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bothered by me—and that my presence alone under the dome had already bothered him enough over the years.
    Director Steven’s cold blue eyes bored into mine. “Now please leave,” he said flatly. “I have better things to do than let some teenager tell me how to run my project.”
    I went. Slowly. My wheelchair seemed like it was glued in place. Were my arms that dead already from lack of oxygen?
    I’m not sure if I cared. My ears burned from anger and embarrassment.
    Why did Director Steven seem to bristle every time he saw me? Did he dislike me that much? And if so, why? Was there something wrong with me?

CHAPTER 9
    That night, after a very quiet and short supper, I decided to go up to the third deck, where the telescope was, because I wanted to be alone.
    The main level of the dome held the minidomes and labs. One level up, a walkway about 10 feet wide circled the inside of the dome walls. People mostly used the walkway for exercise, jogging in circles above the main floor below. Not me, of course. The techies had built a ramp for my wheelchair, and the only reason I ever went to the second level was to reach the third and smallest level of the dome, which anyone, including me in a wheelchair, could reach by a narrow catwalk from the second level.
    This third level was centered at the top the dome. The floor of it was a circle only 15 feet wide. It hung directly below the ceiling, above the exact middle of the main level. Here, on the deck of the third level, a powerful telescope was perched beneath a round bubble of clear, thick glass that stuck up from the black glass that made up the rest of the dome. From there, the massive telescope gave an incredible view of the solar system.
    It was getting more difficult to push my wheelchair, and I needed to stop for breath a couple times. Each gasp I took reminded me of how little time was left before the oxygen ran out.
    I wondered if I was breaking the new rule about resting to save oxygen. No one was jogging on the walkway. Below me, as I slowly wheeled up the catwalk, it was quiet on the main level of the dome. Most people were inside their minidomes. But I decided that if I didn’t have long to live, I didn’t want to waste time I could spend with the telescope.
    Tonight I not only wanted to take my mind off the oxygen problem in this death trap, but I wanted to forget what Director Steven had said to me. Maybe I did think I was too smart. Maybe I did bug people. Wondering about all that and thinking about how useless and young he thought I was, I didn’t like myself much, either.
    The best way to escape the dome and myself was with the telescope on the third level. Because if my crippled body wasn’t able to take me places, at least my eyes and mind and imagination could. For me, the telescope was freedom, something that let me travel a billion miles across the universe with a single sweep across the sky.
    I rolled into place at the eyepiece of the telescope where the dome astronomer usually sat. I allowed myself a sad smile as I lifted my hands to the controls. The one good thing about useless legs was that you never needed to look for a chair.
    I let out a deep breath as I reached the telescope controls. The power to the computer controls of the telescope was down as part of the director’s energy-saving program, but I knew how to find different stars and planets without the computer map. After all, the solar system was my backyard.
    I brought the telescope into focus. The black of the universe and the brightness of the millions and millions of stars hit me with incredible clearness. It was a clearness no one would ever see on Earth, where the air and the clouds and the particles of pollution take away the sharpness of telescopes. But not on Mars, which has nearly no atmosphere. When you sit at the telescope, it feels like you can reach out and grab the stars.
    In the next 30 seconds, Terror and Panic passed by me.
    To anyone