Double Cross Read Online Free

finally returned from a three-year trip to Earth and back, she’d always been satisfied with a hairstyle that didn’t take much fussing and gave her as much time as possible for her science. But now she was letting her hair grow longer and making sure it was done nicely. And that wasn’t all. I’d noticed more changes in her. With Dad here to complete our family, she was still every bit a no-nonsense scientist, but she seemed more relaxed and happy.
    Except when her son had just asked permission to leave the safety of the dome for the dangers of the surface of Mars.
    Dad coughed. “Assume the worst and hope for the best. That’s a great way to plan for travel. I’m sure Rawling is just taking precautions.”
    â€œYes,” I said, glad to have someone on my side. Because Dad had been gone so long, he and I had just learned to be friends again.
    â€œSo the bigger question,” Dad continued, “is why?”
    For me, looking at Dad was almost like looking in a mirror. If I hadn’t been in a wheelchair, people would notice I was growing to be as tall as he was. And we both had dark blond hair.
    Because I hadn’t said anything, Dad repeated his question. “Why does Rawling want to take you on a field trip a couple hundred miles away?”
    I cleared my throat. “It’s so far from the dome, I wouldn’t be able to stay connected to the robot if we tried doing it from here. Rawling needs to load the computer and transmitter on the platform buggy and keep it close enough to the robot so the signal stays strong.”
    Dad smiled. “Nice try.”
    â€œHuh?” I said innocently. He knew me pretty well for someone who had been away from Mars for so long.
    â€œAll you did was answer the obvious. What we really want to know is why Rawling wants the robot out there so far from the dome. What does he want it to explore?”
    â€œOh,” I said. “That.”
    Dad kept smiling. “And …”
    Rawling had given me permission to tell my parents. But only them. I’d been saving this information for the last. “Rawling asked me to ask you to keep this to yourselves.”
    Mom and Dad nodded, so I continued. “He thinks that there may be evidence of an alien civilization.”
    Their reaction was the same that mine had been. Stunned at the thought.
    â€œThat’s big,” Dad said. “Real big.”
    Mom laughed. “The most staggering discovery in the history of humankind and all you can say is big?”
    â€œWhat would you say?” he asked, grinning back.
    She thought for a moment, opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind, and shut it again. Finally she spoke. “It’s big. Real big.”
    â€œExactly,” Dad said to her, then turned to me. “It’s so big that the only way you can go is if I go too.”

CHAPTER 7
    That night, as I’d promised Ashley, I went to the dome’s telescope. I went early because I loved to spend time alone looking at the Martian night sky.
    Earth has an atmosphere that makes the light of the stars twinkle as it moves through air, but from Mars it’s almost as clear as looking from a spaceship. The lights of the galaxies are like clusters of diamonds, and the powerful dome telescope made the view even more incredible, with millions of tiny bright lights stabbing through the dark of the solar system.
    Whenever I sat at the telescope, I reminded myself that I was looking backward through time. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. So if you were riding in a spaceship that moved at the speed of light, in one minute you’d cover over 11 million miles. In one hour you’d be 670 million miles from your starting point. In one day you’d be over 16 billion miles away. The scary thing about the size of the universe is that the closest star to Earth is more than four light-years away, which means you’d have to travel at 186,000 miles