“Trust me, Dad,” Kira said, “I’ve had enough excitement to last me a long time.”
I returned my attention to Zan. As amazing as her revelations were, I found them surprisingly calming as well. Many strange things from the last few days suddenly made sense. Like why Zan had never opened a door, or touched me—or touched anything, for that matter. Or why she had looked so alarmed when I approached her in the mess hall when other people were around. It was because she wasn’t really there. Every time I’d seen her, whether she was with other people or hanging out by herself, she had merely been pretending to exist physically.
“How long were you in contact with Dr. Holtz?” I asked.
“Only a few weeks. But my kind have been watching you humans on earth for quite some time now. I suppose you could say we’ve been thinking ourselves there without choosing to interact with any of you.”
“For how long?”
“We first became aware of humanity about a hundred of your years ago, when you started detonating nuclear bombs. Such violent activity has effects your kind hasn’t figured out yet. In a sense, it sends ripples through the fabric of space-time. When we realized that you existed and what you had done, we deduced where you were and sent out our first explorers.”
“You’ve been coming for a hundred years?” I asked, startled. “And you’ve never been in touch with any humans that whole time?”
“No,” Zan said. “We have decided to be very cautious about this. Besides, much can be learned about a species through observation.”
I heard Lars Sjoberg storm past the greenhouse. He was chastising Nina. “You promised us all space on that rocket home.”
“That was before I had a murderer to get rid of,” Nina replied. “Trust me Lars, I’d love to send you back on the same rocket with him. Even better, I’d like to put the two of you on a rocket together and send it off into deep space for the rest of eternity. But NASA’s saying no, so for the time being I’m stuck here with you and your horrible family.”
I waited until they were out of earshot before speaking again. “So why did you decide to make yourself known after all this time?”
“Because of this base. You humans are making a sincere attempt to colonize planets beyond your own. You’re a long way from getting out of your own solar system, but it’s a step. Which means that someday down the line, you might be coming our way. So we decided that a connection should be made. After a great amount of deliberation, Dr. Holtz was selected. I have to admit, given how many of your movies are about evil aliens attacking your planet, I thought Dr. Holtz might be frightened at first. I was pleasantly surprised by how thrilled he was to make contact. And then when he kept pressing me to let him reveal our existence . . . well, his enthusiasm was contagious. He was very convincing.” Zan lowered her eyes sadly. “I had no idea it would end so tragically. Sadly, I wasn’t aware it was even happening. . . .”
“Why not?”
“I can’t be here constantly. That requires tremendous thought and focus. On my own planet I need to sleep—and do other things. So I was busy when Mr. Grisan got to Dr. Holtz. When I returned . . . his death was as big a shock to me as it was to you.”
“So that’s why you came to me?” I said. “To try to find out what happened to Dr. Holtz?”
“Yes. It was a serious breach of protocol, but I feared there was no other way to find out. I wanted to know the truth, but no one else here seemed willing to investigate the death—except you. Though I figured you might need a little push.”
I now heard Roddy entering the mess with his brother. “I suspected it was Mr. Grisan all along,” Roddy boasted. “I never trusted that guy. He always seemed shiftier than a Neptunian Blorkbeast.”
“Roddy,” Cesar said. “Unless you want that new girl to think you’re the biggest dork in the universe, you have to stop saying things like that.”
I returned my attention to Zan, putting all the pieces from the last few days together. “You also picked me because I was a kid, didn’t you? An adult would have known there was no Zan Perfonic scheduled to come here. They wouldn’t have followed your orders so blindly.”
“Maybe not,” Zan said, “But I saw other reasons to choose you as well. Your intelligence, for one. In fact you proved to be much smarter than I expected. I didn’t think you’d figure out what I really was. I originally planned to learn what happened to Dr. Holtz, then pretend to return on the rocket today and disappear from your life forever.”
“So you lied to me. About pretty much everything. Your job. Why you wanted my help. What you really are . . .”
“I apologize for that. I didn’t know what else to do. Just because I’m highly evolved doesn’t mean I’m perfect.” Zan fixed her brilliant blue eyes on me. “Although, now that you have figured out what I am, you seem as qualified a human contact as Dr. Holtz was. Perhaps even better.”
I was so startled by this, I actually forgot to breathe for a moment. Finally I gasped, “Really?”
“Yes. Approaching a human subject is no easy task. Not everyone would handle it as well as you have. I suspect most would, as you humans often say, ‘freak out.’ Therefore, I would very much like to continue our discussions. Although, sadly, I think that given the events of the past few days, we must keep our contact a secret. Humanity doesn’t seem to be ready for this yet.”
“I’m sure Mr. Grisan’s reaction wasn’t a normal one . . . ,” I began.
“Even so,” Zan told me, “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. So, what do you say? Are you willing to continue human-extraterrestrial contact?”
Of course, I wanted to shout. I couldn’t believe Zan was asking me. I was so thrilled by the idea, I could barely contain myself. And yet I did. I stayed so calm I surprised myself. “I’m not sure.”
For the first time, Zan looked surprised. “Why not?”
Outside, I could now hear my own family in the halls, calling to me. Violet was back with my parents. I’d been in such a hurry to talk to Zan, I’d forgotten to tell them where I was going. Since I’d almost been killed less than an hour before, my parents sounded a bit worried. Violet didn’t. She was acting like it was a big game of hide-and-seek, singing “Dashiell! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
I was going to have to show myself to them soon.
“I can’t do it because of them,” I said quietly. “Dr. Holtz lived on his own up here. I don’t. It’s going to be very hard to keep you a secret from my family. Sooner or later they’re going to catch me talking to myself and think I’ve cracked up.”
“We’ll take precautions,” Zan told me. “This would mean a great deal to my planet as well as yours. In fact, it is more important than you could possibly understand.”
I looked up through the skylight at earth once again. It suddenly occurred to me that, for the first time in months, I wasn’t longing to be back on my home planet. My anger at being stuck on the moon had vanished. But it wasn’t only because of Zan’s offer. I also had a new friend in Kira. And I’d finally stopped grousing about having nothing to do at Moon Base Alpha and started actually doing things there.
Although making alien contact was kind of a big deal.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it . . . with one condition.”
Zan beamed, her eyes brighter blue than ever. “Of course. What is it?”
“The way you travel between planets. Is that something only your species can do?”
“I’m not sure,” Zan admitted. “I suppose others could do it, although it isn’t easy.”
“I’d like to try. Will you teach me?”
Zan stared up through the skylight thoughtfully. For a moment it seemed that she was no longer with me. I could still see her body, but her mind appeared to be light years away. I got the sense she was communicating with someone back on her home planet. Her eyes were eerily vacant, the sun and earth and a million stars reflected in them.
Then suddenly she was back. The life returned to her eyes. She looked at me.
>
And smiled.
About the Author
Photo courtesy of the author
Stuart Gibbs is the author of Belly Up, Poached, Spy School, Spy Camp, Evil Spy School, and Space Case. He has also written the screenplays for movies like See Spot Run and Repli-Kate, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows for Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC, and Fox, and researched capybaras (the world’s largest rodents.). He lives with his wife and children in Los Angeles.
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Also by Stuart Gibbs
Belly Up
Poached
Spy School
Spy Camp
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SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by Stuart Gibbs
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Book design and illustration by Lucy Ruth Cummins
Map art by Ryan Thompson
The text for this book is set in Adobe Garamond.
0814 FFG
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gibbs, Stuart, 1969–
Space case / Stuart Gibbs. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “Dashiell Gibson, who lives on Moon Base Alpha, has to solve a murder of one of the moon’s most prominent doctors”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4424-9486-2 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4424-9488-6 (eBook)
[1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Moon—Fiction. 3. Space colonies—Fiction. 4. Human-alien encounters—Fiction. 5. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.G339236Sk 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013033587
Stuart Gibbs, Space Case
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