Space Station Crisis Read online

  “Excellent,” Zota said. “Cadet Park?”

  From the corner of her eye, JJ saw her brother pull out a stack of notecards and a pencil. He scribbled notes to himself, a habit that helped him do well in school.

  “I take ballet lessons, of course,” Song-Ye said, “but since we had to do something new, I took a class in hapkido, a Korean form of martial arts.” She looked over at Dyl. “And make sure you spell it right, Junior.”

  “I know how to spell it,” Dyl quipped.

  Song-Ye rolled her eyes. “Other than that, I took a first-aid course, and I read some articles about understanding different cultures.” She shrugged one shoulder.

  “Dad always wanted me to learn that kind of stuff, even though I didn’t want to. It wasn’t that bad. I even went to a diplomatic reception with him when my mom was out of town.”

  Dyl muttered, “I still want to see that dress you wore.”

  JJ gave Song-Ye an encouraging thumbs-up. Song-Ye raised her eyebrows at JJ. “Did you know that in some countries, the thumbs-up sign is actually considered rude?”

  “Cool!” Dyl gave her a teasing thumbs-up. “Just warn me before I go to any of those countries. My turn now? I’ve been working out every day after school with my friend George—his grandparents live in our building, and they’re the ones who tutored me after I got smashed up by that car accident. Anyway, we’re lifting weights and doing special exercises for my legs. Even though the doctors don’t think I can, I’m hoping to walk without crutches someday. My arms are getting a lot stronger, too.”

  He pretended to make a muscle-man bicep, and Song-Ye said, “Pfft.”

  Dyl ignored her. “I did some research on physiology, especially the effects of gravity on humans. The hardest thing I did was join the debate team at school to help me get over my fear of speaking in front of people.”

  “A good choice. And what about our other Cadet Wren?” Zota looked at JJ, who immediately launched into her report.

  “Figured I needed to be more versatile, so I started learning to fly a new type of plane, a lot more advanced than a crop duster—that part was awesome, of course.

  Also learned to fly under Instrument Flight Rules, instead of just by sight.” Zota nodded, as if he had expected this from her. “For the science part, I borrowed a chemistry set from the Sutros down the hall and did some simple experiments. I also found some free Pilates lessons on the Web, so I’ve been tightening up my core muscles.”

  “And Cadet Vasquez,” Commander Zota said. “Anything to add?”

  Tony looked surprised. He ran both hands through his hair and took a deep breath. “Boy, I didn’t actually know about the assignment before I got here, but let’s see. JJ’s been tutoring me in algebra, and I got a B- on our last test. Believe me, that’s a big improvement. I learned to do flares on the pommel horse—gymnastics, that is—and I started a private driver’s training course. Is that good enough?”

  “It is indeed.” Mr. Zota looked satisfied. “Now it’s time for us to prep for the mission.”

  ***

  Four

  Now that they had finished their reports, JJ was anxious for the mission to start. About time! Where would Commander Zota send them next?

  She whispered out of the side of her mouth to Tony, “You’re going to love this.”

  Although their previous adventure at Moonbase Magellan had been nerve-wracking—not to mention the fact that they had barely escaped with their lives—it was also one of the most intense and significant experiences of her life. JJ and her companions had learned just how important their roles would be in the future.

  Tony seemed amused that they were all so wound up about a space simulation. She gave him a secretive smile. He had no idea what he had gotten himself into.

  “Shall we begin? We have limited time.” Commander Zota drew his strangely distant gaze across all of them. “In more ways than one.”

  Dylan scribbled more notes on his index cards. Watching her brother, JJ saw real excitement, an eager anticipation for their activity, and she remembered how easily he had been able to move in the low gravity on the Moon. For his sake, she hoped they would be sent into a lower gravity environment again, where he could ditch his crutches and get around as well as anyone else.

  Song-Ye still cradled her hamster, who seemed happy to cuddle in the crook of her arm. “Can I take Newton along this time, Commander?”

  Zota raised an eyebrow, which stretched the scar on his cheek. “No telling what you might encounter on this mission into the future. I think he’ll remain safer here.”

  The Korean girl sighed and nodded. “You’re right.” She reluctantly returned the furry animal to his habitat.

  Tony hid a smile, thinking he was playing along with some kind of script, but JJ knew that Commander Zota was serious.

  “Your mission today will be to the International Space Station Complex, or ISSC,” Zota explained. On the display board, he showed them a diagram of numerous cylinders linked together in a hodgepodge grid. The modules, connected to each other with smaller hubs, were reinforced with support struts and adorned with long rectangular solar panels that gathered the sun’s energy like giant reflective windmills. JJ had seen similar images of the current International Space Station, but this future complex was far more extensive.

  Dyl flipped to a new notecard and scribbled a quick sketch with his pencil. “It looks like a bunch of soda cans strung together with Tinker Toys.”

  “High-tech soda cans,” King pointed out.

  “The space-station complex is functional enough,” Zota said. “It expanded piece by piece over the years, using the current International Space Station as its foundation. In early science fiction stories, designers imagined space stations as graceful rotating wheels in space. But the ISSC had to be built module by module, each component lifted up to orbit and assembled by astronauts.”

  “At your suggestion, sir, I looked up some of the background on early space stations,” King said. “The U.S. built Skylab in 1973, but they abandoned it after only two years, and it burned up on re-entry in 1979. The Russians built the Mir station next, and then in 1998 construction began on the International Space Station.” He nodded to the diagram. “But the current ISS is just a tiny outpost compared to this schematic. It sure has grown.”

  Zota nodded. “In addition to proving that humans can live in space for extended periods, there are many advantages to an orbital facility operating in zero-gravity—or as it is more precisely called, microgravity. The occupants are still very much under the influence of Earth’s gravity, even though they don’t feel it.

  “Science in microgravity is a powerful tool. Gravity is a fundamental physical constant in our world, and going into space allows scientists—those who study biology, chemistry, materials science, combustion physics, and many other disciplines—a rare opportunity to look at their areas of expertise from a completely new vantage point, without the constant pull of gravity. Growing cancer cells in three dimensions in space, as opposed to just a few layers thick in a Petri dish, is one example of how scientists can use microgravity to their advantage. Many common processes are different in weightlessness: growing crystals, or making pharmaceuticals, exotic materials, and high-density computer chips.” He looked at them all, and his gaze lingered longest on Tony. “However, many people have difficulty adapting to the environment. It affects balance, resulting in disorientation.”

  Dyl grinned. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It can indeed be problematic,” the commander said.

  “I can’t wait,” Song-Ye said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  Dyl pointed out, “We adapted just fine to low gravity on the Moonbase mission.”

  “Low gravity is very different from no gravity,” Zota said. “I’d like you to participate in an experiment before I send you up there. Come with me.”

  “Boy, you guys are good at this role-playing stuff,” Tony whispered to JJ. “You all talk like
you’ve actually been on the Moon.”

  Zota led them to the medical station inside the simulator chamber, where he showed them a padded chair that spun smoothly on a highly lubricated axis. “This is a Bárány chair. We use it to demonstrate how your body interprets information about equilibrium.”

  “I saw this during our field trip here from school,” Tony said, “but it wasn’t my station, and I never got a turn.”

  “You’ll all have a chance before we proceed with transport to orbit,” Zota said. “Tell me, what information do you normally use to keep your balance?”

  “Sight,” Song-Ye said.

  “Right. I like to depend on what I see,” JJ said. “That’s what made flying under IFR so tricky at first.”

  King grinned. “Usually, I don’t have a problem staying balanced if my feet are on the ground. So I guess I’m partly using a sense of touch—the pressure under my feet.”

  “There’s hearing, too,” Tony said. “My aunt is blind, but she can tell a lot about where people and things are, just by listening.”

  “Indeed. Anything else?” Commander Zota asked.

  “Piece of cake,” Dyl said. “I read about this. There are tiny hairs in your inner ear that tell the brain which way is which. If that gets messed up—like when a person gets an ear infection—it can make you dizzy.”

  “Excellent.” Zota turned to JJ. “Cadet Wren, would you like to be the first test subject?”

  “I’m in!” JJ plopped herself into the chair, which had a five-point pilot’s harness. She buckled the harness across her waist, between her legs, and over her shoulders and chest. “Now what?”

  “For this experiment, we limit the information that your brain normally receives.” From the counter Zota lifted earphones and a set of large goggles with a completely opaque lens plate. He slipped the goggles over JJ’s head, covering her eyes; the padding fit snugly around her eyes and cheeks. Although her eyes were open, the goggles blocked all light.

  For a moment, JJ felt disoriented by a blackness as deep as space, although fortunately she still felt the solid chair beneath her. She tried to imagine herself floating there, like Alexei Leonov, the Soviet Cosmonaut who had been the first human to walk in space in 1965.

  “Point your thumbs toward the ceiling, Cadet Wren, and after I spin the chair point your thumbs in the direction you feel you are rotating. When you think you have stopped, point your thumbs straight up again. Simple enough?” The commander’s voice seemed to come from nowhere. Everything was so completely dark.

  “Simple enough. Spin me.” She pressed her back against the chair, ready to go.

  “One final step.” He placed the snug and heavy headphones on her, and all sound stopped.

  And then JJ was whirling around like a ride at a carnival, spinning and spinning. She tilted her thumbs to point in the direction she was circling. It was an amazing illusion. No sight, no sound. To get into the spirit, she thought of herself in a space capsule, rotating around and around … like John Glenn in 1962, the first American to orbit the Earth.

  She wondered what was happening in the room around her. King was probably humming “Dizzy” or some other old song. She felt herself stop spinning and gradually start turning the opposite way, so she pointed her thumbs to show the other direction. Commander Zota tugged off the goggles and headphones, and JJ was astonished to find that she was sitting completely still. The feeling was even more disorienting than the silent darkness had been.

  “When did I stop?” she asked.

  “The chair stopped fifteen seconds ago,” Tony said. “Did you really think you were still moving?”

  JJ unbuckled the harness and stood up, wobbled a bit, then turned to Tony. “If it’s so easy, then you try it.” She handed him the goggles. He put them on, set the headphones in place, and sat in the chair. For his turn, she watched Tony spin round and round; he had a grin on his face, enjoying the ride, but he made the same error JJ had made. Because the chair was perfectly balanced, and he had no visual reference points, he couldn’t tell when he stopped spinning.

  Dyl went next, then King, both with similar results.

  Seeing them all frustrated, Zota explained, “Your confusion came from the fact that the small hairs in your inner ear initially told your brain that you were spinning. After a short time, the fluid in your inner ear began to spin at the same rate as the hairs, so you felt like you had stopped. Finally, the hairs sensed that you were slowing down, but since you thought you were already stopped—without sight or hearing to help you correctly decipher the inner-ear signals—you misinterpreted the slowing down as a reversal to spin in the opposite direction. Now, Cadet Park, if you would be so kind as to sit in the Bárány chair…?”

  Song-Ye, who had watched everyone else take their turns, hesitated. “I … get dizzy, and I don’t like carnival rides.”

  “Come on, it’s fun,” JJ said. “A peek into what astronauts feel.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “You’re a dancer,” Dyl pointed out. “Twirling should be a piece of cake.”

  “But I don’t dance blindfolded, Junior. We have tricks to keep us from getting sick, but we have to be able to see” Song-Ye took a deep breath and nodded with obvious reluctance. “Okay. Whatever.” She sat in the chair, put on the goggles and headphones, and let Zota twirl her. Growing pale, she clutched the arm of the chair with one hand, while pointing in the direction of spin with the other. Before the chair stopped, though, she yanked off the goggles and hunched forward, pulling in heavy breaths. “I’m going to be sick if this lasts any longer.”

  Zota’s lips pressed together in a concerned frown. “Perhaps you should stay behind on the space-station mission, Cadet Park. The discomfort could be quite—”

  “Pfft! I’ll grit my teeth and get through it.”

  Tony looked surprised. “Boy, you guys sure like these Challenger Center simulations.”

  “Just wait,” JJ told him.

  Zota straightened and spoke with great intensity. “You are as prepared as you’re going to be. Because you changed the future last time, you will be traveling to a time that’s much like my own, but there will be differences … whether small changes or large ones, I cannot tell. This is unknown territory. Remember, the future is your choice. The decisions you make affect what is to come.”

  He led them out of the room toward the painted airlock door. He paused, looking at all of them with a concerned expression. “In my time, there were no survivors when Moonbase Magellan was destroyed. After the attack, the ISSC was Earth’s watchtower, a place from which to monitor the Kylarn invasion—until the aliens took it over and used the space station against us. After that, we didn’t have a chance.”

  Zota closed his eyes as if he didn’t want to look at the cadets. “I did not know much about Earth’s space program then. I watched the horrific battles and saw the violence the Kylarn unleashed, how many millions were killed.… our cities, our monuments, our works of art, all destroyed. Fires raged for weeks and months across the continents. Refugees were everywhere.” He opened his eyes, and he looked pale. “The Kylarn set up camps and began to perform experiments on prisoners.”

  “Maybe we’ve already changed that,” King said. “We discovered the secret alien base much earlier, and we helped the Moonbase crew.”

  “We won’t know what changed until we get there,” JJ said. After hearing Zota’s story, her heart was pounding, and she was even more determined than before. “Come on, I’m ready to go.”

  “Perhaps you can save more of the future,” Zota said, “but remember, your primary mission is back here. None of those terrible events have happened yet, and if Earth can be prepared, then the aliens won’t conquer us so easily.”

  Song-Ye said, “Maybe the Kylarn won’t even try if we look like too much of a challenge.”

  Tony leaned toward JJ. “You never mentioned these simulations had such a complicated set-up! Good thing I’ve done enough live-action rolepla
ying that I catch on pretty fast. I just hope the high-tech stuff in the ‘future’ is believable.”

  “You won’t be disappointed,” JJ assured him. “Really. We’re actually going to the future.”

  Overhearing, Dyl added, “This is our second time. For us, it’s back to the future.”

  “Got it.” A slow grin spread over Tony’s face. “I’m glad I showed up today.”

  From a closet, the commander withdrew a set of blue jumpsuits similar to those worn by Challenger Center flight directors, but of a stretchier material. “Suit up so you’re ready to join the space-station crew. He sized Tony up, then rummaged through the shelves for another jumpsuit. “This should fit you, Cadet Vasquez.”

  Zota stood in silence as JJ and the others pulled the flight suits on over their street clothes. JJ tugged on her sleeves and attached the Velcro fastenings. The jumpsuit had plenty of pockets and clips; she realized how useful that might be in zero-gravity while floating around inside a space station. She wouldn’t want anything drifting loose and hitting her on the head, like the pubs bag had during her recent training flight.

  Tony leaned over, shaking his head. He whispered, “You know how much I love role-playing games, but I can’t believe this Zota guy is so into his own character!”

  “It’s all very real to him.”

  Zota opened the door of the Challenger Center’s airlock chamber, where students participating in simulations were “transported” off to their assigned missions. In this case, JJ knew it would be the real thing.

  The commander stood at the door, troubled. “One last thing—while I cannot personally return to the future because of the limitations of the Kylarn device, I was at least able to transmit a message on your previous mission. This time, however, we will be cut off from each other. Since the future is different now, I will have no way to communicate with you.” His brows drew together in concern. “You’re on your own until the mission has ended. Make this count.”