*****
The hover bus came sailing over the trees right on time, killing Keelic’s hope that it would be crushed by a falling Patamic seed stalk. The vehicle was an old model with lift-assist fans that had seen too much service and not enough maintenance. It didn’t land properly, but hovered close to the ground kicking up dust, rocking and swiveling so that he had to quickstep and hop to get on. Inside, he looked up at the pilot. In need of a shave, the man smiled a stained-tooth grin.
"You Kalick?"
Keelic didn’t correct him, and looked down the aisle. The bus was nearly full, almost every face turned his way except a few in the back who were laughing at something.
"Sit, sit!" the bus pilot said.
Keelic started to sit by a human boy about his age, but the boy put a tablet on the seat. Awkwardly, Keelic straightened and looked around for another place. Fans screamed and the bus surged upward. He sat next to a small furry Vewbon. It ignored him, and he glanced around the bus as the seat buckled him in. The other kids looked sullen. Some of them were a bit grubby in their clothing, and the boy who had refused him a seat had blackened fingernails. Most of the talking was going on at the back of the bus. One look was enough. He knew the type that sat back there. They started a loud debate about whether his house had an Announcer or not, and it was generally decided that it did, so he must be an Annboy. Keelic knew the term but hadn’t heard it for a long time. House-Anns were relatively common in the Pesfor system, at least among the people his parents knew, but out here he guessed it was rare.
The bus dropped altitude to a road in the middle of ordered fields of red and pink plants where giant auto-farming equipment moved along the rows. The nearby house was a modest prefab type with pieces of auto-farmers scattered around it. Keelic’s own house could have swallowed three houses its size, and he wondered if all the kids on the bus lived in similar places. Two girls and a tough-looking boy got on. The boy was greeted from the back of the bus with jeers and insults, which he returned happily. Keelic heaved a tight sigh. The farm kids here were just like hivers and low-dwell on Pesfor 3. And to think Tamarin had actually wanted to go with him out here, believing it would be better than the world-city. The girls sat near him, and he remembered the blonde girl on the transport. He checked the bus, but she wasn’t there. Maybe at school.
The bus climbed high and the distant sea came into view, bright in the morning sun. Keelic resolved to see that ocean someday. He would go with her.
Landing with a thump beside a squat olive-green school building, the bus shuddered then went quiet. Students started filing out. Keelic looked out the window at the schoolhouse. A row of tall windows girded the ugly structure. He got off last and walked across the field. The entrance looked like a toothless mouth swallowing a thin stream of children. Two sets of open doors faced the hover-bus landing pad, and he knew they would slam shut once he was inside, sealing him forever in the guts of the drab-green school-beast.
Inside, an instructor was watching the students. Keelic noticed that other kids were plugging their tablets into archaic wall slots. He looked at the side of his tablet, not sure if it would work in an old-style jack like that. He shoved his tablet into the slot indicated by the harried-looking woman. The screen above welcomed him with a stupid hologram, logged him as arrived, and ejected the tablet with instructions to follow the map now onscreen. He studied the picture and looked down the hall in the direction of its flashing arrows.
Someone slammed into his back. He stumbled and his tablet went skittering across the hall. He ran to retrieve it, and looked back. A slouching boy pick himself up as a pair of older kids laughed by the tablet slot where the boy had obviously been. The instructor said something the boys ignored. Keelic rubbed his back where he’d been run into, and followed the tablet map to his first classroom.
He walked in and scanned it for blonde hair. Most of the students were humans, but three tall scale-covered Paboosht sat at the back, neck gills fluttering. The only open seats were near the front, so he went up to one, slid his tablet into the desk slot, and sat down. The desk booted and attached to the school primary. He wondered what type of system it was. The desk looked pretty old and was a type he had never used before. All the crack-and-pillage smartware he had for the Pesfor 3 school desks would be useless here.
The instructor walked in, a half smile on his shiny slick face, and sat on the front of the instructor’s desk. Keelic looked up at him.
He met Keelic’s eyes and said, "Good morning."
Keelic was about to reply when the instructor turned his head to greet another student. Keelic looked at his desk, which now had a space-shot image of the planet rotating too fast, and in the wrong direction, with "Ermol: Life and History" written over it. A corner of the screen showed last night’s homework assignment, along with, "Instructor: Mr. Drin."
Mr. Drin, whose permanent smile was already irking Keelic, greeted the class.
"Good morning. We have a new student today. Keelic Travers from Pesfor 3. Stand up, Keelic. Stand up. Turn around so the class can see you. Keelic’s father is a famous exobiologist. He has won the Nobelin Prize for Exobiology two times. Who knows what an exobiologist studies?"
Someone raised their hand and said, "They study life on different planets, and also in space."
"Very good, Iroun. Who knows what a Nobelin Prize is?"
No one answered, and Keelic felt his face getting red.
"Keelic, tell the class what a Nobelin Prize is."
Keelic muttered, "It’s an award."
"Do you know who gives it out?"
The instructor’s voice was smooth with seeming friendliness, but something about Mr. Drin was out of phase. Keelic knew precisely who awarded Nobelin Prizes, but he didn’t answer.
"You don’t? You can sit down now. There are many, many kinds of Nobelin Prizes, all of which are given out each Terran year to good people who deserve them by the Interstellar Institute for the Advancement of Knowledge."
Pressing his lips together, Keelic stared hard at his desk.
"Go to chapter three, section two," Mr. Drin directed.
Keelic smirked at the picture of the planet, and shook his head at such a stupid mistake.
"Is there a problem, Keelic?"
Though embarrassment urged him to stay quiet, a shot of rebellion spurred him to nod.
Mr. Drin said as though speaking to a very young child, "What’s wrong? You can’t use the desk?"
Feeling himself heat up, Keelic answered, "The title screen is wrong."
"What?"
"The planet is rotating the wrong way, and too fast," he said without looking up. "It’s not accurate."
There was a pause, then Mr. Drin said, "Well, when you get to Astronomy, you be sure to point that out to Ms. Onkalwitz. This is a life and history class. The text is accurate, I can assure you.
"Now. We were reading about how the wonderful spices of our world are wanted all over the galaxy. Lauras, why don’t you start at the top of page forty-six."
After suffering through Mr. Drin’s class, then an Expansion History class where the instructor didn’t know half the battles, then a Galactin course where he was two weeks behind, Keelic welcomed recess. He did what everyone else was doing and stashed his tablet in a locker, though it took him a few minutes to find the one reserved for him.
Out on the field behind the school, he was picked last for the teams, but it didn’t matter. In a game of Dodge Ball, he leapt for a ball which he caught with fingertips.
"You’re down!" he shouted at the boy who had thrown it.
Someone behind shoved him hard, and he whirled. Narrow brown eyes surveyed him for weakness. Keelic recognized the boy as the one who had been pushed earlier that morning.
"That was my ball," the boy said, and made a grab for it.
Keelic snatched it away, retorting, "Get spaced."
The boy lashed at Keelic with a small fist. Keelic leaned away, and backed up.
"Give it!" sai
d the boy, approaching with clenched hands.
Everyone was watching. Keelic knew what had to be done. Back on Pesfor 3, Tamarin was one of the toughest kids in their level, and had taught Keelic how to survive in the giant schools there.
The boy stepped forward, squinty eyed. Dropping the ball, Keelic stepped in swinging, landing a blow on the cheek, and was about to swing again when the boy backed off looking hurt and cowed.
The other boys were grinning. Someone picked up the ball and gave it to Keelic. Angry, and watching them all, he took it, unsure what to do at this friendly gesture. He looked at the ball, then ran and threw it as hard as he could. It hit someone on the shoulder, and the boys around him cheered. He didn’t even know their names.
When the chime rang that ended recess, his teammates seemed indifferent to him. Most contrived to jostle in front of him as they all crowded back into the school.
Lunch was noisy and confusing in the cafeteria. Keelic had to be directed twice. Once he had his food, he tried to sit with the guys he’d played with at recess. They glanced at one another with little smirks and told him all the empty seats at that table were saved. He sat alone at another. No one sat in any of the other chairs at the boys’ table. As soon as he finished eating, he hurried out of the cafeteria, retrieved his tablet, and checked it for his next class.
Wondering, he walked back onto the playground field. The map pointed across the field to a solid, dingy white building with "Study Hall" written in faded black letters over the door. As he approached there was no sign of life, no other students around, or any coming out of the main building. Dirty windows showed little of what lay inside.
The end-lunch chime rang. Deciding that this had to be a mistake, he turned and started back. He heard the door grind open and turned to see a man in loose dark clothing standing in the doorway. He said nothing, looking at Keelic with light-blue eyes in a finely bearded face. Turning, Keelic looked at his tablet then at the man, who seemed mild in all ways except his eyes.
Keelic asked, "Is this Accelerated Mathematics?"
"It is."
The Study Hall turned out to be a one-room chamber filled with rows of ancient-looking desk terminals and shelves of discarded equipment, all showing signs of recent cleaning not very well done. When he looked, he saw that the man was gazing around with much the same expression.
"Better than this, that new schoolhouse of yours, eh?" asked the man.
Remembering the boys at lunch, Keelic said, "It’s not mine."
A smile crept into the man’s bright eyes, and he held out his hand. Keelic did the same and the man clasped hands with him, old-Earth style.
"Charles Hallod, pleased to meet you," he said, using the Terran inflection.
Feeling strength in Charles Hallod’s hand, Keelic replied, "Keelic Travers."
"Let’s begin," said Mr. Hallod. "Some of these desks still work."
Keelic sat in the first row. It would look silly for him to sit in the back like he preferred. He did not want to look foolish in this man’s eyes.
"What level are you at, Keelic?"
"Level 6. Level 9 math."
Mr. Hallod nodded.
Keelic added, "I was into elementary algebraic geometry."
"Tell me three ways you can prove a triangle right knowing its coordinates."
Squirming in his seat, Keelic struggled to remember. Nothing came. He glanced at Mr. Hallod, but the instructor was looking at something else, and Keelic relaxed, seeking what he had learned back on Pesfor 3. He knew this.
"Distance formula!"
"Yes, how else?"
"Slope?"
"Show me."
An hour later Keelic wandered back to the main building feeling drained. Astronomy class was disappointing and boring, the tired-looking Ms. Onkalwitz explaining things he already knew. The time drifted past as he daydreamed about anything but where he was. In Expressions he spent more time looking out the window than at the picture he was supposed to be drawing and writing a story about, so that when the end-class chime rang, it was a surprise and relief.
The hover pad was full of buses neatly arrayed and already filling. He found the location where the morning bus had landed, but the space was empty. As he searched for his bus, others began taking off. He sprinted down the rows. Kids boarding their buses snickered at his panic. His tablet chimed and guided him to his hover bus. He boarded, giving a muted hello to the same stain-toothed pilot. He sat near the front and slouched down in the seat, relieved.
A tall kid with sullen eyes got on last. The only open seat was next to Keelic. The boy stood next to him and said, "The window’s mine."
Keelic ignored him, staring out the window, fear corroding his joy at going home.
The boy leaned in and grabbed Keelic’s shirt by the shoulder. Keelic twisted away and balled his fists, but couldn’t rise because the seat had strapped him in. The boy’s eyes narrowed with intent, and Keelic felt trapped. He hammered the belt release and stood up, back to the window. His breathing was short, fists tight.
The kid leaned back and let go of Keelic’s shirt, reappraising him. The whole bus was quiet, watching.
Lift fans whined. Keelic glanced at the pilot, but he was busy with his console. The bus lurched up, and both Keelic and the boy grabbed for something to hold on to.
The driver bellowed, "Sit!"
Wary, Keelic and the boy slid into the seats next to each other.
The kid got off midway through the flight at a spice farm, and Keelic’s spirits rose with the ascending craft. Living so far out, he was close to the last to be dropped off, and was impatient by the time his house came into view.
In the evening dining area, munching on chocolate-swirl cookies, he told his mom and dad and Anny all about the rotten day including the two attacks. His mother gave him a stern lecture about not fighting.
When he tried to explain that he didn’t start the fights, his mother said, "It takes two. And you are one of the two."
That had to be the stupidest thing he had ever heard her say. He looked to his father for support, but Father was watching Mother with an unreadable expression. They sent him off to start his homework before dinner. Sitting on his bed, he took out a pocketed cookie but didn’t eat it, staring instead northward, across the forest to the bluff. His parents didn’t even notice how much he hated school, and his mother thought he started the fights. He tossed his tablet into a corner of the room.
"Did you meet anybody you like?" asked Anny.
"No. They’re all Dreep!"
"Swearing is very crude, Keelic."
"So?"
"So, if you ever want to impress someone, it is a good idea not to be vulgar."
Keelic took a breath to give the best cursing response he could think of, but the memory of a certain pair of blue eyes from the transport ship silenced him.
He asked, "Do you have a list of everyone at the school?"
"No, but I can get one. It is on your console."
Instructors, maintenance staff, and hover bus pilots were all listed, but Keelic ignored them for the student list, and realized that he had no idea who she was.
"Can you get a list of all the kids on the transport we came in on?"
"That information is not readily available."
"What do you mean?"
"That data is—"
"You can get it, I know you can."
Anny did not reply, and Keelic knew he had her by her false-data inhibitor.
"Kee, I know what you’re thinking, and I won’t do it."
"Please?"
"It’s not right. What have you been taught about data that is not yours?"
"It’s really important."
"Why?"
It was his turn not to reply. Finally he said, "What about when you broke the security of the system on Nebula?"
"That was to protect the lives of your parents and many others. It was judged by Announcer Conference to be lawful cohabitant and self-defense. I didn’t really bre
ak their security. Just…mangled it a bit."
Keelic flopped down on the bed to look at the ceiling where Anny’s voice was centered.
"This is really important."
No response.
"What about the time you got that data on whatever it was for Father from the Disserian datastor?"
"What do you want the information for?"
He rolled over and looked at the floor to hide his blushing, and didn’t say anything for a while.
"Anny?"
"Here."
"Do you ever feel alone?"
"Yes."
Shocked, Keelic forgot his train of thought. He had not expected an affirmative answer.
"What do you do?"
"I usually search out another Announcer on one of the nets."
"Well, that’s what I’m doing."
Anny replied in an impressed tone, "Most young people just wait for friends to come along."
"You don’t."
"I guess we’re both a little quicker than average."
"Yeah," Keelic said. "Will you help me?"
"What’s her name?"
"I don’t know."
"What does she look like?"
In a small voice he answered, "Blue eyes."
There was no response for several minutes, but he kept quiet. Getting restricted data wasn’t a matter of tapping out a simple query.
"There were four girls aboard the transport near your age whose eyes could be considered blue."
The console by the bed displayed images of the four. Keelic sat up, and touched the one he knew. Her image filled the screen. At the bottom was written "Leesol Hallod." He sighed, then glanced at the open door to the stairs.
"Yes, we just did something wrong."
He grinned.
"If I am caught, I will get so wrapped up with inhibitors it will make your grounding look like freefall."
His smile faded, and he said, "I’m sorry, Anny." He had met Announcers under strong inhibitors. He never wanted to see Anny like that.
"Don’t worry. I wasn’t detected. I did it of my own free will. For you. My friend. That makes it worth it for me, Kee."
He turned back to the picture, and looked into the pale-blue eyes.
"Dree—"
Stopped in mid-swear by a disapproving "tsk" from Anny, he stared. Leesol Hallod. Same blue eyes.
"Is she Mr. Hallod from school’s daughter?"
"Ask, ‘Is she Mr. Hallod’s daughter, my teacher from school?’"
"Is she?"
"Yes. They were on the transport with us. Your father is coming."
Keelic sat against his pillows, pulled the console around, and pretended to be reading.
His father walked in and sat on the bed.
"How are you doing, Kee?"
"Okay."
"You seem a little distracted. Dinner is ready."
Father left, and Keelic let out the breath he had been holding.
"You still have her?" he asked.
Anny replied in mock hurt, "You doubt me?"
Keelic sputtered to deny it.
Anny laughed and said, "A Disserian audit couldn’t find it."
"You’re the best Ann in the whole universe."
"Thanks, Kee. Your dinner is getting cold."