Spaced Out Read online

  “I’m not here to punish Dashiell,” Nina said flatly. While everyone else at MBA dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts, Nina always wore her official NASA flight suit. Even this late at night, it looked as though it had just been ironed. “However, I am required by NASA to get his statement as to what occurred in the space toilet incident.”

  Mom opened the door wide and waved Nina inside. “Fine. Then you can do it right here.”

  Nina remained on the catwalk outside our residence. “Rose, my orders are to get Dashiell’s statement, not yours or your husband’s. To prevent you from interfering, this really ought to be done in my quarters.”

  Mom started to protest, but I cut her off. “It’s okay. I’ll go.” I turned off my e-book and headed for the door.

  “This can’t wait until morning?” Dad asked. “It’s bedtime for all of us.”

  “We have an extremely busy day tomorrow, so I’d prefer to get this done now,” Nina said. Without so much as a good-bye—or an apology for disturbing everyone so late—she turned away and led me down the catwalk to her residence.

  This didn’t take long, as Nina lived right next door to us. All the residence doors at MBA have electronic sensor locks linked to our smartwatches. Nina waved her watch in front of the sensor pad and the dead bolt automatically slid open.

  It was only the second time I had ever been in Nina’s quarters. The previous time had been a month before. Nothing had changed. Although Nina’s residence was larger than my entire family’s (or anyone else’s quarters, save for the Sjobergs’ “tourist suite”), she had almost nothing in it. Furniture was too big and bulky to haul much of it to the moon, so except for the standard bureau, SlimScreen table, and inflatable cubes that served as chairs, Nina’s only extra item was a spindly self-assembled desk. We had all been allowed to bring a few personal items to MBA, but Nina hadn’t bothered with any of those. Her SlimScreen wasn’t on, leaving only a blank gray wall. Even the view out Nina’s window was exactly the same as it had been before. Since there was no wind, rain, or any other type of weather on the moon, every speck of dirt was probably exactly where it had been not only a month earlier, but for the last hundred thousand years as well.

  Nina sat on an InflatiCube on one side of her desk, then pointed me to the one on the other side. “Sit,” she said. Like I was a dog.

  I sat anyhow, trying not to make waves. I wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible. The InflatiCube, being cheap plastic, made a farting noise as I put my weight on it. This happened a lot with those. Most people at MBA found this funny—Violet in particular—though Nina never found anything funny. I had never seen her laugh once in the four months we’d been on the moon.

  “I’m revoking your communication privileges with earth,” she told me. “For the next two weeks, you will not be able to use the ComLinks for any purpose other than school.”

  “What?” I asked. “I thought you said I wasn’t going to be punished!”

  “Use of the ComLinks is a privilege, not a right,” Nina said robotically. “Therefore, temporary suspension of your privileges is not technically a punishment. . . .”

  “It’s still not cool! I thought you said you were going to take my statement on the space toilet incident!”

  “There’s no need for that. I have reviewed the security footage from the men’s bathroom and observed what happened.”

  “I did that in self-defense!” I argued. “Patton was trying to strangle me!”

  “The space toilet is not intended for use in self-defense,” Nina told me. “It is only designed for the hygienic disposal of human urine and feces. Should you have broken it, the fabrication, shipping, and installation of a replacement would have cost NASA over half a billion dollars.”

  “Well then, the Sjobergs should pay for it. A half a billion dollars is petty cash to them.”

  “This isn’t merely about the cost, Dashiell. There are only three toilets for all the men on this base. A reduction of those by a third could have severe consequences, especially given the unfortunate effects of some of our space food on everyone’s digestive tracts.”

  She was probably talking about the chicken parmesan, which often sent us Moonies to the bathroom for extended periods of time. Sure, everyone could have avoided it, but it had already been shipped to MBA, and on the moon our options for dining out were limited. The nearest pizza delivery was 238,900 miles away.

  “Are Patton and Lily losing their ComLink privileges too?” I asked. “Seeing as they were trying to beat me up?”

  Nina broke eye contact with me for a second. “For the Sjobergs, the ComLinks aren’t a privilege. They paid for them, so usage is guaranteed.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “They attacked me, but they get off free and clear, while I get punished for defending myself?”

  “With the space toilet,” Nina reminded me. “You could have caused serious harm to Patton with that.”

  “He was trying to cause serious harm to me! For no reason! What was I supposed to do, let him beat me up?”

  Nina completely avoided answering the question. Instead she said, “I’m sure you’re aware that our relations with the Sjobergs have been strained over the past few weeks. NASA is adamant that we not do anything to make the situation worse.”

  “So that gives them the right to beat us up?”

  Nina sighed, as though I was being foolish. “Our government does not provide adequate funding for the moon base program. We need the income from space tourism to make up the difference. And once Moon Base Beta is built, it will derive even more of its operating costs from tourism. The Sjobergs could ruin all of that. If they start spreading lies about how bad things are up here, the tourists won’t come and the entire lunar colonization program will have to be scuttled.”

  I frowned, annoyed by Nina’s argument. If the Sjobergs started talking about how bad life was at MBA, they wouldn’t have really been spreading lies at all; they would have been spreading the truth. All the Moonies knew that. The only thing that stopped any of us from letting people back on earth know that life there stank was that we couldn’t do it. NASA’s public relations department censored all our communications. Plus, we’d had to sign these complicated nondisclosure agreements preventing us from bad-mouthing the place when we got back to earth. If we did, we could be sued. But as tourists, the Sjobergs hadn’t signed any agreements like that; NASA had feared that would scare them off. When the Sjobergs got home, they could say whatever they wanted, so NASA was desperately trying to appease them in the meantime. Shoving the Urinator into Patton’s face didn’t really jibe with that plan.

  As I considered this, I had a sudden flash of insight. “The Sjobergs are behind this, aren’t they?” I asked. “They’re the ones making you punish me, not NASA.”

  For the second time, Nina dodged my question. “What you did warrants punishment, Dashiell. You could have really hurt Patton with that urine hose.”

  I wasn’t about to let Nina get away without answering me. “That’s it, isn’t it? They want me punished, even though their kids are jerks. And because they’re so rich, you have to do it.”

  Nina started to say something—probably a denial—but then changed her mind and told me, “Yes. And to be honest, they wanted a lot worse than merely cutting off your communication privileges for two weeks. If they’d had their way, you’d have been restricted to your room for the next three months.”

  “This is so unfair,” I grumbled. The ComLink was the only thing that kept me sane at MBA. It was how I talked to my friends back on earth and uploaded all my books and movies. “I was just sitting there, minding my own business, and they came after me. Roddy was the one who got them all worked up in the first place.”

  Nina arched her eyebrows slightly, which was as close as she ever came to expressing surprise. “Roddy was involved in this?”

  “The Sjobergs didn’t tell you that?”

  “Lily said they came into the rec room to play a game and you started mo
uthing off to them.”

  “That’s a big old lie. They came in looking for Roddy. He’d done something to get them angry and they thought he and I were in on it together.”

  “What had he done?”

  “I don’t know. I tried to find out, but Patton was more interested in trying to kill me.”

  Nina stroked her chin, thinking things over.

  I said, “I’ll bet those two were up to no good and Roddy saw them. That’s why they didn’t tell you about him. Because they knew you’d go talk to him and find out what really happened.”

  Nina considered this, then sighed again. “I suppose I should. I’ll see if . . .” A soft ping from her watch interrupted her, indicating a message had come in. She glanced down at it—and something about her changed. Nina was generally as focused as a laser, but she suddenly seemed distracted and flustered. She completely forgot what we’d been talking about, stood, and said, “We’re done here. You can return to your quarters.”

  Normally, I would have jumped at the chance to get out of Nina’s room, but I stayed put on my InflatiCube. “Wait. Are you going to talk to Roddy?”

  “What?” Nina asked, like her mind was already somewhere else.

  “Are you going to ask Roddy what really happened?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. A full inquiry into the matter will be made. Run along now.” Nina made a shooing motion with her hands, then started to look through her desk drawers.

  I stood and headed for the door. “And if Roddy tells you the Sjobergs were doing something wrong, you’ll punish them for it?”

  “Definitely,” Nina said.

  “Maybe you could roll them in peanut butter and then dip them in chocolate,” I suggested, just to see if Nina was paying attention.

  “Sure,” Nina said distractedly.

  “And then shove a flaming octopus up their noses.”

  “Of course.” Nina suddenly looked up, having realized I’d been teasing her. She frowned at me. “I said we’re done, Dashiell.”

  “Okay. Have a nice night.”

  Nina returned her attention to her desk as I slipped out the door.

  That was the last time anyone saw her before she disappeared.

  Excerpt from The Official Residents’ Guide to Moon Base Alpha, “Appendix A: Potential Health and Safety Hazards,” © 2040 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  SHARP OBJECTS

  For any object that you would normally exercise caution with on earth, you need to exercise extra caution on the moon. Nowhere is this more serious than with sharp objects.

  Consider a knife, for example. In the moon’s lower gravity, even doing something as simple as slicing a tomato can be more dangerous than you realize; if you exert the exact same force on the knife as you would back on earth, this force will be six times greater on the moon. Which means the knife will move much faster and harder than you might expect, with the power to do bodily harm.

  That’s a case where someone is still being cautious. Now imagine a scenario where a lunarnaut is being cavalier with a sharp object: running with scissors. Should that person trip and lose their grip, those scissors will fly much farther than they would on earth, with the potential to hurt more people and do far more damage.

  Therefore, all lunarnauts are advised to be extremely careful with any sharp objects and to handle them with great vigilance. Furthermore, be aware that, at MBA, there are many other sharp objects besides the standard knives, scissors, and scalpels.I There is a great deal of machinery that may have honed edges, and robots with pointy metal joints. Even the SlimScreens can have sharp edges. So take care and keep a sharp eye out for potential danger!

  * * *

  I. All scalpels ought to be kept in the medical bay at all times.

  MALICIOUS BLUEBERRIES

  Lunar day 217

  Breakfast time

  “Blecch,” Violet said, spitting a hunk of chewed food onto her plate. “I hate waffles.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked her. “You liked waffles yesterday.”

  My whole family was in the mess hall for breakfast. Mom, Dad, and I were dressed in our usual moon base clothing: shorts and T-shirts. Violet was still wearing her pink unicorn pajamas.

  “No,” Violet insisted sternly. “I never liked waffles.”

  “You sang a whole song about how much you liked them,” I pointed out.

  “I like bacon,” Violet replied. As if that was an argument.

  In truth, I couldn’t blame her for hating the waffles. Nobody liked the waffles at Moon Base Alpha. Or most of the other food, for that matter. Everything we ate at MBA had once been actual edible things, but then they’d all been precooked, irradiated, thermostabilized, dehydrated, and compacted into little cubes of disgustingness. And if that weren’t bad enough, we had to rehydrate it all with water reclaimed from our own urine.

  For this reason, most Moonies didn’t spend much time in the mess hall. They wolfed their food down as fast as possible, the idea being that the less time it was in your mouth, the less time you had to taste it.

  Violet hadn’t quite grasped this concept, though. Or the fact that there were certain foods that would never show up at MBA, no matter how much she wanted them.

  “There is no bacon,” Dad told her. “They don’t have it on the moon.”

  “But I waaaant it,” Violet pleaded.

  “How about blueberry muffins instead?” Mom asked.

  “Okay!” Violet instantly returned to her usual perky self, having forgotten all about bacon, and began to sing a song about how much she liked blueberry muffins. Violet was normally so cheerful, it was like living with an animated cartoon character, right down to breaking into song at random moments.

  “Good,” Mom said. “Let’s go get some.”

  The two of them headed across the mess to dump Violet’s waffles and get some muffins, which weren’t really muffins at all, but more like muffin-flavored substance cubes.

  At the other tables in the mess were the Brahmaputra-Marquez family—except for Roddy—the Goldstein-Iwanyi family, and Kira Howard, the only girl at MBA my age, who was eating with her father. As usual, Kira’s father, Maxwell, wasn’t paying much attention to her. He was staring at his fork, lost in thought. As one of the main engineers for Moon Base Beta, he was constantly coming up with things to improve; at the moment, he was probably thinking of a better eating utensil. Kira’s mother had passed away several years earlier; with her father’s mind constantly somewhere else, it was sometimes like she didn’t have any parents at all.

  Kira was tapping at a SlimScreen tablet while she ate, probably coding. Kira was talented with computers, and she filled the long gaps of free time at MBA with hers. She’d developed several programs to improve life at MBA. Some were beneficial to everyone—like an oxygen-monitoring system for the air locks—although most were just for fun. My favorite allowed us to simulate a transmission failure during our school classes, which we could use to cut off our teachers back on earth if they ever tried to spring a pop quiz on us.

  The Sjobergs, the only other family on the moon, were nowhere to be seen. The other Moonies didn’t have kids and were probably eating at their workstations. This was usually the case, which was why no one had noticed that Nina was missing yet. Everyone probably figured she was somewhere else at MBA, taking care of something important.

  Kira looked up from her tablet and waved to me.

  “You can go sit with her if you want,” Dad told me. “I won’t be offended.”

  “I’m fine here,” I said. “I’ll spend the whole day with her in school.”

  Dad poured Tabasco sauce onto his reconstituted eggs. Like many Moonies, Dad put Tabasco sauce on almost everything. Even stuff it shouldn’t have been on. Like pancakes. It was one of the only ways to give the rehydrated food flavor. “I really like Kira,” Dad told me. “I’m glad she’s up here with us.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. Me too, I guess.”

  “You guess?
” Dad repeated. “You’ve seemed a whole lot happier since she got here, now that you have someone else to hang out with besides Roddy.”

  Dad was right. Kira was a lot more fun than Roddy, and I did really like her as a friend. But her presence at MBA was also a little awkward for me. All us Moonies have lots of fans back on earth—they usually call themselves “Moonatics”—and shortly after Kira arrived, it seemed as though every one of them had decided that we ought to be a couple. This wasn’t because any of those Moonatics really knew us; it was because we were a boy and a girl, we were the same age, and there weren’t any other options. It was a Noah’s ark kind of thing. There were thousands of gossip sites that claimed we were going to become a couple any day—while thousands of others claimed we were already dating. (I think I was chosen over Roddy because he was an oddball and the public didn’t like him as much as me.) While I liked Kira as a friend, the idea of dating her seemed kind of weird; we were only twelve, after all. And yet, sometimes, it seemed that even our fellow Moonies—including my parents—felt we should be going out.

  “I wonder where Roddy is,” I said, trying to change the subject.

  “Bet you a million dollars he’s playing virtual-reality games,” Dad replied. “If you want to find out what he saw last night, you’re going to have to jack in.”

  “Great,” I grumbled, then forced down a forkful of space eggs and flushed my mouth with a swig of orange-flavored water.

  Beyond Dad, I could see into the greenhouse, which was a large atrium in the center of MBA across from the mess hall. The biggest window in all of the base was in the roof, allowing sunlight to spill down through it, illuminating the plants inside. Dr. Shari Goldstein, the lunar-agriculture specialist, was already at work. Despite her name, Dr. Goldstein was actually mostly of Chinese descent; everyone in her family had been Asian except her paternal great-grandfather. Normally, she was one of the more cheerful people at MBA, though she sometimes got too invested in her plants, as though they were pets. That morning, she seemed extremely distraught over a sick-looking squash plant. Its leaves had turned brown and she was now cradling it in her arms and crying.