Leaping to the Stars Read online

  "Alexei said the same thing. Sort of."

  Boynton nodded. "We're all in a very high-stakes game and we don't have a lot of time. We need to know now, Charles. Do you still want to go to Outbeyond?"

  I looked to Douglas. He nodded. "Stinky wants to see the dinosaurs."

  "Can we still go?" I asked.

  Boynton looked to me. "Does that monkey still work?"

  "I don't know," I admitted.

  "Do you want to try it now?" he asked.

  "No," I said.

  "Your contract is predicated entirely on the operation of that HARLIE unit … "

  "No. Not until our family is together again."

  "You're not being very cooperative, Charles."

  "So what?" I was tired of being polite. "I don't know you. You're just someone else who wants the monkey. Why should I trust you? I don't know anybody on this ugly airless dirt ball except my mom and my brothers. Everybody wants us to trust them, but so far every single person who's said they were going to help us has lied to us and used us and betrayed us. And I don't see any reason to think that you're any different. You don't want me and you don't want my family. You said so yourself. You want the monkey. The only reason you're willing to take us anywhere is so you can get your hands on it. And as much as I want to see the dinosaurs, I don't want to see them so badly that I'm willing to trust you or anyone else anymore."

  He blinked. "You're right," he said. He sat back in his seat.

  "Huh?"

  "I said, 'You're right.' "

  "And?"

  He shrugged. "And nothing. You're right. I told you up front that I wanted the monkey. And I told you up front that if you didn't have the monkey, we didn't want you. And I told you up front that you wouldn't get any special privileges. And you can't say I wasn't honest about that. So the only question you have to answer is this one—do you want to go to Outbeyond or not? If the answer is yes, then let's go. And if not, then we'll go without you. But I have to know now, Charles, because they're waiting for my call. Do I load your cabin with noodles or Dingillians?"

  DECISIONS

  Boynton left us alone then, and Douglas and I talked—about everything and nothing and everything again. And when we were through talking, we were back where we started.

  Finally I said, "I don't know what I want to do anymore, Douglas. I don't know what to do. I thought I wanted to go, but now—I don't know. I thought that we were all going together, and be a family again, but without Dad—"

  "Without Dad, we're still a family. You and me and Bobby."

  "But it won't be the same."

  "It wasn't going to be the same anyway. We divorced them. And then he added, "Charles, we've come too far to quit. We can't go back and we can't stay here. We have to go on. Daddy wanted us to have this chance. If he were here, he'd tell us to keep going. You know that, don't you?"

  "Yeah, I guess so."

  "So what's holding you back?"

  "I don't know." I pulled the monkey onto my lap. "I guess—I guess I just don't want to leave like this—"

  "What is it you want?"

  "I want to get even. With Alexei. And everybody else who hurt us. Especially the people who killed Dad."

  "Yeah, me too—but we're going to have to choose. Revenge or dinosaurs."

  "I want both."

  "Me too. But if you had to choose, one or the other, which is more important?"

  I hung my head.

  Douglas leaned close and whispered into my ear. "Yes, it hurts now, Chigger. And it's going to hurt for a long long time. But there's going to come a day when it won't hurt quite as much. Do you want to give these bastards a room rent-free in your head? Or do you want to find out if living well really is the best revenge?"

  I started to shake my head—an I-don't-know gesture—then I stopped. I sat up straight and turned to look at him. "Douglas, this really is an Important Moment, you know."

  "Yes, I know."

  "No, not because of that—" I said. "But because this is the first time in my life that I actually listened to you and realized that you were right."

  His eyes widened, just a little bit, then he smiled that big goofy grin of his that I hadn't seen in way too long. "I have bad news for you, kiddo. I think you're growing up."

  "Geez, just because you won one, you don't have to insult me." I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet. "Okay, I'll talk to Boynton."

  "Do you want me to come with?"

  "Yeah."

  Douglas helped me up, but I insisted on doing my own walking. I had to use the handholds to keep from falling over, but I made my way to the back of the cabin where Boynton sat hunched over a screen, talking grimly into his headset. It must have been important because he looked unhappier than usual. When he saw Douglas and me coming, he switched off his clipboard and turned his attention completely to us.

  I lowered myself onto a seat. "Okay," I said. "What do I have to do?"

  Boynton pointed toward the monkey. "Turn it on." He added, "We need to know if that thing still works."

  "What if it doesn't?" I said.

  "Then … I'm sorry."

  "Nope. No deal."

  "I beg your pardon?" Boynton gave me one of those startled grown-up looks—that confused look that adults get when they realize you mean it.

  "Let's make a new deal," I said. "We go to Outbeyond whether or not the monkey works. If it works, we put it at the service of the colony. If it doesn't work—we still go to Outbeyond."

  Boynton studied me. "You could die there," he said, but I noticed he wasn't trying to talk me out of it.

  "We could die here," I replied. "In fact, we almost certainly will if we stay anywhere in this solar system. I'm not losing any more of my family. So that's the deal, sir, take it or leave it."

  Boynton nodded, thinking it over. I guessed he was trying to figure out if I meant it or not. Finally, he said, "I'm not used to being blackmailed by a thirteen-year-old."

  "Fourteen next month."

  "We'll have a party." He closed his eyes for a moment, computing something inside his head. Weighing the risks, I guess. "All right, you win."

  "Put it in writing please."

  "My word isn't good enough?"

  "No, sir. It isn't."

  "If my word isn't any good, Charles, why do you think a piece of paper will be any better?"

  "A piece of paper lets us file an injunction to keep you from boosting."

  "You'll need an awfully smart lawyer to stop us."

  I patted the monkey, still attached to my side.

  Boynton smiled slyly. "If that lawyer still works, you won't need to sue, will you?"

  He had me there. "But I still want it in writing."

  He opened his clipboard and dictated something hastily. He held it up for me to see. I nodded. He signed, then I signed. "Done." Then he added, "You may live to regret this contract, you know."

  "Probably," I agreed. But we were both smiling. Abruptly a thought occurred to me. "You agreed too easily. Why?"

  Boynton turned and looked out the porthole. The empty Lunar terrain slid past. It was beautiful and ugly all at the same time. Ferocious and mysterious and awesome. The bright blue Earth was visible on the horizon. This would probably be the last time either of us would ever see a view like this. "Aren't you curious how we found you so fast?"

  "Uh—" Everything had happened so quickly, I hadn't had time to think about it.

  "These were some pretty bad people," Boynton added, pointedly.

  "They told us where you were," Douglas said.

  "Huh? Why?" I must have looked confused.

  "Work it out, Charles." That was Boynton. "Everybody wants the monkey. Everybody. Especially Lunar Authority. You get kidnapped by invisibles—and as long as you and the monkey are missing, Authority has a very good reason to start cracking down on the tribes. All of them. And remember, Luna's invisible tribes are all anarchists. They aren't united. They don't trust each other. The other tribes weren't happy that the R
ock Fathers had the monkey. It would give them too much power—if they could get it working. So Authority used that. They put out the word that they would officially recognize any tribe who helped them track down your kidnappers—and the monkey."

  "And that worked?"

  "Nope. Not at all," said Boynton. "But it shows you how desperate Lunar Authority was—if that was their opening offer. But as much as all the tribes distrust each other, they distrust the Authority even more. See, Charles, they don't want to be recognized. They want to stay invisible."

  "So what happened?"

  "Nothing at first. And then … a very weird thing. Anonymous messages started showing up on the public networks. Everywhere. Every sixty minutes, another piece of invisible Luna was made public. Some of the messages listed which names were fictitious personalities and who was behind them. Some contained the locations of private farms. Some tracked the financial connections that invisible Luna had to public corporations. Others gave away the private dealings that allowed the invisibles to funnel money out of the system. All kinds of things like that. One message had a very embarrassing video showing the—well, never mind. By the time the fifth message showed up, the whole planet was in an uproar. Six investigations have been started. Seventeen public officials have resigned, twenty-three have been indicted. The Lunar stock exchange has closed down for the first time in one hundred and thirty years. There have been three suicides—and the firestorm is just starting. Luna's going to be in chaos for years."

  "Wow," I said. I looked to Douglas. He nodded in confirmation.

  "Every message said the same thing," Boynton explained. "That the privacy of the invisibles would be destroyed, one piece at a time, a new message every sixty minutes, for as long as it took, until you and the monkey were returned safely to your family. Every tribe on Luna was going to be held responsible for your kidnapping."

  "Who sent those messages?"

  "They weren't signed," said Douglas.

  Boynton added, "We do know that the Rock Fathers were given an ultimatum by the other tribes: End this now or the Rock Fathers will be erased." He glanced at his PITA. "Five hours ago, we received an anonymous message telling us where to find you." Boynton looked at me oddly. "Now, you tell me, Charles. Who do you know who has the power to do something like that?"

  "Uh—?" We both looked at the monkey.

  "Right. That's why I wasn't too worried about making a deal with you." He said it with finality.

  Very slowly, I unclipped the monkey from my side and held it up in front of me at arm's length. I looked it in the eye. Its plastic grin was emotionless.

  Yes, it all made sense. When we were in Alexei's ice mine at the Lunar south pole, I told the monkey to hide until I whistled it home. The monkey had hidden in Alexei's office … where it had amused itself by tapping into his system, his network, his files.

  And why not? It was curious. It was doing what it was designed to do—look for data.

  But Alexei would have had all his files encrypted, wouldn't he?

  It didn't matter.

  HARLIE had decrypted them. He had the processing power. And he had the ability to offload processes onto other machines, as many as necessary. The more I thought about it, I knew exactly what he'd done. HARLIE had unlocked Alexei's files and passwords and he'd found all of Alexei's links to the rest of invisible Luna; he'd searched out those links too, opening and decrypting them; and every node he opened gave him access to that many more. He must have been doing it for days. By now, he'd probably hacked into every node on Luna, every domain, every server, every memory bar. That's how he knew what to release, what would be most damaging—

  Oh my.

  "You bad bad monkey!" I said, shaking it angrily. "That's two planets you've wrecked now."

  Boynton wasn't amused, but before he could say anything his clipboard beeped. He opened it up and read something on the screen. I couldn't see what it was, but it had a flashing red banner. He read it twice, said something nasty, then slammed his clipboard shut.

  He pointed to the monkey. "Turn it on," he ordered.

  I sang to the monkey. Brahms's first symphony. Fourth movement. The part that Douglas's high school appropriated for the melody of the school song. "All hail, Alma Mater, we sing with a joyous cry. We pledge our allegiance to Tube Town Senior High … " At least that's the way Douglas sang it. Nobody called the school by its real name, some forgotten governor or president that nobody cared about.

  Nothing happened.

  NO DEAL

  Well, not quite nothing.

  After a moment, the monkey came to life. But it was only a monkey. HARLIE wasn't there.

  The important part didn't happen.

  I opened the back and looked. The HARLIE modules were still in place. The ready lights were blinking green. It was working. But it wasn't working.

  I looked to Boynton. "I didn't do anything. Honest." I wanted to take the cards out of the monkey and look at them, but I wouldn't know what to look for, and besides, the LEDs said the cards were working fine. And the last time I'd opened the monkey, HARLIE himself had told me not to touch anything. So I just closed it back up again. "HARLIE?" I said to the monkey. "It's all right. We're safe now. You can come back."

  The monkey just grinned. At least it didn't give me a farkle-berry—or any of the other rude gestures that Stinky had taught it.

  Boynton looked away, muttering something unintelligible.

  "Sir?"

  He scowled impatiently. "We need that thing to work." He said it with exasperation. "If it doesn't work—"

  "We have a deal," I reminded him.

  "Kid—if that thing is dead, the deal is worthless. Nobody's going to Outbeyond."

  I might have been weak, but I still had enough strength to get angry. "You liar! You break promises even faster than my Dad—!" I was immediately sorry I'd said it that way.

  "I'm not breaking my promise."

  "You just said—"

  "You don't listen very well, do you!" He thundered at me, suddenly angry. "I didn't say you're not going. I said we're not going."

  "Huh—?"

  He said it loud enough that everybody in the cabin heard. Carol Everhart came bouncing back, followed by two or three people I didn't know. "What's going on—?"

  Boynton held up his clipboard and waved it in a gesture of futility and frustration. "While we were rescuing the Dingillian kid, the Rock Fathers attacked the Cascade. Remember what you said on the way out? 'This is too easy—?' Well, now we know why. They could afford to give him up. They knew we weren't going anywhere—the monkey stays on Luna after all."

  "They damaged the ship?"

  Boynton nodded unhappily.

  "How bad—?"

  He shook his head. "They're still assessing. We'll know more in a few minutes. Lambert and Christie are working on it." He paused, just long enough to get his temper back under control. "Lambert says we killed three of them and wounded two, but they still managed to set off an EMP-grenade under the command bay. We were lucky, the bridge was powered down for service—but the IRMA unit was running a simulation … "

  Everhart got it first. "Oh crap."

  "Right. IRMA's dead. And even if IRMA can be repaired, Lambert won't say what her confidence will be." He said it like a death sentence. "Without IRMA, we can't achieve hyperstate." He nodded toward the monkey. "That's the real reason I agreed to your deal so quickly, Charles. I wanted HARLIE to replace the IRMA unit—"

  "He's not dead," I said.

  "How do you know that?"

  "I just know."

  "All right, fine. Then we have seven days to get him working again."

  BACON AND ANGST

  It was a long ride back. I curled up next to Douglas and finally fell asleep with his arm around me. The next thing I knew, we were landing at Outbeyond Station—it was three in the morning, biological time—and Mom and Stinky and Mickey and even Bev were all crowding around, hugging and kissing and making the kind of fuss that wo
uld have been embarrassing if I hadn't been so happy to see them.

  Outbeyond Station was a hundred klicks away from the launch catapult, hidden at the bottom of a deep crater so it would be sheltered by the steep walls around it if anything blew up. Like the catapult.

  Not that there was any danger of that happening under normal conditions, but these weren't normal conditions. The invisibles had already attacked the starship command module. Who knew what else they might try? The Outbeyond folks knew that a lot of valuable goods would be transshipping through this station and they'd planned it with security in mind. Apparently, the invisibles weren't just anarchists, they were pirates too.

  I wasn't surprised. By now, I was beyond surprise. So far, on this entire adventure, we hadn't met a single adult who could be trusted when our backs were turned. Even Mom and Dad—

  That part hurt the most.

  Dad.

  Everything had all been settled. Everything was going to work out. Me and Douglas and Stinky, we were going to have our independence—and we'd still have Mom and Dad too. And we'd all be together. And we'd be out of El Paso. We'd be someplace interesting, where we could actually make a difference. And we'd even be rich, sort of.

  And then … Alexei Krislov and his people had screwed everything up for us—and for everybody else too. Out of their own damned selfishness. Why did people think that way? What if the monkey really was broken? If the Cascade couldn't get to Outbeyond all those colonists would die. And the Rock Fathers would be guilty of murder—again. Not just Dad. Everybody on Outbeyond too. Were these people so stupidly greedy that they'd kill for power? Obviously, the answer was yes.

  And Douglas didn't want me to think about revenge. He said that was the wrong way to think. But if you didn't do something, then what? Didn't they deserve to be punished? Didn't we have a right to get even? To that, Douglas said, "There's no such thing as getting 'even.' It's just giving the other guy as much pain as you've got." Which sort of made sense to me—because at least then everybody would be hurting the same. Which is exactly what Douglas said didn't make sense.