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CHAPTER 1

THE ROGUE PLANET WAS UP THERE.

Though Eleanor couldn’t see it, she felt its weight all the time now. An immense shadow come from the distant reaches of space to drain the life from her own planet. Her freezing, dying earth.

No one else could feel it. Eleanor was certain the only reason anyone believed her, including her own mother, was that Dr. Powers had proven the rogue planet was real. She stared at the thin strip of wild Arctic sky visible between the buildings on either side of her. The planet was lurking up there, hidden somewhere among the stars.

“Are you sure about this, Luke?” Eleanor’s mom asked. Her polar mask obscured her face and cast her voice in amorphous metal.

“I’m sure,” Luke said, his voice similarly distorted by his own mask, a layer of protection they all needed or the cold would crystallize their lungs in moments.

They all huddled together in a snowbound alleyway—Eleanor and her mom; their pilot, Luke; her mom’s coworker, Dr. Powers; and his sons, Julian and Finn—between two small warehouses in Fairbanks, Alaska, having fled Barrow and the clutches of the Global Energy Trust the day before. Outside the alley, across a narrow, empty corridor in the ice, lay a darkened dome not unlike those used by the oil companies back in Barrow. Everywhere in the Arctic, buildings bent their failing wills against an assault of wind and snow that would not relent until the structures—and any people left inside them—had been wiped away.

“But for all we know,” Dr. Powers said, “the G. E. T. has placed a bounty on our heads. ”

“What’re you saying?” Luke asked.

“Well . . .

Julian and Finn looked from their father back to Luke. Eleanor had met Betty once before, after stowing away on Luke’s plane, but didn’t know her well at all.

“She’s a good enough friend for me to suggest we hide out with her,” Luke said, sounding irritated, and even a little angry.

“Keep your voice down,” said Eleanor’s mom. “And Simon, Luke is right. We’re out of options. ”

“Then let’s do this,” Luke said. “But wait here till I give you the all clear. ”

He ducked away toward the street even as Dr. Powers began to protest, and scurried across to the airlock hatch. The informal Arctic Code dictated that air locks be left open at all times for emergencies, and this hatch was no different. Luke was able to open it with a turn of the lever and step inside.

“Dad?” Finn said. “You really think the G. E. T. put a bounty on us?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Powers said.

“Couldn’t we just tell them the truth?” Finn asked. “Dr. Skinner was the criminal, not us. ” Finn was twelve, like Eleanor, and in some ways much smarter than her and his older brother. In other ways, though, he wasn’t.