Space Station Rat (2 page)

Jeff braced his legs. The Velcro boots seized the carpet and his feet slid in their looseness. He stumbled onto his hands and knees. The quick change felt like going over the top on a roller coaster. A sick feeling churned his stomach. He stared at the carpet, sure his face was as red as the red stripe showing the way to the toilets. Usually it was okay to run around Ring 9. The captain did not like being in high-gravity parts of the space station. It made him feel his weight. It made him grumpy.

“Where's the fire, huh?”

“Boots're too big.” Jeff shifted into a squat and yanked the straps as tight as they would go.

“That's no excuse for running, is it? What if I was carrying acid and you ran into me? It's dangerous, running.”

What could he say?

“Where's your emergency mask?”

Jeff patted his hip. The space station was under meteor alert. He was supposed to carry the emergency oxygen mask in case a meteor punctured the station. “I had it a minute ago. It must have fallen off.”

“While you were running. Another reason not to.”

Jeff had to agree. Meteors made him nervous. They reminded him that black space, empty and deadly, waited just on the other side of the walls.

Meteors traveled so fast that one the size of a marble could punch a hole in the space station's outer wall. Smaller ones just bounced off, but they jiggled things. That really upset Jeff's parents. They needed everything steady for their experiments.

Meteors bigger than a softball never hit the station. They were targeted and destroyed by the trackers before they could. The trackers couldn't detect meteors between marble- and softball-sized soon enough. These were the most dangerous. Nanny told him there was nothing to fear. Nanny could fix any damage. But Jeff hadn't stopped worrying. Who would believe a robot tinkered together with pink foam and duct tape?

The captain crossed his arms. He looked at Jeff. “Got too much fizz for a place like this, that's what I think.”

He didn't sound mad. Almost like he understood what Jeff might be feeling. Jeff acted on this possibility quickly, bravely.

“If only I had something to
do
! Nanny just hauls me from lessons to exercises; and I only see Mom and Dad for a bit, and they hardly pay attention. Nanny doesn't even know how to play any
games
!”

Jeff heard Nanny's motor.

The captain glanced over Jeff's shoulder. He lowered his voice, as if he didn't want Nanny to hear. “Well, yes, Nanny is a bit short on programming for that. We've never had a boy here before, you realize. Most jobs are, well, delicate. But I'll think about it. Meantime, carry on—at a walk!”

Jeff flinched. The captain barked that last bit in his usual grump. Then he grabbed the rung of a ladder. Like a blimp, he rose
in
through the ceiling tunnel to the next ring.
In
was closer to the center. Less gravity.

He'll be happier, Jeff thought. He'll forget all about me.

Nanny glided to a stop next to him. Jeff's emergency mask dangled from a gripper. He clipped it to his belt.

“Messy boy! Always dropping your things. Always angering the captain. They will reprogram me if you do not behave.” Nanny snatched his right arm in a gripper and tugged him along. “We are late! Walk walk walk.”

Jeff tried to resist, but Nanny's grip on his arm was very strong. It worried Jeff, that strength. It didn't seem necessary in a machine thrown together just to keep one unwanted twelve-year-old boy out of trouble.

In the recreation room, Mom and Dad stood with their heads bent together, studying a poster-sized photograph. Jeff glimpsed bright sunshine surrounding a feathery blackness on the image.

“I told you—spots!” Jeff stuck his tongue out at Nanny, then ran to his parents. He pushed between them. “I'm here!”

With a little sigh, they stepped apart. Mom frowned down at him, her mouth as tight as Nanny's gripper. Dad did not seem to see him at first; then he said, “Hey! Hug!”

Jeff held back. “How far have you read?”

“No chapters, no hugs, huh?” Dad laughed, but he looked guilty. Dad was supposed to be reading the EVA Training Manual. They were supposed to be preparing for a space walk together. That's why Jeff had come along. The big adventure … bigger than blastoff, bigger than living on a space station, big enough to make all his friends envious when he returned to Earth.

“Can't we do some simulator training, at least?” Jeff asked.

Dad glanced at Mom. Jeff hated that glance.

Mom said, “Really, Jeff, your father simply doesn't have time.”

“You said that yesterday. And the day before! And the—”

“Watch that temper,” Mom snapped. She took a deep breath. “I'm sorry to be harsh, Jeff. This meteor warning has really put me on edge. You know we didn't plan it this way.”

Jeff did know. That's why he tried so hard. But it had been weeks and weeks since they had come here.

Dad usually had lots of spare time. He only helped Mom with the computer work. But Professor Krosta had gotten sick and couldn't come, so now Mom needed Dad to do Professor Krosta's work, too, or the project would fail. That could mean disaster for Earth.

“Mom and I are up against it, Jeff, no doubt. This calculation still won't come out right”—Dad smacked the sunspot photo, and Jeff noticed the long lines of equations his parents had written all over it—“and the heliospectrometer keeps slipping out of calibration.”

That was serious. Mom studied sun-spots to find out about the sun's energy cycle. “Light is the sun's messenger,” Mom liked to say, “and my job is to translate the language.” The heliospectrometer let her read the message by analyzing the sun's light. It was the first step.

“The captain promised me it was a world-class instrument,” Mom said.

With a glance at Nanny, Dad said, “I'm not sure much is world-class on this space station.”

Mom deserved better. The project was important enough. Back on Earth, scientists were about to begin the Global Cooling Initiative, but Mom was afraid they were using the wrong theory—that instead of reversing global warming, they might trigger an ice age. But Mom's theory was ignored by the institutes, universities, and journals. Money didn't come her way as it did for other scientists. That's why they hadn't been able to hire a replacement for Professor Krosta.

Mom said, “I need you to be independent a bit longer, Jeff. There's less than a week to solar maximum. Once we've got the data, Dad will have more time. Maybe we can even stretch the visit a little, to make up for cheating you.”

Here. Now. With Mom actually thinking about him even though she was worried about all that might go wrong, Jeff felt he could do what she asked. But he hesitated to promise.

“I must report,” Nanny said into the silence. “The boy has irritated the captain.”

Jeff wanted to kick Nanny.

“Oh Jeff!” Dad sank to his knees. He held both of Jeff's arms. Worry ridges went up under his whisker-short hair. “You mustn't annoy the captain. He'll make trouble for our work!”

“But I didn't. I wasn't. I mean, we talked!”

“No one can talk to that man,” Mom said. “Nanny, full behavior report.”

A paper slid out of Nanny's middle, listing all the details of his life since the last family time.

“No!” Jeff grabbed it and crumpled it into a tight ball. Nanny made a little stuttery “tsk.” “It was Nanny's fault! Nanny came late. I had to run.”

“Naughty naughty boy.” Nanny moved between Jeff and Mom. Startled, Mom took a step back. She bumped up against the table. “For the record, ma'am.”

Another sheet of paper slid out. Before Jeff could get it, a gripper snapped, catching his wrist. Jeff pulled. It hurt. He clenched his teeth and pulled again. Nanny rocked on her rollers. Sheet after sheet of paper slid out.

“Jeff! Stop!” Mom said.

Jeff stopped. Nanny let go. Mom picked up the report from the floor.

“You should believe
me
,” Jeff said. He rubbed at the square-edged dents the gripper had left in his skin.

“Robots don't tell fibs,” Mom said.

“Thank you, ma'am,” Nanny chirped.

More chirps. But these came from Mom's beeper. She dropped the report, snatching the beeper from her belt to read the message.

“A development!” she said. Mom and Dad strode toward the door. They didn't run. They
couldn't
run. A fast waddle was tops. They hadn't taken the time to learn.

“Study time,” Nanny said.

Jeff turned on the robot. “They should believe me!”

The glowing green eye stared at him.

“Study time.”

“Not yet!”

Jeff leaped onto the couches and chairs, scattered cushions onto the floor, pushed magazines off the tables, and ripped up the sunspot photograph. Then he ran out of the room.

Nanny's head rotated all the way around.

“Dear dear dear.”

Gobblers came out of the ceiling. They put everything back in order. They sucked up Nanny's papers. But they left the torn bits of photograph because Nanny told them to.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

S
TUDY
T
IME

Rat was on time. So where was the boy? Rat did not like the boy to waste study time. Rat needed to learn a lot to survive on the space station.

She had already learned how lucky she was to be alive. The roar and the squeezing and the floating had been the blastoff of a space shuttle. The enormous open space, with men and nosy robots scurrying and the huge ship hissing in the center of it, had been the landing area of the space station. A very dangerous place for Rat. But she escaped. She found the air tunnels, like the one she was in now. It ended at a vent near the ceiling above the boy's bed. Perfect for observing.

At first Rat thought she could just go back to Earth. But the boy studied space shuttles. Scary things. There was only one safe place to be. The crate she hid in had been put in that part. If it had gone with the regular cargo … well, Rat would be a dead rat. Going back would be complicated. She could not be half-starved and hope to succeed. Besides, there had to be a ship. None had come here since the one bringing her crate and the boy.

Where
was
he?

Patience, Rat told herself. The boy's bad habits often meant food.

Food would be nice.

Rat sat up on her back legs, kinking her tail just right for balance. She groomed her elegant nose whiskers, then licked between her clean, pink toes. Not even a bit of sticky apple juice was left. Rat's front paws drooped. She swayed, nearly tumbling, as her tail went limp. Rat snapped herself to attention.

Bother! She rubbed her pink knuckles hard over her eyes. Do something!

Rat checked the telescope. The telescope let her see across the room to the computer screen. The boy slouched when he studied, so his big head was not in the way. Another bad habit that was lucky for Rat.

Rat had built the telescope from two lenses, a toilet-paper tube, and some gum the boy had stuck under a table. They blamed the boy for the missing lenses. Too bad.

But it had not been the boy who had left half a bologna sandwich in the lab that day, right next to the lenses. What a double lucky day that had been! Rat remembered the tangy taste of mustard—how it made her nose tingle!—and the bread, crusty on the outside, wet-mushy inside, and the meat! The meat!

Rat sniffed hard, trying to bring back all the good smells. But it had been a long time ago.

She checked the aim of the telescope, then gave it a small nudge. When she peered in again, a shadow flashed by, a door slammed, and bed springs jounced. Rat pulled away from the grate. She must not let her nose, or a whisker, or the tip of her tail poke out because the boy often returned from family time upset. He would lie on the bed right beneath the vent, his arms jammed under his head, staring at the ceiling with angry, intense eyes.

There was a knock on the door.

“Go away!” Despite the boy's command, the door opened. Rat smelled still-warm, bittersweet, chewy chocolate chips. Crumbs!

“It is study time,” Nanny said. “I have some milk and cookies for you.”

“Go away!”

“I am not programmed to go away,” Nanny said. “I am programmed to bring you milk and cookies at study time and tell you what lesson—”

“Oh, enough already.” Boots thumped on the floor and
scritched
to the door. Rat peeked. The boy snatched the tray from Nanny. The milk sloshed, and a few cookies slipped off and broke on the deck. A tidal wave of more intense smells rolled into the air vent.

“Hasty hasty,” Nanny said.

A small gobbler popped out of a wall tube in the corridor. It skittered around Nanny's rollers, sucking up the spots of milk and crunching the crumbs, leaving a neat line of crumbs just inside the door. It did not come into the room. Except in an emergency, robots were not allowed in private spaces, not even Nanny.

Nanny said, “Study the food machines today. Then you will understand why you should not spill your milk.”

Nanny shut the door.

Yes, thought Rat, yes yes yes. Study the wicked machines! Study now!

But the boy did not study. He carried the tray to the computer table. He ate some cookies. Rat watched where every crumb fell. The boy played a game. Then he checked his e-mail. No mail. He used to get e-mail. But one by one his friends stopped writing when something called “camp” got them. At first the boy lied about his wonderful adventures on the space station. Later he admitted that he wished he was at camp with them instead.

Rat wanted to be somewhere else, too.

Study!

Keys clicked. Rat went to the telescope. She gnashed her teeth. It was only the EVA Training Manual. He studied that over and over. But what good was it to Rat?