Free Space Rocks! by Tom O'Donnell Page B

something out.”
    â€œWhat’s the point?” said Becky, slumping down on the couch.
    â€œBecky, in any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing,” said Hollins. “Teddy Roosevelt said that.”
    â€œWho?” asked Little Gus.
    â€œThe twenty-sixth president of the United States,” said Hollins. “He was also an explorer and an author and one of the great—”
    â€œStop!” cried Becky. “The only thing that could make dying worse is getting a history lesson at the same time!”
    â€œWait,” said Nicki suddenly. “That’s it. What you said.”
    â€œTeddy Roosevelt?” said Hollins.
    â€œNo, sorry. What Becky said! Before!”
    â€œCollege entrance essay?” said Becky.
    â€œYou said the whole world is watching! Well, maybe not the whole world, but at least our parents, and probably even some people on Earth. Watching the pod, I mean. With their telescopes. From space. Until we go behind Mars.” Her words were coming out a jumble. The other humans were as confused as I was.
    â€œSorry,” she said, slowing down. “What I mean is that they’re probably observing us, right now, to see if we’re okay. So even if the radio doesn’t work, we could send them a message with—”
    â€œMorse code!” cried Hollins.
    â€œExactly,” said Nicki. “We can blink the lights of the pod on and off to send them a message that we’re running out of air. Maybe they could send someone sooner. It’s worth a shot.”
    â€œOkay, I think my dad had an old book about Morse code around here somewhere,” said Hollins. “In the meantime, let’s get our spacesuits on. If something else goes wrong, we don’t want to be caught flat-footed.”
    â€œWhat else could go wrong?” asked Little Gus.
    â€œPlenty of stuff,” said Nicki cheerfully. “The computer could be overestimating the amount of air we have left. There could be an electrical fire. An aftershock from the quake could shake the pod to—”
    She noticed that all the other humans were scowling at her.
    â€œSorry,” she said. “Thinking out loud again.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

    T he air in the pod had long since run out, now replaced by the surface atmosphere of Gelo. I sat on the floor of the sideways room, still tied, with the four humans. They had all put on their spacesuits several hours earlier. At first, they were eager to talk among themselves. They were close enough to actually hear each other without the use of their radios, though the glass of their helmets and the thinner atmospheric composition gave their voices a muffled, far-away quality. For the past hour or so, though, no one had said anything.
    Even the computer voice, so eager to remind the humans of their impending doom, had fallen silent. After the air had run out, it probably assumed that all sensible humans had evacuated.
    The young humans had sent their message. They’d located the book, and then Nicki had used another hologram computer device, this one belonging to Hollins. She’d plugged it into the wall and reprogrammed the ship’s lighting controls. Instead of flying saucers, the holographic display had shown a floating stream of human computer code that Nicki manipulated and changed. Apparently the devices weren’t just for games.
    Now, periodically, the lights of the pod would flick on and off according to an ancient human code of dots and dashes that represented characters in their alphabet. If someone was observing from space, and they knew this code, they might have gotten the following message:
    â€œSOS. ONLY THREE HOURS AIR LEFT. SOS.”
    For a while, the blinking lights kept repeating this message (with Nicki periodically revising the number in the middle downward). Eventually the air had run out,