The Aftermath Read Online Free PDF Page B

to his sleeping compartment for a week, with nothing to do but watch old vids.
    Now, encased in the hard-shell suit, he worked his way down the tunnel from one sealed hatch to the next. Finally he planted his boots against the last hatch, the one that opened into the command pod. Theo let out a gust of breath. The journey had been hard work instead of fun.
    No time for complaints, though. At his feet was the airtight hatch that opened into the command pod. Dad’s in there, Theo said to himself. Maybe his comm system’s been shot away. Maybe he’s hurt, wounded.
    He had to carefully, painfully turn himself around so he could see the hatch’s control panel. Its status light glared bright red. Vacuum on the other side of the hatch! Cripes, did Dad have enough time to get into his suit? The pod must be punctured!
    Theo was literally standing on his head, clinging to the ladder’s rung with one gloved hand. He reached for the hatch’s control panel, but stopped his shaking hand just in time. If I open the hatch to vacuum it’ll suck all the air out of the tunnel. But the tunnel’s already been punctured and the emergency hatches are shut. Whatever air we’re gonna lose we’ve already lost. Still he hesitated. Be better to conserve the air we’ve still got, he thought. We might be out here for who knows how long. Chrysalis is all torn up; there’s no help back at Ceres for us.
    Standing on a ladder rung, he punched at the suit radio’s keyboard on the wrist of his suit.
    â€œMom?” he called.
    She answered immediately, “Yes, Theo.”
    â€œI need you to pump the air out of the tunnel.”
    He heard her sharp intake of breath. “There’s vacuum on the other side of the hatch?”
    Sharp, Mom, he thought. “That’s what the hatch pad says. And the tunnel’s been punctured someplace; all the emergency airlocks are closed. Pump out the air and store it in the standby tanks.”
    Pauline said, “All right. Can you talk with your father?”
    Theo hadn’t even tried that. “I’ll see.” He called over the suit radio. No answer. He pounded a gloved fist against the hatch. No response.
    â€œHe … he doesn’t answer,” he said at last.
    Again his mother hesitated before replying, “The tunnel’s evacuated.”
    â€œRight.”
    It took Theo two tries to peck out the combination that opened the hatch, his hand was shaking so much. When it finally did slide noiselessly open, his heart clutched in his chest.
    There was nothing there! The entire control pod was gone! Gasping, wide-eyed, Theo slowly climbed three more rungs until his head and shoulders were through the open hatchway.
    He was in empty space. Hard pinpoints of stars stared down at him from the black depths of infinity. The ship that had attacked them was nowhere in sight. Their cargo of ore was a distant cloud of rocks, spinning farther away every heartbeat. The wheel-shaped structure of the ore ship curved away on either side of him but there was no trace of the control pod. Theo saw the severed stumps of the struts that had held the pod in place, blackened by the blast of their explosive bolts.
    Gone. Dad’s gone. He’s left us.
    â€œTheo?” his mother’s voice called in his helmet earphones. “Is your father hurt? Or…”
    â€œHe’s gone,” Theo said, feeling a deadly cold numbness creeping over him. “He’s abandoned us, Mom.”

ADRIFT
    â€œYour father did not abandon us,” Pauline Zacharias said firmly.
    Theo thought she looked angry. At me. She’s boiled at me because Dad took off and left us. She’s not mad at Dad, she’s spitting mad at me.
    He was sitting tensely on the sofa in the family living room, feeling tired and angry and scared. Angie sat on the armchair at one end of the sofa, rigid and staring hard-eyed at him, as if he’d done something wrong.