For a second or two, I was certain that I'd just committed suicide.
I'd thrown myself far enough away from the platform that it was unlikely that I'd hit Apollo's upper tiers before I slammed into the crater floor far below. My arms and legs were stretched out as far as I could, forming the snow-angel shape that my paragliding instructor had drilled into me during practice sessions, and I was resisting the instinctive reflex to either curl into a cannon ball or flap my limbs in panic; either one of those would have resulted in a fatal plunge.
Nonetheless, I was falling. Not gliding. Not flying. Falling.
I opened my mouth and was just about to scream when it seemed as if an invisible hand reached up and, ever so gently, began to push against me. I was still falling, but not nearly as fast; air pressure exerted itself against the suit's thin membranes, acting as a force against lunar gravity.
I heard wind in my ears, felt it rush past my face. My velocity remained the same, but my trajectory was changing, becoming more horizontal than vertical. Just as it seemed as if I was about to clip the Tier 3 railing, my body shot forward and...
I was flying.
Not very well, perhaps, or very gracefully. I teetered back and forth, skittering this way and that as I fought for control. But it no longer seemed as if I was about to bury my face in a walkway I'd swept just a couple of hours earlier. Far below, I saw a couple of people look up from the park bench. One of them waved to me. I didn't wave back, but instead kept my arms and legs locked in position.
"Way to go!" Logan yelled.
I carefully looked to my left--my instructor had warned me that my head could act as a rudder and cause me to unintentionally change direction while in flight--and saw him coasting alongside me, only about fifteen feet away. He was grinning as he called out to me again. "Nice jump!"
"Thanks!" I yelled back.
"Jamey!" Nicole shouted, and I looked to my right to see that she'd settled into position on the other side of me. When she caught my eye, she gave me a thumbs-up with her left fist. I managed to respond the same way with my right hand and she grinned.
"Follow me!" she yelled. Then she pulled in her right arm and veered away from Logan and me, heading toward the crater wall.
I knew what she was doing, but I wasn't sure if I was ready for that yet. I didn't have much choice, though. Logan gave a rebel yell as he followed her. If I didn't want to be left behind, I'd have to do the same.
Cursing myself for letting jealousy get me into this, I pulled my right arm in ten degrees and followed them.
I didn't think I'd see Hannah at school. I mean, does anyone ever think they'll be sharing a classroom with the daughter of the president of the United States? Indeed, she later told me that Mr. Porter offered to find private tutors for her. But special treatment was the last thing she wanted; if every other teenager in the colony went to Apollo High, then that's where she'd go, too.
Eddie was almost our age, but he didn't go to Apollo High, nor did he attend Apollo Elementary on the other side of town. The colony didn't have a special-education school because...well, to be honest, because he was the only intellectually disabled kid on the Moon, and the youngsters at the elementary school probably wouldn't have been patient with a fourteen-year-old boy still learning to read picture books. So Dr. Rice found a couple of other doctors at the hospital who were willing to tutor Eddie on his own, and so I didn't see him or his sister Nina quite as often as I had before.
It's always tough to be the new kid in school. Everyone is a stranger, and since they already know each other, you can tell that they're trying to size you up as soon as you walk in. Melissa, Logan, Hannah, and I sat together in the back of the room on the first day, and I thought the twelve other kids in the room would sprain their necks staring back at us. Hannah wore her ball cap, but when it became obvious that this wasn't doing anything to conceal her identity--everyone already knew who she was--she took it off and stuck it under her desk, and I seldom saw her wear it again.
And she almost always sat beside me, even after the four of us who'd come from Earth stopped hanging together as a group. I was a little annoyed by this. I liked her well enough, sure, and had gotten over the fact that she'd taken Jan's place, but nonetheless it felt as if she was clinging to me. And as much as she was attracted to me, I was attracted to someone else...Nicole. I would've preferred to sit next to her, but Logan always found a way to beat me to the seat beside her. A couple of times, I managed to get there before Logan, yet while Nicole was cordial and polite, it soon became clear that she preferred my best friend to me...and whenever I'd glance over my shoulder, I'd find Hannah looking my way.
The only other kid in school I'd met before was Billy. Nicole had told me that there was a good side to him, but if there was, I couldn't find it. He was convinced that I had no business being on the Moon and never missed an opportunity to put me in my place. He hung me with a nickname, "Crip," because of the ankle bracelets I wore while learning to walk in lunar gravity, and continued to call me that even after I got rid of them.
Billy was hardly the swiftest kid in class, but my struggle to catch up was a constant source of amusement for him. He was always ready to make some remark at my expense, usually when I'd get the wrong answer about something everyone else in the room knew by heart, such as the exact circumference of the Moon or when the first American and Russian probes landed there. At first the others thought he was funny, but when it became apparent that he was being a bully for bullying's sake, a couple of people told him to shut up. He put a cork in it, but only reluctantly, and the contempt never left his eyes.
My first impression of Apollo High had been correct; it was much tougher than what I was used to. From seven to twelve, I was immersed in schoolwork so intense that I often had a headache by lunchtime. I'd been a pretty good student back home, usually scoring As and Bs on pop-quizzes and tests, but the rote-learning strategy that once served me well--memorize, regurgitate, forget--didn't work here. My new school wasn't interested in having us develop test-taking skills; our teachers wanted us to truly understand what we were being taught, not just spit out true-or-false answers. So we were expected to come to school prepared to discuss our assignments from the day before, and I soon found that, if I didn't spend enough time doing my homework, I'd be in danger of falling behind. And Apollo High had only two grades: pass or fail.
To make matters worse, one of my teachers was Mr. Lagler himself. Apparently he'd decided to keep secret from Melissa and me the fact that he'd be our language teacher. On the third hour of our first day, though, he sauntered into the room right after the five-minute break following physics class. At first, I thought it was a practical joke; so did Melissa, who laughed out loud when he told us to open our pads to chapter 2 of Introduction to German. But it wasn't a gag; our guardian was also one of our teachers, so there was no question of what we'd be doing after dinner from now on.
Melissa had it worse than Logan and I did. She'd never had classes with her little brother, and so she thought she'd been demoted. It took a while for her to realize that Apollo High didn't have grade-levels and that she'd graduate only when she completed the curriculum, whether she was eighteen or eighty. Back home, she'd spend her days passing notes to other girls, flirting with boys, sneaking naps in the back of the room, and getting her friends to let her peep over their shoulders during tests. None of that happened here. When it was 0700, everyone went to work, period; those five-minute breaks were used for stretching or visiting the restroom, and then our noses were back against the grindstone. And when there's only sixteen kids in the entire school, it's pretty easy to tell when someone is slacking off.
For the first week or so, I felt like I'd been tossed in the deep end with my arms and legs tied together. But just as I'd learned how to swim even though I was incapable of walking, I gradually learned how to cope with a workload far more demanding than what I'd had before. By the end of the second week, the headaches were over and I was too busy to really notice or care who sat beside me.
School occupied only the first part of my day, though. When the magic hour of 1200 rolled around and I'd close my pad, I had a choice of what to do with my time between lunch and dinner.
Back home, I would have usually gone down to the school gym, change out of my street clothes, then join Logan and the rest of the swim team in the pool, practicing for our next meet. Here, the very idea of a pool was absurd. Nicole, who'd been born and raised on the Moon, was appalled that anyone would waste water by swimming in it. "Do you know how many gallons of urine we have to recycle just to grow one tomato?" she once asked me, and I had to admit that I didn't. But there were other ways of having fun.
One of them was moonball. Apollo High had its own team, with Mr. Speci as the coach, which practiced on a court behind the school. Moonball was like a cross between soccer and volleyball. It was played on a fenced-in court with artificial turf and a big net slung halfway across. The ball was about as big as a volleyball, and two teams of five people each bounced it back and forth until someone missed. You couldn't use your hands, though; legs, feet, chest, and head were the only parts of your body that could touch the ball. But you could bounce the ball under the net as well as above it, and the surrounding chain-link fence could be used for ricochet shots.
In one-sixth gravity, you could do stuff that was impossible on Earth. One slick move was the flip-dunk: leap straight in the air, do a forward somersault, kick the ball with your feet, then make a two-point landing that would have you ready to intercept it when it came your way again. Another was striking the ball under the net so that it would come up beneath an unwary opponent's legs. Or simply jumping up and slamming the ball over the net so hard and fast that the other team's rear guard wouldn't be able to stop it before it hit the rear fence.
After watching a few games, I tried my hand at it. Or feet, rather. I gave up after a couple of games, though. I was in pretty good shape for someone who'd spent most of his life in a mobil, but I'd only recently learned how to walk without relying on a pair of crutches; my reflexes simply weren't up to a sport as hard and fast as moonball.
While Mr. Speci was willing to let me try out for the team, Billy was the captain, and he wasn't about to give me a break there either. "Go find a wheelchair, Crip!" he'd yell at me when I'd miss a shot and fall on my face. "You can't play this game!" Mr. Speci had a few words with him about this, but after awhile, I had to admit that Billy was right. Like it or not, a lifetime of sitting in a mobil wasn't good practice for moonball, and so I dropped out.
Rover racing was another sport. Apollo had a couple of teams, mainly comprised of adults but with a few kids as well, which customized lunar rovers for higher performance and raced them across Ptolemaeus. I wouldn't be able to join a team until after I learned how to wear a moonsuit, though, and it would be a while before I reached the point where anyone would let me enter an airlock on my own.
I was about to give up on doing anything after school besides sweeping walkways. By then, I had to volunteer for a Colony Service job, and since spacecraft maintenance was a bit beyond me, I had to settle for menial labor. Custodial work wasn't so bad, though; it gave me a chance to learn my way around Apollo, and it wasn't long before I knew where all the ramps, stairs, and elevators were located. It also let me see Eddie and Nina. Eddie had taken a job working in the solarium gardens, and although his little sister wasn't old enough to be required to do Colony Service, she often went along to help him. Eddie seemed to like what he was doing, and that eased my mind about him. At least he was having an easier time fitting in than I was.
Paragliding was even more risky than moonball, and I thought Logan was crazy to try it, but then I saw how he was using it to make time with Nicole, so...
The crater floor was ringed by a series of air vents, circular shafts that allowed warm air to rise from the atmosphere processing plant beneath Apollo. The vents were evenly positioned about a hundred yards apart from each other, and paragliders had learned how to use the updrafts to keep themselves aloft.
The trick was catching these thermals before you descended too far for them to be useful. Nicole and Logan had turned to head for the nearest vent, and I wasn't far behind them when they passed above its black slats. They abruptly rose, their descent braked by the rising air, then Logan made a deft maneuver by pulling in his arms for a second and going into a quick, shallow dive, then stretching out his wings again and using the added velocity to pass Nicole from underneath.
Nicole laughed out loud, obviously impressed. Okay, I thought, two can play that game.
A couple of seconds later, I passed above the shaft. A warm current of air passed across my body and I felt myself beginning to rise. I kept my arms and legs stretched out as far as I could and allowed the thermal to lift me until I was slightly higher than her and Logan.
And then I pulled in my arms and legs and dove toward them.
Almost immediately, I knew that I'd made a mistake. An experienced paraglider could safely pull a stunt like that, but I wasn't ready for aerobatics and I was too close to the ground. I threw my arms and legs apart again, but I'd already spilled too much air from the suit's membranes. The crater floor was rushing toward me...and worse, my friends were in the way.
"Watch out!" I yelled.
Nicole looked back in time to see me coming. She banked to the left, but Logan didn't react quickly enough. He was still flying straight ahead when I came down upon him from on high. For a second, it seemed as if we were about to collide. We didn't, but I came close enough to him that our hands brushed each other's as I swept past.
"Idiot!" Logan shouted, but I barely noticed. All thoughts of trying to score points with Nicole had vanished; my only concern was making it to the ground without breaking my neck. The next nearest vent was about two hundred feet away, but the heads-up display in the left lens of my goggles informed that this was also my present altitude. I'd never make it. Even at lower gravity, I was coming down too fast....
"Use your chute!"
Nicole must have dived to catch up with me. When I looked to my right, she was beside me, only twenty feet away.
"Use your chute!" she yelled again. "Pull the cord!"
Our parachutes were intended to be used for landings, but they were also there for emergencies. If you get in trouble, my instructor had said, don't try to be a hero. Pull the cord and make apologies later.
Good advice. The rip cord extended through my right sleeve and into the palm of my right glove, its ring firmly attached to my middle finger. I yanked my arm straight up to pull the cord, and a giant claw reached down from the ceiling and grabbed me from behind. The chute had opened; seconds later, I was drifting toward the floor.
It was not a graceful landing. I came down in a goat pen. Anyone standing nearby would've seen my final descent, and I'm sure they were properly amused. I wasn't, and neither was the billy goat that decided I was a menace to society.
I was gathering my chute and trying to avoid being bitten or head-butted when a cart pulled up beside the pen. Mr. Porter was driving, and Hannah was in the front passenger seat. The city manager didn't look very happy with me, but before he could say anything, Hannah jumped out and ran over to the pen, hopping over the fence as if it wasn't there.
"Jamey!" she yelled. "Are you okay?"
Her eyes were wide and her face was pale, and if I hadn't been so angry with myself I might have noticed that she was genuinely concerned. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I grumbled, then looked upward. Logan and Nicole were still airborne, but it looked as if they were headed for the designated touchdown point about a half-mile away. If I knew Logan, he'd have some fine words for me the next time I saw him. "Just great..."
"I was..." Hannah started to reach for me; maybe it was the look in my eyes when I yanked off my goggles that caused her to stop. "When I saw what was happening, I was worried about you."
Great. First moonball, and now this. My humiliation was complete. "Maybe I should stick to sweeping floors," I murmured as I opened the pen gate and carried my chute out of there. "Or chess. You can't get hurt playing chess...maybe."
Hannah was trying not to laugh, but her hands were over her mouth when Mr. Porter approached us. I was too embarrassed to wonder why he and Hannah would have come out to meet me when I landed. "I'm very sorry, sir," I said. "If there's been any damage, I'll..."
"There isn't. Least not as far as I can tell." There was a certain look on his face which stopped me short; all at once, I knew that this wasn't about my attempt at paragliding. "Jamey, something's happened. You need to come with us at once."
"What...?"
Hannah answered me before he did. "There's been a message from your sister Jan."
I thought Mr. Porter was going to take us to City Hall. Instead, we went somewhere I hadn't been before: the Main Operations Center, located on the same underground level as the storm shelter.
Before Mr. Porter and Hannah retrieved me, they had dropped by the flying school to pick up the clothes I'd left in the locker room. I was glad that they had. I didn't want to go walking around in my paragliding outfit...and, to be honest, I wanted to avoid seeing Logan. No doubt he'd have a few things to say about the midair collision we'd nearly gotten ourselves into; the longer he had to cool down, the better.
I changed into the homespun trousers, shirt, and sneakers that had lately become my everyday wear. Apollo manufactured its own clothing from bamboo grown in Ag Dome 1; it was plain but durable, and cost less than clothes imported from Earth. Mr. Porter and Hannah were waiting for me outside; we entered a corridor leading into the crater wall and stepped into an elevator.
A couple of minutes later, Mr. Porter pressed a finger against a lockplate and let a retina scanner examine his left eye. The metal door in front of us clicked, and he pulled it open and led us inside. We found ourselves in the back of a large room with a floor that slanted downward to accommodate rows of control consoles facing an array of wall screens. The lighting was subdued, coming mostly from ostrich-neck lamps; men and women in ISC jumpsuits sat at the consoles, their voices a quiet, constant drone interspaced by the occasional electronic beep, burr, or buzz. The screens displayed split-screen images that changed every few minutes: trucks approaching the industrial park; harvesters moving across the regolith fields; a heavy-lift freighter being prepped for launch; a maintenance crew rappelling down the outside of Apollo's roof dome. It was the beginning of another two-week day, so the sunlight cast long shadows from everything it touched.
Gazing at the screens, once again I felt myself longing to go out on the surface. It had been nearly three weeks since I'd arrived at Apollo, but not once had I left the crater except for brief walks down the underground tunnel leading to Ag Dome 1, where Melissa had taken a Colony Service job helping out in the aeroponic farms. Although I had nearly finished Basic Lunar Skills, my instructor hadn't yet qualified me for moonwalking; I knew how to put on a moonsuit, but it would be still be a while before I'd be allowed to cycle through an airlock. I wasn't exactly cooped-up, but it still felt as if I was living in nothing more than an enormous greenhouse.
"Jamey?" Mr. Porter interrupted my train of thought. "This way, please."
Looking around, I saw that he and Hannah had stopped at the back of MainOps to wait for me. I hurried to catch up with them, using the fast shuffling gait I'd adopted after ditching my ankle bracelets; the trick to walking safely on the Moon was to never let your feet completely leave the ground.
Mr. Porter led us to a conference room just off to one side of the operations center. I was surprised to find Luis Garcia sitting at the long table that dominated the room. I'd seen Mr. Garcia from time to time since the town meeting, but had never had a chance to speak with him. Mr. Porter didn't bother to introduce us, though, and Mr. Garcia merely gave us a quiet nod. I wondered why he was there.
"I've sent someone to get your sister," Mr. Porter said to me once Hannah and I were seated, "but I want to show you something while we wait for her. The reason why I brought you here is that we'll have more privacy than in my office. So everything you see and hear in this room needs to stay here. Understood?"
I was suddenly nervous, but both Hannah and Mr. Garcia were watching me expectantly. "Yes, sir. I understand."
Mr. Porter nodded, then reached to a touchscreen imbedded in the table's polished surface. "As Hannah said, we've received a message from your sister Jan. Before I show that to you and Melissa, though, I want you to see another message, one which we received just yesterday." He glanced at Hannah. "You've seen this already, of course, but I think Jamey ought to take a look at it. Is that all right?"
"Umm...sure, okay." Hannah seemed reluctant, but she nodded anyway.
Mr. Porter tapped his fingers against the keypad and a wall screen at the end of the table lit up. Seated in an armchair was a middle-aged woman with short blonde hair. Although her posture was relaxed, she seemed nervous; it wasn't hard to notice the dark circles under her eyes. It took me a second to realize who she was: Cynthia Wilford, the former First Lady, Hannah's mother.
Mr. Porter touched another key and Ms. Wilford began to speak. "Hello, Hannah...how are you?" A brief smile that looked forced. "I know it's been a long time, but I just wanted to get in touch with you again and let you know that everything is all right...."
From the corner of my eye, I saw Hannah intently watching the screen. She'd raised a hand to her mouth, so I couldn't quite make out her expression, but I could tell that she wasn't pleased.
"I'm okay here," Ms. Wilford went on. "I'm being kept in protective custody until the FBI tracks down the rest of the people responsible for killing your father--" a derisive snort from Hannah "--but I'm very safe and comfortable." Another tentative smile. "I know how much you enjoy Camp David, honey-bunch. Sorry you can't be here...."
"Yeah, right," Hannah whispered.
"I miss you very much, dear, and I want to assure you that there's absolutely no reason why you should stay on the Moon. President Shapar has promised me that you'll be treated well if you come home. The same goes for your friends...their parents are fine, and they'll be detained only until the authorities complete their investigation...."
My throat tightened when she said that. For a second, I was inclined to believe her, if only because I wanted to. But then Hannah looked at me and shook her head.
"So, please, sugar plum...come home." Again, the tortured smile. "I love you very much, and I want to see you again."
Mr. Porter froze the image, then looked at Hannah. "Well?"
Hannah slowly let out her breath. "That was my mother, all right...but the only thing she said that I believe is that she loves me. Everything else is a lie."
I stared at her. "How do you know? She sounded..."
"I know what she sounded like. It's what she said that matters. She mentioned how much I love Camp David, but she knows I can't stand the place and that I hate going out there. I'm not even sure that's where she's being held." Hannah pointed toward the screen. "If you look closely at the background, the walls are plain...but just about every room in Camp David is wood-paneled, and even the chair she's sitting in doesn't look like the furniture there."
"So this could have been recorded just about anywhere," Mr. Garcia said, speaking up for the first time. "Is that what you're saying?"
"Uh-huh...and that's not all. She also called me 'honey-bunch' and 'sugar plum.'" Hannah's nose wrinkled in disgust. "When my father decided to run for president, I told him it would be okay with me so long as his first executive order would be to outlaw cute nicknames for girls. It became sort of an inside joke among my parents. So my mother would never call me anything like that. At least, not unless she was trying to tell me something without anyone catching on."
"Such as, 'don't believe what I'm saying'?"
"Yes, that's what I think she was doing. She was being coerced to tell me to come home, but she doesn't really want me to, so she threw in some stuff that she knew I'd recognize as being false and hoped that I'd catch on." A quick smile. "I guess they've given up the idea that I'm being held hostage by the Chinese."
Mr. Porter turned to me. "We received that yesterday on the standard frequency on which we usually get official US government communiques. I've decided not to publicly release it, though, because I don't want people here thinking that it might be sincere. That's why I'm asking you not to talk about it outside this room."
"I understand," I said, "but why did you want me to...?"
The door opened just then and a constable walked in, followed by Melissa. Her hair was pulled back under a bandana, and the damp, rolled-up sleeves of her overalls showed that she'd come straight from Ag Dome 2. Her impatient gaze flickered across Hannah and me before settling upon Mr. Porter.
"Well?" she demanded. "Where's the message from my sister?"
"We were just coming to that. Please take a seat." Mr. Porter blanked the wall screen before Melissa could see who was on it, then waved her to a chair next to Hannah and me. "I was telling your brother that there's...ah, a possibility...that the message we received about an hour ago might not be authentic, and we need to listen to it carefully to make sure that your sister is really saying what we think she's saying."
Melissa peered at him. "I don't get it. Are you saying that Jan didn't...?"
"What he means is that Jan may not have sent this of her own free will," Hannah said. "You need to listen for anything that might sound wrong."
"Like, for instance, if she were to say, 'Wow, I'd really love a hamburger,' we'd know that's a lie because she's vegetarian," I added.
"Oh...okay," Melissa said, but I could tell that she was still a little confused. It might have helped if Mr. Porter had shown her the earlier message, but he was wise not to do so. Melissa was incapable of keeping secrets; back home, something whispered in her ear during homeroom would be all over school by lunch time.
"All right, then," Mr. Porter said. "If everyone is clear...?" None of us had any more questions, so he tapped his fingers against the keypad again. Once more, the screen lit up...
And there was Jan.
Melissa gasped, and I nearly did the same. In just three weeks, her appearance had completely changed. She was thinner, as if she hadn't been eating often or well. Her hair was no longer either blonde or long; it had been died dark brown and cut to a shag. If I'd seen her on the sidewalk, I might have walked right past without recognizing her.
But that wasn't all. There was a haunted...no, a hunted...look in her eyes that I'd never seen before. Jan was a person who went through life with a smile; there was little that could get her down, no matter how bad things might be. That smile had vanished, and her expression was more serious than I ever seen it before.
She was seated in a metal folding chair. Behind her was a plain brick wall upon which an American flag had been draped. The lighting was bad and the picture was slightly blurred, as if someone had used a pad to record the message. Mr. Porter froze the image and turned to Melissa and me.
"Is that her?" he asked.
"Yeah, but..." I began.
"She looks like hell," Melissa finished. Maybe that's not the way I would've put it, but it got the point across.
"But you confirm that it's her, right?" Mr. Garcia asked. Both of us nodded, and he looked at Mr. Porter. "Go ahead, Loren."
Mr. Porter unfroze the image, and Jan began to speak:
"Melissa...Jamey...hi, it's me." A ghost of smile wavered on her lips. "Just in case you don't recognize me, y'know." She reached up to touch her hair. "Obviously I've made a few changes lately. Had to do it so I wouldn't get caught. The feds have pictures of me all over the net, so...well, it's not something I like a lot, but so far it's helped keep me out of jail, so..."
The smile vanished. "Anyway, I've got to keep this short, so I'll get right to it. First, I'm safe. I managed to get away from the island when the federal marshals showed up. I don't want to say exactly how, just in case someone sees this who shouldn't, but...well, someone gave me a uniform and a badge so that it looked like I worked there, so when Dad and the others were arrested, the feds missed me. I've been on the run ever since.
"Second...so far as we know, Dad is safe, too. But he's been arrested and charged with conspiring to kill President Wilford, so there's no way anyone's going to set him free. We think he and the others...Logan's parents, Mr. and Ms. Hernandez, a lot of other ISC people...are being held somewhere in upstate New York, but we're not sure. But at least they're alive, and hopefully unharmed. When I say 'we.' I mean..."
She paused to glance past us, as if listening to someone behind the camera. A couple of moments went by, then she went on. "Look, I have to be careful about how I say this, but...I've managed to hook up with some people. They really don't have a name for themselves other than the Resistance, but they're getting better organized with every day, and--" once again, the furtive smile "--they've got friends on the inside. Lina Shapar may be in the White House, but that speech Hannah Wilford made was seen by a lot of people in Washington, and they now know what really happened to her father." She shrugged. "I know you were upset when I gave up my seat on the shuttle for her, but I'm glad that I did it. If she hadn't gotten the word out, things here would be in even worse shape than they are now."
Hearing a quiet sob from beside me, I glanced at Hannah. She was holding a clenched fist before her face, and tears leaked from her eyes. She seemed to be having trouble looking at the screen. Then Melissa, who'd snarled at her when she'd taken Jan's place, reached out to take her hand, silently letting her know that all had been forgiven.
"Now here's the most important thing, the reason why I'm calling you in the first place." Jan leaned closer, staring straight at the camera. "Whatever you do...whatever anyone on the Moon does...you cannot give up. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Because the main thing Lina Shapar and her people want is power, absolute and total power...and the only way they'll get it is if they can gain control of the helium-3 pipeline. So long as Apollo remains free, though, they won't be able to do that. Sooner or later, the helium-3 supply will start to run low. When that happens, the Resistance will be able to make its move. But if Apollo folds..."
She stopped, shook her head. "I think you get the idea. So you need to spread the word. Stay firm, don't give in...and be ready, because I think it's a pretty good bet that, sooner or later, Shapar will try to take control of the Moon, even if it means sending in military forces."
Jan let out her breath, sat back in her chair. "Okay, that's all for now. I'll try to get back in touch with you...well, whenever I can." She struggled to smile. "I love both of you. Stay well. Bye..."
That was it. The message abruptly ended, as if someone had pushed a button.
No one spoke. For about a minute or so, we stared at the blank screen, each of us taking in what we'd just heard. Then Mr. Porter cleared his throat. "Was that really your sister?" he asked Melissa and me again.
"That was her," I said, and Melissa quietly nodded.
"Any hidden messages? Any double-meanings?"
Melissa raised an eyebrow, not understanding what he meant by that. "No, sir," I replied. "Not like..." I glanced at Hannah, and everyone but my sister caught my meaning.
"I didn't think so. If this had been some sort of trick, they wouldn't have changed her appearance." Mr. Porter let out his breath. "She's a brave young lady. No telling what she's been through."
"How did we get this message?" Mr. Garcia asked. "It couldn't have been sent via the usual channels."
"No, it wasn't. We received it earlier this afternoon as an unencrypted file attached to routine data sent from a ISC relay station in Morocco, and even they don't know exactly where it came from." Mr. Porter shook his head in admiration. "The Resistance must have bounced it from one pirate server to another to prevent anyone from tracking it back to its source, until someone hacked into the Morocco station and concealed their message in another transmission. However they pulled it off, though, they did their job well. The point of origin has been scrambled by privacy-protection software. Even the time stamps have been deleted to prevent anyone from knowing which time zone it came from."
"That indicates a certain amount of technical sophistication," said Mr. Garcia. "I'd be willing to bet they've established an underground network operating as individual cells and communicating with each other through pirate ISPs." He glanced at me. "Your sister probably belongs to one of those cells, and they asked her to pass along a message to us since you'd be able to confirm her as a legitimate source."
"I think she just wanted to let us know that she's okay," I said, trying not to bristle at the implication that Jan was being used by the Resistance.
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm sure she wanted to do that, too." Mr. Garcia favored me with a placating smile. "But that last part wasn't meant for just you and Melissa...it was intended to be heard by everyone on Apollo." The smile faded. "It was a warning, plain and simple. We can't back down even if it means that Shapar might come for us...and I have no doubt that she will."
Something clutched at my guts. I remembered what Billy's uncle had said during the town meeting: You're going to be singing a different tune when the Marines land! At the time, I thought Mr. Hawthorne was just blowing smoke, but if the Chief Ranger was taking this seriously...
"If that's so," Mr. Porter said, "then we need to prepare ourselves...beginning with letting everyone know what we've learned." He looked at Melissa and me. "Would the two of you mind if we put your sister's message on the colony newsnet? We'll edit out the personal stuff at the beginning, of course, but I think the rest of Apollo needs to hear what she has to say."
"Sure...no problem," I said, and Melissa murmured in agreement.
"Thank you." He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. "I think the three of you can go now," he added. "Luis and I need to discuss some things in private."
"Certainly." Hannah pushed back her chair. "C'mon, Jamey...you can tell me about the jump you just made."
That was the last thing I wanted to talk about, but Mr. Garcia became interested. "Did you go paragliding today?" he asked as I stood up.
"Umm...yes, sir."
"First big jump?"
"Yes, sir." I felt my face grow warm.
"Well...you're still walking, so that's an achievement. You should try it again."
I didn't know quite what to say, so I nodded. Mr. Garcia gave me a wink, then turned to Mr. Porter. Whatever they wanted to discuss, it wouldn't be while there were kids in the room. So I followed Hannah from the room, with Melissa right behind us.
There was no one to take the three of us back the way we'd come, so I strolled slowly across the back of MainOps, gazing at the massive wall screens. I knew I'd eventually get a chance to leave the crater and walk on the Moon; after all, no one was keeping me a prisoner here.
Okay, so what then? I'd just be doing the same thing as the occasional tourist who paid big money to visit Apollo: put on a moonsuit, hop around, maybe take some pictures. And the rest of the time, I'd spend my days parasailing, sweeping floors, and going to school.
Meanwhile, Jan would be on the run, working for the Resistance while trying to find a way to rescue Dad. The enormity of what they were going up against was utterly terrifying: the entire United States government, with a power-crazy witch as president. No one had to tell me that the odds were against my sister and friends, or that they might lose their lives before it was all over.
What right did I have to be safe while she was in danger? How could I even consider having fun while my sister was fighting for my right to be free?
"Jamey...c'mon." Melissa stepped past me to tug at my arm. "We're not supposed to be here."
I started to follow her toward the door, then stopped. Once we left MainOps, the door would lock behind us; my fingerprints and retina scans wouldn't open it for us again. If I left, an opportunity would be lost....
"Jamey...!" MeeMee's voice was an anxious whisper, but a few controllers were staring over their shoulders at us. "Let's go!"
Hannah stopped at the door. She turned to look back at me. "You're thinking about Jan, aren't you?" she asked quietly, and I nodded. "You want to do something for her, don't you?"
"Yeah...yeah, I do."
She nodded solemnly. "Then go do it."
Without another word, I pulled my arm from Melissa's grasp, then turned and walked back to the conference room. Mr. Porter and Mr. Garcia were huddled together at the other end of the table. Both looked up in surprise when I came back in.
"Yes, Jamey?" Mr. Porter asked, a little perturbed by my interruption. "What do you...?"
"Mr. Garcia, about Lunar Search and Rescue...the Rangers, I mean." I swallowed. "It's also a defense force, isn't it? For the colony?"
Mr. Garcia slowly nodded. "That's one of our responsibilities, yes. Why do you ask?"
"I want to join...sir."
He said nothing, and neither did Mr. Porter. The two men regarded me with silent appraisal, as if trying to figure out whether I was serious or just acting out of childish impulse. I stood there and stared back at me, trying to ignore the trembling in my knees and the cold sweat seeping down my armpits.
"Search and Rescue isn't just another Colony Service job, Jamey," Mr. Garcia said after a few moments. "It's one of the most dangerous things we do here. If you join, it'll be hard work for you from here on out."
"I...I know that, sir."
"Have you finished Basic yet?"
"No, sir, but I'm nearly through the course."
Mr. Garcia said nothing, but I could tell that he was reluctant to take on someone who hadn't even stepped outside the dome. "This is Connie Barlowe's son," Mr. Porter said quietly. "Courage runs in their family, I think."
Mr. Garcia nodded but didn't look away from me. "I knew your mother," he said. "She died saving your life. Think you can live up that?"
"I don't know," I said truthfully. "If you'll give me a chance, I'll try."
Mr. Garcia didn't respond. He and Mr. Porter looked at each other again. Neither of them said anything, but Mr. Porter slowly nodded. The Chief Ranger let out his breath, then he turned to me once more.
"Sleep on it," he said. "If you still feel the same way tomorrow, come to my office at 1300 sharp and I'll sign you up for training."
"Thank you, sir," I said.
He shook his head. "Don't thank me yet. Not until you've done your walkabout." Then he waved me toward the door. "Now go. Get out of here before I change my mind."