Oxygen Level Zero Mission 1 Read online

  everyone together and told us that the gigantic

  solar panels that covered most of the ceiling of

  the dome are failing to make enough electricity

  to run the dome and provide all our oxygen. He

  said if we cut back our use of electricity to

  only what is absolutely needed, we can use the

  rest of the electricity to make more oxygen. He warned that this alone would not be enough. But

  the reserve oxygen in the dome’s spare tanks will

  get us through the last few days until the supply

  ship arrives.

  So no extra electricity can be used on

  anything. The only reason I’m able to use my

  computer is because it’s running on battery. It

  means we won’t even use electricity for running

  showers. It’s better to be smelly and able to

  smell the smelliness, Director Steven said, than

  to be clean and dead. Everyone agreed.

  Director Steven also said that most work under

  the dome would be shut down. He said people

  should rest and sleep and read books as much as

  possible because resting bodies use less oxygen.

  He said if all of us joined together we had a

  really good chance of surviving.

  Let me say this to anyone on Earth who might

  read this. If, like me, you have legs that don’t

  work, Mars, with its lower gravity pull, is

  probably a better place to be than Earth.

  That’s only a guess, of course, because I

  haven’t had the chance to compare Mars’ gravity

  to Earth’s gravity. In fact, I’m the only person

  in the entire history of mankind who has never

  been on Earth.

  I’m not kidding.

  You see, I’m the first person born on Mars.

  Everyone else here came from Earth nearly eight

  Martian years ago—fifteen Earth years to you—as

  part of the first expedition to set up a colony.

  The trip took eight months, and during this

  voyage my mother and father fell in love. Mom is

  a leading plant biologist. Dad is a space pilot.

  They were the first couple to be married on Mars.

  And the last, for now. They loved each other so much that they married by exchanging their vows

  over radio-phone with a preacher on Earth. When I

  was born half a Mars year later—which now makes

  me fourteen Earth years old—it made things so

  complicated on the colony that it was decided

  there would be no more marriages and babies until

  the colony was better established.

  I stopped again. Because Mom tells me that much of the Mars Project has been explained so often in the media and in schools, I knew I didn’t have to go into detail about the colony itself. I guessed everybody on Earth already knew that Phase 1 was to establish the dome. Phase 2, which we were just about to start, was to grow plants outside the dome so that more oxygen could be added to the atmosphere. The long-range plan—which would take over a hundred years—was to make the entire planet a place for humans to live outside of the dome.

  People on Earth desperately needed the room. Already the planet had too many people on it. If Mars could be made a new colony, then Earth could start shipping people here to live. If not, new wars might begin and millions and millions of people would die from war or starvation or disease.

  I wondered, though, if people really understood how different it was to live under a dome nearly fifty million miles away from the planet Earth.

  I turned back to my keyboard.

  What was complicated about a baby on Mars?

  Let me put it this way. Because of planetary

  orbits, spaceships can only reach Mars every

  three years. (Only four ships have arrived since

  I was born.) And for what it costs to send a ship

  from Earth, cargo space is expensive. Very, very

  expensive. Diapers, baby bottles, cribs, and

  carriages are not exactly a priority for interplanetary travel.

  I did without all that stuff. In fact, my

  wheelchair isn’t even motorized, because every

  extra pound of cargo costs something like ten

  thousand dollars.

  Just like I did without a modern hospital when

  I was born. So when my spinal column twisted

  funny during birth and damaged the nerves to my

  legs, there was no one to fix them. Which is why

  I’m in a wheelchair.

  It could be worse, of course. On Earth, I’d

  weigh 110 pounds. Here, I’m only 42 pounds, so I

  don’t have to fight gravity nearly as hard as

  Earth kids.

  I thought about my father. I was growing tall, just like he was.

  Mom would often point to his photo and comment that I was also beginning to look like him. I had dark blond hair like he did. My nose and jaws and forehead were bigger than I wanted them to be, and I hoped the rest of my face would catch up so I would look more like him. I also knew he was big, like a football player. I would be heavier and bigger too if my legs didn’t weigh next to nothing.

  I hardly felt like I knew my father or he knew me because he didn’t stay long between trips to Earth and back. For a long time I was always angry when I thought about this, because, from what I’ve read, most kids get to grow up with their fathers. And most kids get to grow up using their legs. But I’ve decided not to waste time caring about him or about what has happened to my legs.

  I tapped at my keyboard, slowly putting more words together.

  When my body and arms aren’t weak from lack of

  oxygen, the lower gravity does make it easy to

  get around in my wheelchair.

  The other good thing is that I never have to travel far. Not like on Earth, where you can go

  in one direction for thousands of miles. Here,

  all two hundred of us—mainly scientists and

  tekkies, the name we give technicians—live under

  a sealed dome that might cover four football

  fields. (I know all of this about Earth because

  of the DVD-gigarom books I scan for hours every

  day.)

  When I’m not being taught by my computer or

  Rawling McTigre, I spend my time wheeling around

  the paths beneath the colony dome. I know every

  scientist and tekkie by first name. I know every

  path past every mini-dome, the small, dark

  plastic huts where people live in privacy from

  the others. Between the solar panels that crowd

  the ceiling I’ve seen every color of Martian sky

  through the super-clear plastic of the main dome

  above us. I’ve spent hours listening to

  sandstorms rattle over us. I’ve . . .

  . . . I’ve got to go. Mom’s calling for me to

  join her for meal-time.

  I hit the save button on my keyboard. There would be plenty of time later to report more on our oxygen crisis, millions of miles away from rescue.

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  Our mini-dome, like everyone else’s, had two office-bedrooms with a common living space in the middle. Mom wasn’t able to use her second room as an office because that had become my bedroom. We didn’t need a kitchen, because we never had anything to cook. Instead, a microwave oven hung on the far wall; it was used to heat nutrient-tubes. Another door at the back of the living space led to a small bathroom. It wasn’t much. From what I’ve read about Earth homes, our mini-dome had less space in it than two average bedrooms. And I could only dream about having a backyard and fence and garden the way I’d seen in e-photos.

  Mom was waiting
for me in one of the chairs in the common area. She had thick dark hair that was cut short, like an upside-down bowl. She didn’t care much what she looked like—

  especially during the long, long months while my father was gone between refueling stops on Mars. It meant more to have a hairstyle that didn’t take much fussing and gave her as much time as possible for her science.

  As the leading plant biologist on the station, Mom had a big job: to genetically alter Earth plants so they could grow on Mars.

  She gave me a tired smile—the fourteen-hours-of-hard-

  scientific-work smile. I gave her one in return.

  “How are you doing with your diary?” she asked, like this was just another normal day.

  “Fine,” I said, like this was just another normal day. “What’s for supper?”

  Dying was funny. Not funny ha-ha. Funny strange. Everyone thought about it all the time, but nobody wanted to talk about it.

  I grunted as I pushed my wheelchair toward her. It was getting harder and harder to move it. I worried that pretty soon I might not be able to move it at all.

  Mom stood at the microwave and hit the buttons.

  As I waited for the seconds to count down, I did what I always did whenever I had to wait.

  I reached down to the pouch hanging from the armrest of my wheelchair and pulled out my three red juggling balls. I began to juggle, keeping all three in the air so that it looked like one blur.

  Some people twiddle their thumbs. Me, I like to juggle. Rawling says I learned it because it’s something athletic I can do better than most people who aren’t crippled. He’s probably right.

  The microwave dinged that it was ready.

  I caught the juggling balls and put them in the pouch. With effort, I pushed my wheelchair toward Mom.

  I finally reached her. She handed me a plastic nutrient- tube about the size of a chocolate bar. Red.

  “Spaghetti and meatballs?” I asked.

  She nodded. I’ve never tasted real spaghetti and meatballs, of course, so I have to take Mom’s word for it that the nute-tube stuff is not nearly as good as the real thing.

  As usual, she prayed over it.

  As usual, I didn’t.

  As usual, it made her sad.

  “Our oxygen level is dropping faster and faster,” she said softly. “How can I convince you to place your faith in God? If we only have a month left . . . ”

  “I only believe what I can see or measure,” I said. In the colony, I was surrounded by scientists. All their experiments were on data that could be seen—and measured.

  “But faith is the confident hope in things unseen,” Mom insisted, a bit teary-eyed. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be a matter of faith. We don’t see your dad, but we know he loves us, no matter where his cargo ship is. Faith in God is like that.”

  Right, I thought. I wasn’t going to tell her that it wasn’t easy to love a space-pilot father you never saw. And it wasn’t easy to believe he loved me, either.

  “Mom . . .” We had argued this so much that I decided to stick with the same old argument. “You can’t make me believe in God. If you want me to pretend, I will.”

  “No,” she said, with her mouth tight the way it is when she’s vexed. “I always want you to be honest with me.”

  “There you go,” I said. “End of argument.”

  I ripped off the top of my nute-tube. Most of the scientists needed to use a knife or scissors. I didn’t. Because my legs were useless, I had developed a lot of strength in my arms and hands.

  I guzzled the red paste, then tossed it on the table. “I’m going.” Mom and I were good friends, but we were both grumpy from our argument about God and from the oxygen problem. I needed time by myself.

  She didn’t ask me where I was going. She didn’t need to.

  There isn’t much room in the dome for me to get lost. And everyone knew I was a telescope freak. I spent any spare time I had on the third-level deck at the telescope.

  By the time I wheeled to the center of the dome fifteen minutes later, I was sweating from the effort. Before, it only would have taken a couple of minutes and hardly any muscle power. This oxygen thing was scary. But what could I do about it?

  The deck was dim because all but the most-needed lights had been shut down. Just another reminder of the oxygen problem.

  Around me, men and women scientists walked slowly on the paths, going from mini-dome to mini-dome for whatever business they had. They nodded or said hello as they passed me.

  In my wheelchair, I nodded and said hello back. Other than that, as I rolled along, I just stared upward at the stars above the dome. Other people on other expeditions might one day explore the planet outside. Not us. For starters, I wondered if we’d be dead soon. Dad was piloting the next cargo ship, and it wouldn’t arrive for five days. One day after the colony dome ran out of oxygen.

  I kept staring upward. My eyes drifted to the giant dark solar panels that hung just below the clear roof of the dome. These solar panels, which turned the energy of sunlight into electricity, were killing us. Part of this electricity powered our computers and other equipment. Most of the electricity, though, flowed as a

  current into the water of the oxygen tank. The electrical current broke the water—H20—into the gases of hydrogen and oxygen, two parts hydrogen for every one part of oxygen. The hydrogen was used as fuel for some of the generators. The oxygen, of course, we breathed.

  But something was wrong with the panels. Nobody could

  figure it out. Taken down and tested, they worked perfectly. But back up at the roof, the panels were making less and less electricity each day. With less power, we had less oxygen. It was that simple.

  I focused upward, thinking about that.

  Then it hit me.

  It wasn’t the panels. It was the sunlight.

  What if the panels worked fine, but they weren’t getting enough sunlight?

  And I thought I knew why!

  I spun my wheelchair around and began to move as fast as I could toward the director’s mini-dome.

  At that moment all of the dome’s lights snapped off. The hum of the generator quit.

  In total silence and darkness, I froze.

  Then I heard a scream.

  Unless I was wrong, that scream had come from the direction of my mini-dome.

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  Within seconds, the total blackness inside the dome was filled with flashlight beams, making the air look like a giant confused sword fight of lights.

  I still didn’t move.

  I didn’t have a flashlight. I couldn’t see where to go.

  In a wheelchair, the last thing you want to do is hit something that will knock you flying. When you can’t use your legs, it’s embarrassing to have to crawl along the ground and try to pull yourself up into the wheelchair again.

  More screaming reached my ears.

  A strange blue glow began to appear in the dome, like neon ice melting in all directions.

  The emergency backup lights were on.

  In the glow, I saw a figure running toward me, with other figures chasing it.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  Shouting was a very dumb thing to do. It alerted the running person to the fact that I was in my wheelchair and waiting.

  Whoever it was turned sideways and shielded his face with his arm as he kept running toward me. In the weird glow of the blue emergency backup lights, I didn’t have a chance of figuring out who it was.

  He darted sideways to go around my wheelchair.

  Sticking out my arm, I tried to stop him. Since people were chasing him, they probably had a reason for wanting to stop him.

  That was another dumb thing to do. If I’d actually grabbed him, the force of his momentum could have ripped my arm off at my shoulder.

  He passed me. Other dark figures got closer as they kept chasing him.

  “Hey!” I shouted, louder. This time I did want to be seen.

  Getting trampled in my wheelchair
is not my favorite evening activity.

  “Hey!” I shouted one more time—and not because I wanted to warn anyone. This time it was because my wheelchair was suddenly moving.

  The person behind me had given me a shove! He wanted me and my wheelchair to block the people chasing him.

  I tried squeezing my brakes, but it was too late.

  I was on one of the sidewalk paths between mini-domes.

  There was hardly any room to move around me on either side.

  There must have been ten people chasing this guy. And with ten people all running like crazy, with hardly any room on the path to begin with, it’s not fun to be the wheelchair that flies directly into the crowd.

  Bang!

  Something hard hit me in the face.

  I tumbled out of my wheelchair and skidded on my chin into the side of a mini-dome. Two other people stepped on me and tripped. Someone behind them fell right on top of me. Then something else hard hit me on top of my head. Someone’s knee, I found out later. It mashed my face into the floor of the dome. I cracked my forehead in a thump that sounded like wood against concrete.

  After that, I didn’t remember anything else, except that slowly it got darker and darker and the noises became quieter and quieter until I finally faded out completely.

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  It smelled like someone was ramming a bottle of bleach up my nose.

  Smelling salts.

  It snapped me right out of my black daze.

  I woke up with Rawling McTigre on one side of me, and my mother looking down, worried, from the other side. I was on my back on an examining table in the medical emergency room.

  “Hey,” I said with a croak. “Someone turned the lights back on.”

  Mom sighed with relief, smiled, and wiped my face with a cold wet cloth.

  “Welcome back, scout,” Rawling said. “Now you know what it would be like to play football.”

  “And be the football?” I groaned. “See, I told you it’s a dumb game.”

  Rawling and I argue about that all the time. He’s got a DVD-gigarom collection of Super Bowl games, and he loves watching them. I can’t figure it out. A bunch of guys running into each other and a bunch more people screaming at them.

  “What happened out there?” I asked. “I was just minding my own business when it went dark. I heard screams and then saw this guy getting chased and then—“