Martians Abroad

“I’m here at Tranquillity control, so I’ll see you soon. Good work, Polly.”

Nothing to do now but wait.

I glanced over my shoulder and was relieved to find everyone sitting straight, breathing, and not freaking out. There were wide eyes, white-knuckled hands gripping each other. But no one having a meltdown.

I glanced sidelong at Charles. He’d settled back in the seat and was staring out the view port in front. His arms were crossed, his muscles tense.

“We’re going to be okay,” I said to him. He nodded. I had this urge to hug him. But I didn’t.

The lunar landscape scrolled past, looking like molded talc. I ought to enjoy this front-seat view. Fifteen, twenty more minutes, this would all be over.

When you live on a space station or planetary colony with an artificial atmosphere, you live in fear of one specific noise: hissing air. It means something has happened to the hull, the bulkhead, the outer layer protecting you from vacuum or inhospitable atmosphere—a micrometeoroid impact hole, a crack, some kind of damage, a malfunctioning air lock. There should be dozens of alarms, fail-safes, and emergency doors to seal off breaches, to warn you when something like this happens. You practice dozens of drills to go for air masks and survival suits, to use emergency-patch kits that can repair cracks and holes. It doesn’t matter how many alerts and protections there are, a part of your brain is always listening for that soft hissing of air.

The shuttle had gone quiet, as if everyone shut up because they thought I needed absolute silence to concentrate on the controls. So I heard it.

“Does anyone else hear that?” I said, and somehow it got even quieter, because now everyone was holding their breath. And there it was, like someone blowing air through their teeth.

“Oh, no,” Ladhi said, going pale.

“We have to find that,” Ethan said.

“What?” George said. “What’s happening?”

“We have a leak,” Charles said.

I looked around, even though I probably wouldn’t be able to see it. “Where’s that coming from?”

Charles ordered, “Polly you stay there and monitor systems, we’ll handle it.”

Ethan already had one of the emergency packs down from the wall, which if it was like every other emergency pack included a kit for finding and patching hull leaks. He tore off a couple of plastic strips from the packaging and handed one to Ladhi. The two of them started crawling all over the cabin, along the corners, across the ceiling, holding out the thin flimsy strips, looking for the draft of air that would cause the strips to shudder.

Meanwhile, I called the Tranquillity control official. “Hi, Ms. Andrews?” I said into the headset. “We … I think we have a hull leak.”

She swore under her breath, like she was trying to hide it. But I heard it.

“Okay. Slow leak or explosive?”

“Slow.”

“Have everyone put on masks. You don’t have far to go; you should keep enough atmosphere to make it here. You have your mask?”

Charles retrieved it from its box on the back of the cabin wall and handed it to me. “Yes, ma’am.”

He handed out masks to everyone else.

“Polly? How is everyone doing?” Ms. Andrews’s voice crackled at me over the transmission.

“Fine. We’re looking for the leak.”

That was when the engine compartment exploded.

24

At least, I guessed it was the engine compartment, because it came from the bottom and rear of the shuttle, booming forward from there and throwing us all against our safety harnesses. Or against the bulkhead, because Ethan and Ladhi were still up and around looking for that leak. There were screams of shock that fell off quickly, mostly because no one knew what was happening.

All the alarm lights and warnings on the instrument panel turned red and blinking.

“Polly, what is it? What just happened?” the Tranquillity traffic control officer demanded.