CHANGES

I pulled myself out of the pocket of the orange webbing that Alexei had stuffed me into. I grabbed Douglas by the leg and pulled him down away from Mickey and Alexei, so I could talk to him privately. If I'd been scared before, now I was beyond scared. There wasn't a word for it. I couldn't believe I was still rational. I should have been gibbering.

Douglas's first words were, "I didn't know myself, Chigger, I didn't have time to ask. I'm sorry—but we still would have had to come this way. Think about it."

"I have been!" I lowered my voice so he wouldn't hear the sob in my throat. I was terrified. "This is real stupid, Douglas."

"Yeah, I know—but we didn't have any choice."

"We could get killed."

"I don't think so. Mickey isn't stupid. And Alexei—"

"Alexei's a lunatic who doesn't have enough sense to be afraid of gravity. Why didn't we just stay on the elevator and deal with the marshals at Farpoint? We didn't do anything wrong. They can't arrest us."

Douglas shook his head. "Chigger, you've already seen how these people work. They throw lawyers at you. And they keep throwing lawyers until one of them finds something that sticks. And even if they can't find anything, they still keep you stuck in the courtroom. Either way, you're stopped, which is all they want to do anyway—stop us long enough to get their hands on the monkey."

"So why don't we just give it to them? We didn't make the deal to smuggle it. Dad did. We don't even know who's supposed to collect it on the other end. Or where the other end is. And besides, there isn't anything in it anyway—just a couple of bars of industrial memory, filled with decoy code."

"We don't know that. We don't know what's in it. Maybe it's the real stuff. Maybe they lied to Dad too—"

"Who?"

"Whoever. I don't know. But you heard what Dad said to fat Senor Doctor Hidalgo. We don't sell what doesn't belong to us. Maybe he suspected something."

"Oh, great. So that means if there really is something in the monkey, then we could be arrested for smuggling it—?"

"Yeah. Probably." Douglas looked at me gravely. "I just didn't think we should take any more chances."

"You panicked, didn't you?"

He didn't answer immediately. I was right. And I wished I wasn't. I'd always believed that Douglas was infallible.

He held up a hand. "Let's not have this argument. Please, Chigger?" He said it just like Dad. "We're on our way now. We can't go back. Whatever else, this is our ride."

He was right about that much, despite the way he said it, so I shut up. For a moment anyway. But this still wasn't settled. I turned back to him. "Okay, but you gotta promise me something."

"What?"

"That you won't do this anymore—make decisions without asking me. That's what Mom and Dad used to do. And we always hated it. Remember what you said before? You said 'if this is going to work, I need your help.' We're in this together, aren't we?"

Douglas put his arms around me and pulled me close. "You're right, Chigger. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I mean, I wasn't thinking about that."

"No, you were thinking—but you were thinking about the logic stuff, not the people stuff, because that's the way you are." And then I realized, "I'm not too good at it either, am I?"

He ran his hand over the top of my bald head. It was an eerie feeling. I still wasn't used to it—even though we'd all shaved ourselves smooth two days ago. Everyone who lives in space does, for cleanliness reasons. Douglas sighed sadly. "Yeah, I guess social skills was another of those lessons that got dropped out in the divorce." He kissed me— something he'd never done before, at least I couldn't remember ever being kissed by my big brother. He said, "Okay, Chig. I promise. No more family decisions unless everyone in the family is part of them. Even Stinky."

"Pinky promise?"

"Pinky promise." We hooked little fingers and shook on it.

There was one more thing I had to ask. "Douglas?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you and Mickey … you know? Gonna get married?"

"I don't know. We haven't really talked about it yet. Does it bother you?"

"I just want to know. Will he be part of our family too? Is he going to help make decisions?"

"Um, Chig … He is part of it. We have to include him."

"But we just met him two days ago."

"Three."

"Whatever. It's just—how can you make that kind of a decision so quickly? It's not logical."

"Oh, look who's talking about logic now."

"You know what I mean," I said.

"Yeah, I do. And yeah, you're right. It's not logical. But … I've never had anybody love me before. Not like this. And I don't want to lose it. It's very confusing. Maybe it'll happen to you someday. And then you'll understand."

I couldn't imagine it. So I didn't say anything. I didn't even make a face.

Douglas ran his hand over the top of my head again. He took a deep breath. "There isa decision that we do have to make very soon, Chig. All of us. What colony are we going to head out to? We'd better start thinking about that now. Because that willbe a one-way trip."

CARGO

If I'd thought the trip up the elevator was boring, the cargo pod was even worse. At least the elevator had all the cable channels, ha-ha. We could have had some video reception if we'd linked to either an Earth or a Lunar station—but if we started downloading, then our presence on this pod would be obvious to anyone with access to the tracking software. And the whole point of this trick was that they wouldn't know whichpod we were in.

Alexei spent an hour explaining to us how the pods were built and how they worked. That was sort of interesting for a while—but it wasn't really his purpose to entertain us. He said it was essential to our survival that we understood what kind of vehicle we were in.

"Is only a cargo pod, nota real spaceship," he said. "Is idea to have efficient and cheap way to send supplies and equipment to Luna or Mars or asteroid belt or anywhere else. You put stuff in box, you give box a push—you fling it off Line, da?Eventually, it arrives. Cost for fuel is negligible. You are already out of gravity well, so you only need fuel for course corrections along the way and a little bit more for braking at destination. Is very convenient, if you are not in hurry."

Then he showed us how the pods were built. "You see all these polycarbonate rods lining the shell? That is the skeleton of the pod. Very light, very strong. You put framework together like Tinker Toy, you clamp cargo wedges into frame, then you attach outer bulkheads all around. Polycarbonate shells—all prefab, all the same. Stamped from injection molds. Because they make only one trip, reusability is no concern—you think, da? Nyet.The shells are product too. Open up pod, take out cargo, close up pod, turn it into house. Very goodhouse."

Alexei pounded on the bulkhead with his fist. "This is why you find windows and plumbing and wiring in walls—not just because World Space Agency mandates every pod must have basic life support, but because every pod shipped will expand living space at destination. Very clever, yes? We have transport, we have life support, we have new home." He pounded a crate. "Is tradition on Luna, at least one of these crates always contains furnishings, yes. We live in most expensive shipping boxes in solar system. Very nice, da?"