Marooned! Read online

  “Why did you talk the others into staying?”

  “I didn’t,” Sean said. “When they found out I didn’t plan to go back to Earth, they all decided to stay too. I didn’t talk them into anything.” He struggled for words. “This is more than a prank. Look, the Asimov kids are all orphans. We don’t have anything on Earth to return to. Marsport is our future, our hope of building something, maybe even of giving the human race a chance of surviving. I still don’t know what’s going to happen on Earth, whether it will pull through or….” He shrugged again.

  “None of us knows,” Amanda said quietly. She sighed. “This is going to be very difficult for you and your friends, more difficult than anything you’ve ever done. I’m counting on you.”

  “On me?” Sean asked, surprised.

  Amanda’s expression was kind. “You do have talents, Sean, more than being able to assess probabilities. Maybe you didn’t talk your friends into staying on Mars, but they stayed because of you. That’s a talent. It’s called leadership.”

  “I’m not a—”

  “You are,” she said simply. “The others feel it, even if they don’t put it into words. Believe me, Sean, leadership is a tough job. Responsibility comes with it, and that can crush anyone who isn’t prepared. If the others find the next months hard, you’re going to find them all but impossible. We’re living in a little pocket that human engineering has made habitable, but the rest of this planet will kill you.”

  Sean gave her a quizzical smile. “I know,” he said. “Mars has a million ways of killing us. But that means we have to get very, very good at staying alive.”

  “Well put,” said Dr. Simak dryly. “Now let’s see if we can do that.”

  Sean nodded. His sense of doom, the sense that had so driven him when he was on Earth, had lifted. An odd kind of hope had replaced it—a hope colored with uncertainty, even a little fear. He didn’t know what would happen now; maybe his feeling of impending catastrophe had even been a fluke. Maybe his cautious sense of optimism was wrong, and maybe disaster was waiting next week, or next month, or next season. Maybe none of the Marsport colonists would get out of this alive.

  Still, whatever happened, he was home.

  And at the moment that made up for everything else.

  Look for the second book in the MARS YEAR ONE trilogy

  Missing!

  Landslides, a deadly climate, and the increasingly unpredictable weather of Mars make survival nearly impossible, but the most immediate problem facing the Marsport colonists is the dwindling water supply. The group decides to construct an automated station in a rift valley where ice accumulated from the atmosphere will be melted and moved through warming pipelines to Marsport.

  The kids of the Asimov Project participate in the work, but then a fierce storm hits and a team that includes Jenny is isolated and lost. Despite orders not to leave Marsport, Sean puts together a group of kids to go out and find the team. As the race to save the missing colonists becomes increasingly dangerous—and pits Sean against Amanda and the administration of the colony—Sean quickly learns that schisms within the social order are almost as deadly as Mars itself.

  FALL 2004

  MARS HAS A MILLION DIFFERENT WAYS TO KILL YOU….

  The year is 2085. Mars Experimental Station One, a colony built to test humans’ ability to live in an alien and hostile environment, has been in existence for ten years. This functioning city of two thousand people includes only twenty teenagers, each hand selected from the billions on Earth as part of the controversial Asimov Project.

  The Asimov teens each have reasons to doubt themselves and distrust each other. But one thing is certain: Mars offers them something Earth never could. When the existence of Marsport is threatened, the group must overcome their fears and join forces, for their survival depends on nothing less.

  FOLLOW THE ADVENTURES OF THESE TEENS IN THE MARS YEAR ONE TRILOGY:

  #1 MAROONED!

  #2 MISSING!

  #3 MARSQUAKE!

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  SIMON & SCHUSTER CHILDREN’S DIVISION

  Bobby Pendragon is a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy. He has a family, a home, and a possible new girlfriend. But something happens to Bobby that changes his life forever.

  HE IS CHOSEN TO DETERMINE THE COURSE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE.

  Pulled away from the comfort of his family and suburban home, Bobby is launched into the middle of an immense, inter-dimensional conflict involving racial tensions, threatened ecosystems, and more. It’s a journey of danger and discovery for Bobby, and his success or failure will do nothing less than determine the fate of the world….

  PENDRAGON

  A new series by D. J. MacHale

  Book One: The Merchant of Death

  Available now

  Book Two: The Lost City of Faar

  Book Three: The Never War

  Book Four: The Reality Bug

  Coming Soon

  From Aladdin Paperbacks

  Published by Simon & Schuster

  #1 The Un-Magician

  by Christopher Golden & Thomas E. Sniegoski

  TIMOTHY IS A FREAK, a weakling, an impossibility. He’s the only person in existence without magical powers and has spent his entire life hidden on a remote island.

  When Timothy is finally taken back to the city of his birth, he finds he is marked for death. Assassins are watching his every move, and the government wants him destroyed. Timothy can’t imagine what threat he could possibly pose; after all, he wields no power in this world.

  Or does he?

  The OutCast quartet begins August 2004

  Aladdin Paperbacks · Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  www.simonsayskids.com