the Sjobergs’ suite. There was a sudden commotion as Nina and Lars emerged into the crowd.

  I figured Nina must have run right there after cutting off radio communication with us.

  Even though it was the middle of the night, Nina was in her official moon-base commander jumpsuit. I would have assumed she had slept in it, except that it didn’t have a single wrinkle. Everything else about Nina was perfectly shipshape as well, from her polished shoes to her tightly shellacked hair.

  Next to her, Lars Sjoberg was completely the opposite. The man was normally slovenly, but now he was disturbingly disheveled. His eyes were glassy, what little hair he had was standing on end, and he was even paler than usual, which was hard to believe. When Lars had arrived at MBA, he had already been the palest person I had ever met; an additional five months on the moon without any sunlight had rendered him as white as a block of tofu. But tonight there was something unsettling and ghostly about his pallor. He leaned on Nina for support, as though his legs weren’t working properly, and he seemed very confused. He was still being a total jerk, though. As usual. “Where are you taking me?” he asked Nina angrily. “I demand to know!”

  “I’ve already told you three times,” Nina said calmly. “We’re going to the medical bay. We need to find out what’s wrong with you.”

  “Nothing is wrong with me!” Lars snapped, pulling away from her. “I’m perfectly fine!”

  “Darling, you’re not,” Sonja Sjoberg said, following her husband out onto the catwalk. She looked worse than usual as well, only in her case this was because she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Sonja had undergone dozens of plastic-surgery operations, vainly reconstructing every bit of her face. Unfortunately, all the adjustments had been designed for earth’s gravity, and on the moon things had gone horribly wrong. Her lips, which had been delicately inflated on earth, had ballooned to three times their normal size, while the helium micropockets injected into her face to keep her skin from sagging now rose too high. Normally, Sonja could conceal some of this with makeup, but without it she looked awfully scary. Several of the Moonies gathered around the door recoiled in fright.

  Lars responded to her in something that might have been their native Swedish, or possibly delirious gobbledygook. I wouldn’t have known the difference.

  Patton and Lily Sjoberg lurked in the doorway to their tourist suite. Lily looked concerned about her father, although not nearly as hysterical as her mother. Patton looked like he was annoyed at his father for waking him in the middle of the night.

  “Let’s go,” Nina said, tugging on Lars’s arm.

  “For the last time, I don’t need your help!” Lars snapped. “I’m healthy as can be!” He yanked his arm away from Nina with such force that he stumbled backward, slammed into the catwalk railing, flipped over it, and tumbled to the floor below.

  “Lars!” Sonja screamed.

  On earth, such a fall might have badly injured Lars. But in the moon’s low gravity, he didn’t land heavily enough to break anything—although he did bonk his head pretty hard. It sounded like a baseball getting thwacked for a home run. Sonja shrieked in horror: the same ear-piercing wail I’d heard over the radio. But now, inside at close range, it was shrill enough to set my teeth on edge.

  Dad instinctively hurried to Lars’s side to see if he was all right, and I followed. Since everyone else was up on the catwalk, we got to Lars first. He was lying on the floor, spread-eagled, looking even more dazed than before. “How do you feel now?” Dad asked.

  “I want a panda,” Lars said dreamily.

  Rather than circle all the way back to the stairs, Nina and Chang both leaped over the catwalk railing and landed next to us—even though Nina would have chewed me out if she’d ever caught me doing that.

  Dr. Marquez stayed on the catwalk and peered over the railing. “He’s obviously suffering some sort of delirium,” he announced.

  “You think?” Chang asked sarcastically. He had a very low opinion of Dr. Marquez’s medical skills. Given that Chang was a genius on the level of Einstein, I would have bet he was right.

  Unfortunately, we didn’t have another doctor at MBA. Our previous one had been murdered, and his replacement wasn’t due to arrive for another week. For the time being, we were making due with Chang’s general knowledge of medicine and Dr. Marquez’s questionable knowledge of it.

  Sonja was now crying hysterically and babbling in Swedish. Mom and Dr. Brahmaputra-Marquez did their best to comfort her, leading her back into her suite to sit her down.

  “There’s no need to panic,” Mom said reassuringly. “Lars is in good hands.”

  Sonja gave another teeth-rattling wail in response.

  Lars was still lying on the floor, smiling vacantly at us, apparently unaware of his wife’s concern. “Would any of you like a panda?” he asked us. “I’m buying them for everyone.”

  “Me!” Violet exclaimed, raising her hand excitedly. “I want two pandas!”

  “Lars is a lot nicer when he’s delirious,” Dad observed.

  “By a factor of a thousand,” Chang agreed. “We should have whacked him on the head five months ago.”

  Nina frowned, once again failing to find the humor in anything. “Do you think it’s hypoxia?” she asked Chang.

  Hypoxia is oxygen deficiency. Since there is no oxygen on the moon, we had to generate and recycle it. And since humans can only survive without oxygen for about three minutes, oxygen levels were among the most carefully monitored data at MBA. Everyone, even the little kids, had been instructed in how to recognize the signs of hypoxia, so I knew them well: shortness of breath, elevated heart rate, sweating, wheezing, confusion, and dramatic change of skin color. Although most people associate blue skin with oxygen deprivation, the skin of a
hypoxic person can turn other colors, like cherry red.

  Now that I thought about it, Lars’s breathing sounded a bit labored—although his skin certainly hadn’t changed color. It remained as pale and colorless as skin could be.

  To my surprise, Chang gave me an uneasy glance before answering Nina, as though concerned that she had mentioned this in front of me. Then he said, “I don’t think this is hypoxia.”

  “Then what is it?” Nina asked.

  “I don’t know,” Chang admitted.

  Nina scowled, disappointed. “You don’t have any ideas at all?”

  “I have plenty of ideas,” Chang said. “But I don’t know if any of them are right. We need to call Mission Control and talk to a doctor.”

  “I’m on it,” Nina said, then hustled into the medical bay.

  “Why don’t you let me look at him?” Dr. Marquez said, even though he had made no effort to check on Lars so far. “I’m a doctor.”

  “I meant a real doctor,” Chang corrected. “One who actually knows what he’s doing.”

  Dr. Marquez grew offended. “I am a real doctor! And I wrote a best-selling book about medicine!”

  “About pop psychology,” Chang reminded him. “If Lars has trouble finding his happy place, we’ll call you. But for now we need to get him to the medical bay.” He looked to Lars. “Can you stand up?”

  “I can do lots of things,” Lars replied cheerfully. “I can even sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ in Dutch. Would you like to hear that?”

  “No,” Chang said quickly. “I would like you to stand up and walk to the medical bay with me.”

  Lars tried to get to his feet. He also decided to show us that he could sing in Dutch anyhow. “Ik ben een beetje waterkoker . . . ,” he began.

  Lars still looked unsteady, so Dad and Chang grabbed his arms and helped him stand. The medical bay was only a few feet from where Lars had fallen, so it didn’t take long to walk him there. Lars kept singing the whole way. He had a terrible singing voice. It sounded like someone was strangling a cat. I was relieved once they got inside the clinic and shut the door, muting the sound.

  By now, many of the Moonies had made it downstairs. Violet, Kira Howard, and Roddy Marquez joined me.

  “What do you think is wrong with him?” Kira asked. Although she had only been at MBA two months, she was my best friend there. (Not that she had much competition for this.) Kira was scary smart, although she tended to think that rules were for other people.

  “Yeah,” Violet said, mimicking Kira’s posture. “What do you think is wrong with him?” Violet had really taken to Kira, and often modeled her behavior reverently.

  “Looks to me like he has space madness,” Roddy said, which was his go-to explanation for any inexplicable behavior at MBA. Roddy was always quick to offer up his opinion on things, whether you wanted it or not. He generally had a 50 percent chance of being right. He knew a lot about science, but he also got too wrapped up in sci-fi conspiracy theories.

  “There’s no such thing as space madness,” Kira said disdainfully.

  “Yeah,” Violet seconded. “There’s no such thing.”

  “Yes, there is,” Roddy insisted. “But NASA has covered it up. Half the people who came up here to build this base went crazy. Spending long periods of time away from earth and in cramped spaces can seriously damage your brain.”

  “Well, it’s certainly damaged yours,” Kira said. “Or were you already a psycho when you got here?”

  “Boom!” Violet crowed. “She got you good!”

  “Ha-ha,” Roddy sneered. “If space madness doesn’t exist, then what’s going on with Lars right now? He looks pretty insane to me.”

  “I’d guess ergot contamination,” Kira said.

  “Yeah,” Violet agreed. “It’s probably blursnot conflammination.”

  “Ergot contamination,” I corrected. “Ergot is a fungus that grows on cereals. If you eat it, it can cause hallucinations and things.”

  “What kinds of cereals?” Violet asked, worried. “Like Frooty Puffs?”

  “Not cereals like that,” I said. “Stuff like rye and wheat.”

  Violet heaved a sigh of relief. “Whew. Because I love Frooty Puffs. I don’t want my head getting conflamminated.”

  “Frooty Puffs are made from wheat, dummy,” Roddy said. “And besides, NASA irradiates all our food and then hermetically seals it before it comes up here, so it couldn’t possibly get contaminated.” He gave Kira a superior smirk.

  “So,” Kira said, “you think NASA has this huge conspiracy to keep us from learning about space madness—and yet you completely trust them with the safety of our food?”

  Roddy’s smirk faded. “Well . . . I . . . uh . . .”

  “Who’s the dummy now?” Violet asked him. “Here’s a hint: It’s you!” She raised her hand for a high five and Kira slapped it.

  Around us, the other Moonies were also discussing what could possibly be wrong with Lars. Most of them seemed to think either some form of food contamination or stress was behind it. Although Cesar Marquez, Roddy’s dim older brother, was suggesting that it might have been “some kind of Swedish brain disease.” I overheard Dr. Merritt tell Dr. Iwanyi, “I don’t know what it could be, but if it keeps Lars from being a jerk, we shouldn’t cure it.”

  Mom emerged from the Sjobergs’ suite on the catwalk, looking frazzled after dealing with Sonja. Everyone looked up to her expectantly. I noticed that Sonja’s wailing had stopped.

  “She’s calm now,” Mom reported. “Ilina gave her a sedative.”

  Dr. Janke asked, “Did Sonja give any indication what happened with Lars?”

  “Only that it came out of nowhere,” Mom replied. “She said she woke up and found him pacing around their suite, babbling deliriously.”

  “Space madness!” Roddy exclaimed triumphantly. “Just as I thought!”

  “Give it a rest, loser,” Cesar chided.

  Violet giggled at this.

  Roddy turned the color red we were supposed to associate with hypoxia. Most likely, he was upset because Cesar had insulted him in front of Kira, who he had a crush on. “You want proof I’m right?” he challenged. “Let’s get proof. Nina’s probably on the ComLink with a doctor right now. Let’s see what she says.” He stormed toward the door of the medical bay.

  “Roddy!” Mom yelled. “Do not disturb them! This is an emergency!”

  Roddy didn’t listen. He was too determined to prove he was right.

  Mom looked to me for help, as I was a lot closer to Roddy than she was. “Roddy, wait,” I said, and started after him.

  Before I could stop him, though, Roddy sprang the last few steps to the medical-bay door and threw it open. So I ended up with a very good view of what was happening inside.

  Lars was laid out on the examination table. Dad and Chang were pinning him down while Nina held a syringe. A small yellow case marked with a skull and crossbones sat on the table.

  A doctor was talking them through the procedure on the ComLink, her face taking up the entire SlimScreen. “Once he has inhaled the amyl nitrate,” she was saying, “then give him the shot.”

  The adults all wheeled on Roddy as he entered. “Roddy!” Nina barked. “Get out of here!”

  She was so angry, even Roddy understood not to push his luck. He quickly backed up and closed the door.

  But I had seen and heard enough. I had paid plenty of attention to our medical briefings, and I had dutifully read all the sections about emergencies in The Official Residents’ Guide to Moon Base Alpha as well. So I knew exactly what the yellow case with the skull and crossbones was for.

  Lars Sjoberg didn’t have space madness.

  He’d been poisoned.

  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)

  HISTORICAL IMPACT

  Before reading on, it is importa
nt to take a moment to consider the impact of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. This event will be, without question, one of the most significant events in all of human history—if not the most significant. How it is handled will have incredible repercussions for the future of humanity. Therefore, while initial contact cannot necessarily be controlled,I it is imperative that secondary contact and communication be handled by trained professionals who will be appropriate representatives of Planet Earth. If this is not done, the ramifications for the survival of life on earth could be disastrous.

  * * *

  I. It is likely that alien civilizations will come to earth with little understanding of our own civilization, and thus it is impossible to predict whom they might initiate primary contact with. They might not approach the proper government officials at first, and might instead attempt to initiate primary contact with laypeople, children, or even animals.

  3

  RIDICULOUSLY INTELLIGENT LIFE

  Lunar day 252

  Still very early in the morning

  It was cyanide poisoning, to be precise.

  Nina had hoped to keep that a secret, because she didn’t want to start a panic. However, Roddy also knew exactly what the yellow box with the skull and crossbones meant. Before I could stop him, he announced to the entire moon base, “Someone poisoned Lars Sjoberg!”