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stopped as people tried to figure out why he was there.
    â€œSecond,” he said, “my own name is on top of the list. I will not ask anyone to do anything I cannot do myself.”
    These words were greeted with shock. Director Steven had volunteered. How could anyone else refuse if his or her name was drawn?
    Mom stepped forward.
    â€œNo!” I cried. “Don’t go!”
    She turned around. Tears ran down her face, but she smiled. “Tyce, more than anything I want you to choose to believe in God—to realize that life beyond the body is more important than anything else, and that, with God waiting in heaven for you, you don’t have to fear death.”
    Mom left me and slowly moved to the ladder that led up to the platform buggy deck. She began to climb. Away from me. And toward her own death.
    To think of Mom giving up her life to save me and the others of the dome was to understand a love that felt like a sword piercing my heart. To think of her gone made me so empty that I almost couldn’t breathe.
    In that moment, I understood a bit of what she’d been trying to tell me all along. There was something inside me that no scientific instrument could measure or explain. Had I really been created by a God who cared—for me?
    Without realizing that my arms had moved, I felt the rims of my wheels in the palms of my hands. Without saying a word, I pushed forward in my wheelchair to the platform buggy. If Mom trusted in God, then I too would trust that my soul had a place to go.
    She heard the sounds of my wheels squeaking. She turned. Shock filled her face. “No!”
    â€œYes,” I said. “I don’t care if I’m needed for the robot experiments. If you go, I go.”
    We were whispering because it was deathly still. With everyone watching us, not a single voice spoke.
    Mom pivoted and looked up at Director Steven on the platform buggy deck. “Make him stay behind,” she begged. “Have the guards stun him so he cannot follow. I am trading my life for his.”
    More heartbeats of silence.
    Director Steven checked the sheet of paper in his hand. “I cannot let him stay behind. When I drew names, I did not set anyone apart. Because of that, his name is on this list too.”

CHAPTER 20
    We slowly traveled across the Martian landscape, 10 of us in one platform buggy and 10 in the other, following closely behind. Except for me and Director Steven, two security guards, and the two techies who first volunteered to leave the dome, the rest were scientists.
    After the entire list had been read, Rawling had tried to volunteer. He had said there were too many important scientists, too many of the best brains in the solar system about to die. Rawling had said it wasn’t right, and he should at least be allowed to take the place of one of those scientists. Director Steven had said that the decisions had been made and the names drawn in all fairness. We were to proceed accordingly.
    One of the security guards whose name had been drawn tried to make a run for it, but he was stun-blasted by two others and hauled up into the platform buggy.
    Just like me. Only I wasn’t hauled up because I had been trying to get away. Without the use of my legs, I couldn’t climb. So a big security guard had thrown me over his shoulder like a sack and carried me up the ladder. Another security guard had brought up my wheelchair. Not that it made a difference. There wasn’t much room to move around in the platform buggy observation deck. The doors weren’t locked, but with no space suits and an atmosphere of carbon dioxide waiting outside, there was no place to go.
    All of that had taken place a half hour earlier.
    Now we were at least 20 miles clear of the dome. The inside of our platform buggy was very quiet, except for the humming of the electric motor that powered the monstrous wheels beneath us.
    At one end of the buggy, Mom sat, hugging her knees. A