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hungry and tired. The strap of the gun dug into his shoulder. I must not complain.
    Where were they? Jeff didn’t know. Nanny did. Jeff dared not bother Nanny with a question like that. Maybe Ring 3—or was that the last one? Somewhere far in , anyway. The tight curve in the floor told Jeff that. Not very far ahead of them the floor seemed to curl up into the ceiling. At least the gravity was weaker this far in . The gun felt less heavy. But he still had to pull hard to make the boots let go of the sticky carpet strip. That made his heel smart.
    Hours ago the captain had handed him the gun. The gun made his parents nervous. They almost wouldn’t let him go. But the captain told them it was a SmartGun. He quickly punched several buttons on it before handing it to Jeff.
    â€œThere now, perfectly safe, even for a boy!” The captain laughed. “Can’t have people blowing holes in the walls, you know!”
    Mom said, “I guess it’s okay.” And Dad nodded.
    Then the captain sent Jeff on his way with this advice: “Stick with Nanny, boy, and everything will be fine.”
    Jeff obeyed, creeping and sneaking behind Nanny through the stale-smelling and silent parts of the space station. When Nanny moved, Jeff moved. His boots made a soft scritch-rip, scritch-rip sound. Nanny’s motor buzzed. When Nanny stopped, Jeff stopped. When Nanny looked around with the one green eye, Jeff held his breath. He strained his eyes and ears into the gloomy bigness, alert to any hint of a rat. It was fun at first. But they had been doing this since the meeting in the cafeteria. That had been just after lunch. Jeff was sure they had prowled right through supper time by now. In and out and around and around, and nothing happened.
    Another jab of pain. He clenched his teeth. Once again he blamed Mom for forgetting, imagining the boots side by side in the front hall, in plain sight. Good for nothing on Earth.
    He bet the blister was huge, the kind that pops and bleeds and gets infected. They would have to cut his foot off. It happened to prisoners on long marches, Jeff knew. And this was a long march! Jeff had never walked so much in his whole life—not even at camp. Maybe they would notice when he lost a foot trying to save the project from some dumb—
    â€œOw!”
    Jeff smacked his knee against Nanny’s hard shell. He hadn’t noticed that the robot had stopped. After making an angry, sizzly sound like a hive of disturbed bees, Nanny went quiet.
    The silence made Jeff’s ears throb. No machines hummed. No air fans whispered. The corridor was so dark the colors on the piping didn’t show. Only one tiny bulb glowed yards away. It lit up a closed hatch with a sign saying DANGER — OFF-LIMITS. Another abandoned part of the space station. No reason to search there; even a rat needed air.
    But Nanny did not turn back.
    What was up?
    Jeff forced his eyes open as wide as they could go. His finger curled over the cold, hard trigger. How dangerous the gun felt! The automatic targeting beam came on. It cast a dinner-plate-sized circle of light as bright as sunshine. Briefly the light blazed off Nanny’s laser-proof armor, dazzling Jeff’s dark-adjusted eyes. Then Jeff aimed into the shadowy places.
    Come on, rat!
    But he could barely see, so he hoped the rat would wait a minute before showing up. Nanny was not bothered by the sudden change from dark to light. Nanny had sensors for heat and motion. Jeff despaired, not for the first time since the hunt began: How would he ever get the rat first?
    Something clattered as loud as spilled pennies just above his head. Eyes-handgun all jerked toward the sound. Jeff almost pulled the trigger, but it was just a sniffer in the air vent. Its jagged teeth glittered like a mouthful of braces in the targeting beam. The wormy eye tubes bobbed.
    Jeff let out a whoosh of breath. He slumped against the wall, then slowly sank to the deck. While Nanny