Ambush (17 page)
There wasn't much surface on the disc small enough for the ant-bot to actually get a grip on it. But it didn't matter. I had aimed my jump well enough to land beside the single strand of tape that held the disc against the inside surface of the vent.
First I pried a small part of the edge of the tape off the disc. I unwrapped the thread from the ant-bot arm and pushed it against the sticky underside of the tape. I tugged. It wasn't much of a tug. A human hand would have easily ripped the thread loose. But the ant-bot didn't have that kind of strength, and the thread remained in place.
Then I began the longer task of cutting the tape where it joined between the disc and the vent.
The ant-bot hands were tiny, and the tape seemed as thick as a slice of bread might look to human eyes. But since ant-bot hands were made of titanium, it was easy to claw through the tape.
When I finished cutting the tape on both sides of the disc, I had one last task.
I pulled on the thread to get a little slack. I looped it a couple of times around the ant-bot's neck. Then in my mind I shouted,
“Stop!”
Instantly I woke up back in the robot lab.
Ashley and I stood in the corridor with a vent cover hanging beside us.
She held a piece of thread in her hands and slowly pulled.
Because there was no gravity, I knew she didn't feel the weight of the disc on the other end of the thread. But she kept pulling, trusting that the ant-bot had done the job properly.
As she kept reeling in thread, the disc appeared. She grabbed it with her hand and gave it to me.
I loosened the thread where the ant-bot had stuck it to the tape on the disc. Hanging from the thread was the tiny body of the ant-bot.
“Mission accomplished.” I grinned. “One disc. And one recovered ant-bot.”
“You mean step one accomplished,” she corrected me. “Now we need to find out what's on the disc.”
“This is it.” I waved my opened comp-board at Ashley. “In five minutes, we're going to have all the answers.”
We were back in the entertainment cluster, alone. It had taken hardly any time to retrieve my comp-board from Blaine Steven.
“How can you know that? You haven't even opened the disc yet.”
“I'm not talking about just the disc.” It was in the front pocket of my jumpsuit. All I needed to do was fit it into the discport on the right-hand side of the comp-board, and we'd find out what was on it. But first the other information. “Blaine Steven had my comp-board for the last hour. Heâ”
“Blaine Steven? You let him access your computer?”
I explained why. “See this,” I said as I clicked on the file with my questions for him. The words sprang into shape on my screen. I leaned over to let Ashley share my view of it. “I put in the questions and he's given the answers.”
I read it silently with her.
Why do you think Dr. Jordan and this mastermind person want you dead?
Because I know how the Terratakers work. I know too much about them. I can expose them and testify against them. They don't care whether I ever intend to do anything against them. They will get rid of me simply because it is a safe thing to do. I was never afraid of them when I was on Mars because they needed me when I was director. But as I get closer to Earth, I am more afraid. Especially because I hear Dr. Jordan having conversations in the bunk beside me. I can't hear the words; I just know that someone is visiting him late at night. The mastermind. I know that if they wanted me to continue to be part of the rebels, the mastermind would come to my bunk too. But they are leaving me alone.
Why would they want everyone else on the ship dead? Because it is safer for them. If they escape the Moon Racer, they will be picked up by a rebel space shuttle. Dr. Jordan won't be arrested then. The mastermind will be able to disappear into the underworld of the Terratakers, who are spread across the world. And if they are the only survivors, no one will ever be able to contradict them.
Why should I believe anything you tell me?
If you don't believe me now, you will when something starts going wrong with the Moon Racer. If it isn't an explosive device, which is my first guess, it will be something else. I hope I'm wrong about all of this. If we make it to Earth safely, then you can laugh at me as the military officials arrest me.
Why should Dad or I help you?
I have many, many secrets that can help the World United Federation defeat the rebels before they find a way to start a new world war. That is their goal. Once a war begins and the confederation of countries splits up, they can take advantage of the confusion and of the weaker countries.
I was about to comment when,
Bing!
The tinny noise from my comp-board jolted me away from the words on the screen.
My e-mail announcement. Mail had just arrived.
“Hang on,” I said to Ashley. I clicked a few buttons on the keyboard to open my e-mail. “Hopefully it's from Rawling. That will give us even more information.”
The e-mail symbol jumped into the foreground of the screen, leaving my question-and-answer interview with Blaine Steven in the background.
I double-clicked to open the new e-mail.
“Yep,” I said. “Rawling.”
From: “Rawling McTigre”
To: “Tyce Sanders”
Sent: 03.06.2040, 4:13 p.m.
Subject: Re: questions
Tyce,
I still don't have anything to tell you that might be of help. I'll keep looking, however, and get to you immediately if I learn anything
.
Rawling
P.S. The elbow is getting better. I know it hurts me a lot less than it hurt other people in my old hockey days on Earth!
“I knew it!” I pointed at the screen. “I just knew it!”
“If you get any more excited, you'll start to drool.” Ashley frowned. “And I don't see much to get excited about.”
“He normally signs off differently.” I told Ashley about how Rawling always ended his e-mails to me with “carpe diem, Rawls.”
“So he forgot,” Ashley said. “He
is
director of the Mars Dome. Plus, he's got to be worried about this spaceship. With everything else happening on Mars ⦔
“He's also taking a lot longer than usual to reply.”
“Because he's taking all that time to try to find answers for you.”
I shook my head. “The Rawling I know would fire off an immediate e-mail explaining that it might take a while to get what he needs.”
“The Rawling you know? Meaning this Rawling isâ”
“Someone else.” I pointed at the P.S. of the e-mail and read it out loud. “âThe elbow is getting better. I know it hurts me a lot less than it hurt other people in my old hockey days on Earth!'”
“Even I understand what he means,” Ashley said, still unimpressed at my excitement. “In hockey, players sometimes elbow other players.”
“Not Rawling. He didn't play hockey in his university days. He played football.”
Ashley's eyes widened as she began to understand.
“Look at my original e-mail to him.”
She reread it with me.
“Remember, you're no longer the young hockey player of your university days that I've heard so much about.”
“I wrote that because I knew he was a quarterback. If it was Rawling who received the message and if it was Rawling who wrote back, he would have corrected me, not agreed with me!”
“Someone else is intercepting your e-mail?”
“Who has control of the computers on board this ship?”
“Lance Evenson!” Ashley was getting as excited as I was. “The same guy who hid a disc.”
“Yes. The same guy whoâ” I hit my head. “No, no, no!” I began to fumble with my comp-board.
“Tyce?” Ashley asked.
I didn't take the time to answer. I frantically clawed at a small compartment on the underside of my keyboard. I needed to pull out the battery and shut down my computer.
In front of our eyes, the words on the comp-board screen were beginning to dissolve.
The same person who had intercepted my e-mail was logged on to my computer through the mainframe. And trying to destroy all the information on it!
“Dad!” I shouted. “Dad!”
I wasn't even all the way down the tube that led to the navigation cone. “Dad! Are you there!”
If he wasn't in front of his controls, I didn't want to waste time going all the way down and then back up.
“Yes, I'm here, Tyce.” His calm voice helped me relax. He would know what to do. And how to do it.
I dropped into the navigation cone. Dad spun around in his chair. His face was tired.
“I think I have the answers you need,” I said.
“Good, because I don't seem to be getting anywhere by myself. What have you got?”
“A quick quiz.”
“Ready.”
“What,” I asked, “do all of these have in common: ship controls, escape pod controls, e-mail, networks, and Lance Evenson?”
I answered it for him. “Mainframe computer. All of the commands you give through the controls here are handled by the mainframe. Right? Same with everything else. In fact, just about every single thing on this ship is controlled through the mainframe. And who handles the mainframe? Lance Evenson.”
“He doesn't have all the passwords. Without them, he can't override the pilot controls.”
“Say somehow he did. Then won't you agree he's the one person who would have complete control of the ship? the one person who could activate an escape pod as soon as he needs it?”
“Well ⦔
“Follow me,” I said. “And hopefully I can prove it.”
He rose from his pilot's chair.
“Dad, you'd better unlock your neuron gun for this.”
We met Ashley back at the entertainment cluster. She had her own comp-board open on her lap.
“Did it work?” I asked her.
She nodded. “I plugged the port on the back of the compboard by pressing my finger against it, just like you suggested.”
“Good,” I said. With my comp-board out of commission, Ashley had gone to get hers while I found Dad. “And did you find what I thought you'd find on Lance's disc?”
Ashley nodded again. “A security override program. If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like I can get anywhere inside the mainframe with it.”
“Dad?” I said softly.
“This is serious. But it still doesn't explain how someone on the mainframe can interfere with the pilot controls. My password is only registered on Earth, with the military, and it's under the tightest security you could imagine. It would only be given out in an emergency situation if someone else had to take over this ship.”
“There's more on this disc,” Ashley said. She held out the comp-board screen.
Dad looked over my shoulder. When he saw the contents of the disc, he whistled. “Look at the labels on those files! Communication files. E-mail files. Reports and documents. It's like years of information stolen from the Mars Dome computer!”
“How much would that be worth on Earth?” I asked. “All that information? Sold to the wrong people, like the rebels?”
Dad shook his head. “Enough, I guess, that whoever owned this disc would find it worthwhile to let everyone else on the ship die. I just never thought it would be Lance.”
Dad made his decision. “What we do next is take this disc to Lance. We'll see what he has to say about it.”
Ashley and I followed.
I couldn't help but notice that as Dad led the way, he touched the neuron gun on his hip. As if he were making sure it was there and ready.
“No,” Lance said. He groaned. “That's my disc. But it's not me doing everything else.”
Dad and Ashley and I had met him at the computer control center. Dad had not said much beyond a quiet hello before asking permission to insert the disc into the mainframe.