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said.
    “Yes, what is it?” Slayton said, covering the mouthpiece with his hand.
    “I told you that the spirit of discovery is why I’m fascinated by space exploration. What about you, I wonder. Are you here to save my son and your missing astronaut, or are you just trying to save your job?”
    With that, Mr. Johns walked out of the office, leaving Slayton to stare at the empty doorway and ponder the question.

Lunar Surface
    The hidden locator device, the mystery of Number Four, Salerno. Glen didn’t even know how to begin solving all of these problems, but as he raced the rover across the lunar surface, he was, at least for a while, not thinking about his troubles.
    “Wheee!” he shouted. The rover zigged and zagged across the moon, leaving tire tracks behind in the dust. The rim of a small crater appeared straight ahead, and Glen pressed the pedal to the floor. The vehicle jumped forward, heading straight for the crater. As it zoomed up the slope, Glen held on tight to the steering wheel.
    Vwooooom!
    The rover was airborne, flying high above the crater. Glen let out a whoop as he looked down at the ground below. The moon’s reduced gravity allowed the vehicle to glide perfectly to the crater’s far slope, where its four tires landed softly. Glen rolled down the slope, where he skidded to a stop.

    “That was awesome!” he said, catching his breath. Then, as he wheeled the rover around to jump the crater again, he saw a shape in the distance, something rising from the ground. Curious, Glen set off to investigate.
    As he neared the object, he saw what it was: a tall, pencil-like structure sticking out of the moon’s surface.
    “It’s an obelisk,” Glen said aloud. “We learned about these in school.” He was right; it was an obelisk, a four-sided structure with a pointed top. “But what’s it doing here on the moon?” Glen wondered.
    He drove the rover right up to the structure and got out to have a closer look. What he saw surprised him. The stone obelisk was covered in strange carvings, pictures, and letters that Glen didn’t recognize. He walked around to each side, trying to make sense of his discovery.
    “This is weird,” he said. “What does all this mean, and who put this thing here? It doesn’t looklike something man-made.” Glen was filled with wonder. He’d never seen anything like it before. Or had he?
    “Wait a minute,” he said, pulling out Salerno’s notebook. He flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for: a drawing of this very object. “I knew I’d seen this before!” he said. “According to Salerno’s notes, she calls this Number Two. And here are drawings of Numbers One and Three, which I’m guessing are somewhere else on the moon’s surface.”
    Glen flipped to another page of the notebook, where he found a map of the moon. Salerno’s penmanship was hard to read—Glen figured that you must not need good handwriting to become an astronaut—but he saw that there were three numbers spread out on the map.
    “Hmm, each of these numbers must represent an obelisk. So, Salerno must think there’s a fourth one somewhere out there—Number Four! But that still doesn’t explainwhat they are or where they came from.”
    He looked back up at the strange structure in front of him and gazed at it for several minutes, fascinated. It was hard for him to leave it without first understanding what it could be, but he knew that he needed to get moving. Looking back at Salerno’s map, he saw that she’d marked the location of each lunar facility. Not far from Number Two was the medical facility.
    I’d better check there,
he thought.
With any luck, I’ll find the locator device. Or better yet, Salerno herself.

Medical Facility
    Glen passed through the medical facility, which was where the astronauts came when they were sick or injured. Ever since he had his tonsils removed when he was six, he’d hated hospitals. And now, as he passed by examination rooms full