Higher Education

by Charles Sheffield

  Rick wasn't about to admit it, to Monkey or anyone else, but he liked doing this stuff. It wasn't hard to nod grudgingly and say, "Sit next to me, where we can both see the sheet. I'm not going to do this for you. But I'll show you how to do it for yourself."

  "That's what I need. I won't be sitting where I can ask you during the tests." Monkey squeezed onto the seat next to Rick. The cubicles were intended for solo study, and it was a tight fit. Rick felt a warm hip press against his. When he moved his right hand to the sheet, his elbow brushed her breast.

  "Sorry. Couldn't help it."

  "That's all right. The pleasure's mine." Monkey's reply sounded like a come-on, but there was no flirtation in her voice. Her attention was on the clue that Rick was pointing to.

  "Now, you can certainly do this one," he said. "It's straight arithmetic. All you have to do is add the two numbers, and that's the answer to D Across."

  "Yeah. Wish we had a calculator."

  "Wish on. You know Turkey." Rick controlled his impatience as Monkey took pencil and paper and slowly and patiently worked out the answer. "Good. Now you do F Across the same way, and that will give you some of the numbers you need for getting a handle on E Down."

  "Right." She started to calculate again. Slowly, at glacial speed, answers came and were transferred to the crossword sheet. After fifteen minutes, fewer than half the numbers of the square had been filled in. Monkey seemed pleased. Rick wasn't. He knew from experience that the tougher half lay ahead.

  They were puzzling over one of the clues, heads close and bodies touching all the way from hips to shoulders, when a sound came from the door behind them. Rick was concentrating and didn't move. It wasn't just that Monkey's proposed answer was wrong. It was more like totally baffling. How could anybody produce such a weird result and somehow dream it might be right? So when the door opened he merely said, "Yeah? What you want?"

  There were no words at first, just a gasp of disbelief. And then, "Deedee said you was in here. I was sure she was lying."

  Rick swung his body as far as he could, but he was jammed too close to Monkey. He craned his head around. It was Vido Valdez, his face twisted with shock.

  "Vido." Monkey squirmed against Rick, struggling to get up and off the seat. "You don't understand. You've got it all wrong."

  "I understand what I see. You in here, wriggling and rubbing your tits all over him. What you think I am, a dummy?" Vido lifted his arm as though he would strike Monkey, then lowered it. He looked ready to cry. "Just get out of here," he said in a quiet, dead voice. "You bitch, after all you said to me. I don't even want to talk to you."

  "Vido, we weren't—"

  Valdez was not listening. He had moved forward to stand in front of Rick and was glaring down at him. "You're too scared to fight, so you thought you'd get back at me some other way."

  "Monkey came here asking me to help her. We didn't do anything."

  "You been avoiding me, I know that. You're too much of a coward to face me. Well, you get to face me now." Vido reached out and hauled Rick backward off the seat. "You think you're good with women, let's see how you do with men."

  The cubicle was small and cramped. Rick knew one thing for certain: if he and Vido started a fight in here, he was doomed. There would be no space to dodge and weave, and Valdez was far stronger. As Vido reached forward, Rick ducked low and dived for the cubicle door. He landed on all fours in the narrow corridor and started to scramble away along it.

  "No you don't." Vido was rushing after him. Rick rose to his feet and turned to face the blind charge. He got in one good punch on the side of Vido's head, enough to divert the other's forward momentum away from him, then he ran away as fast as he could in the other direction. He had been lucky with that first punch, but the corridor was too narrow to maneuver. If he was to stand any chance at all against Vido he needed lots more space.

  Doors were opening on both sides of the corridor as Rick zoomed along it. Other trainees were coming out to see what the noise was. With any luck they would slow Vido's progress.

  When Rick came to the gym it was deserted. He wasn't sure whether that made him glad or sad. Jigger Tait might have halted Vido and stopped the fight, but that would have solved nothing. Vido was so mad he would just wait and jump Rick the next chance he got.

  Locking Vido out would be no better. It had to be here and now.

  Rick turned. Vido was running toward him. Unlike on his first rush, his hands were up to protect himself. As he came close he reached out to grab Rick in a bear hug.

  Rather than dodging to the left or right, Rick jumped straight up. He rose about fifteen feet to the ceiling, reached his target of one of the exercise brackets, and grabbed it to check his movement. He hung easily, supporting himself with two fingers of one hand. Suddenly he realized that the dynamics of a fight in low gee were completely different—and to his advantage. He had weeks of experience with the exercise equipment, and he was pretty sure that Vido had none.

  He looked down. "You want me, dum-dum? Then come up and get me."

  Valdez produced a choked grunt of rage, crouched, and jumped at Rick. It was exactly what Rick wanted him to do. Once his feet left the ground he could do nothing to change his direction. He came floating upward.

  Rick waited, bracing his back against the ceiling. When Vido was within reach, flailing his arms and legs helplessly, Rick kicked out hard with both feet. The heel of his right foot caught Vido on the jaw, while his left foot set the other's body spinning. Vido crashed shoulder-first against the hard ceiling, rebounded, and floated slowly back down. His raised arms and head smacked into the padded floor. Then he did not move.

  Was he unconscious, or just faking it?

  Rick could not tell. Rather than repeating Vido's mistake and finding himself helpless in mid-air, he crabbed along ceiling and wall using the exercise brackets. Within a few seconds he reached the floor and could walk warily over to where Vido was still lying face-down.

  Unconsciousness could be faked. Blood could not. Rick saw the stream of red oozing from Vido's scalp and nose and suddenly felt scared. He had meant to put his enemy out of action, not kill him. He bent to turn Vido over, wondering what to do next.

  He did not have to make that decision. Gina Styan suddenly appeared at his side. "Get back to your dorm," she said curtly. "You've done enough for one day."

  "I didn't—" Rick began. But he went unheard, because Monkey came into the gym, screamed, and ran across to cradle Vido's head in her arms.

  "You've killed him." She was glaring up at Rick, her brown face flushed darker with blood. "He's dead."

  "He's not dead." Rick had seen Vido blink and move his feet. But Monkey screamed again. "You've killed him!"

  Gina caught Rick's eye and jerked her head. "Out of here. This will be easier on everybody if you're not around."

  Easier on Rick, that was for sure. He saw a dozen other trainees crowding into the gym. They were all staring at Vido's bloodied head, then frowning accusingly at Rick.

  He pushed his way through them without a word and headed for the dorm. His daily assignments were not finished, but there was no way he could work on them now. He was too agitated.

  Back at his empty dorm he threw himself onto his bed. If he had just told Alice Klein to go take a jump instead of explaining her problem to her, none of this would have happened. He would be quietly at work on his study tasks. And now look at him. Vido was sure he had been screwing around with Monkey, when he hadn't laid a finger on her. Everybody else believed he had knocked the shit out of Vido, when actually all he had been doing was defending himself. And because he wasn't getting his work done, he would be forcing down lumpy oatmeal tomorrow.

  So much for trying to help people. Rick closed his eyes. Next time he would know better.

  Chapter Nine

  EARLY next morning before classes began, Rick was summoned to Turkey Gossage's office. Sure that he was in trouble, he was in no hurry to get there yet afraid of being late. He fin
ally arrived a few minutes ahead of time.

  Gossage nodded him to a seat on the other side of the circular table that he used as a desk. He went on studying a monitor, invisible to Rick. He was muttering to himself, until at last he looked up.

  "I guess you think you're a real hot-shot."

  "I never meant to hurt him." When Turkey looked blank, Rick blundered on. "I didn't. I really didn't want to fight at all."

  "Oh, that." Turkey waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "I wasn't talking about that. I had a meeting with Valdez last night, and he says the whole thing was his fault."

  "His fault!"

  "You got hearing problems? Your physical didn't show it. You heard me, his fault. He says he came across a situation, misinterpreted it, and blew his lid. You were just defending yourself. You want to disagree with that?"

  "Well, no. But I'm surprised." Suddenly Rick felt like a coward.

  "That's permitted. Thank him when you see him. Now let's start over." But Turkey had to pause, because there was another knock on the door. "Come in."

  It was Deedee Mao, arriving to the appointed second. Turkey waved her to a chair next to Rick. "I'll ask you the same thing I just tried to ask Luban," he said. "I guess you think you're a real hot-shot?"

  "No." Deedee glanced at Rick, convinced that he must have said something about her, but he shook his head.

  "So you don't know, either?" Turkey went on.

  Rick looked at Deedee. She seemed just as puzzled as he was. "I don't," she said.

  "Then I guess I'll have to tell you." Gossage was studying their faces. "The pair of you are sitting near the top of the trainee heap, along with a couple of others. You and Chick Teazle and Gladys de Witt are all doing well. Keep going this way, and you'll graduate."

  Rick's pleasure at that surprising news didn't last too long, because Turkey hadn't finished and he had a diabolical look of glee on his face.

  "Naturally," he said, "since you're such hot-shots we want you to have a specially good chance to make a mess of things. So for the pair of you, the training course just moved beyond supervised instruction. Tomorrow morning you'll be partners on a practical exercise in space ore mining. And I promise you, it won't be easy. I suggest you spend the rest of today studying the problem. You have until the close of the work day tomorrow to complete the assignment."

  Rick and Deedee exchanged grimaces. They had pretty much avoided each other since their first liftoff into orbit. Now they were supposed to cooperate—even depend on each other.

  "Studying together." Gossage had read their faces. "The more you know about each other's strengths and weaknesses, the better. And remember something else: in the real world you don't always get assigned to projects with your best buddies. Go get to work. The universe doesn't care how much people like each other."

  The "practical exercise" that Gossage and his staff had prepared did not sound too hard. Rick and Deedee would load a five-hundred-ton ore carrier with low-grade tailings, controlling a semi-smart mining robot to do all the heavy work. They would fly the carrier to CM-2's refinery, drop off the ore, and return to the mine area on the empty carrier. Their own safe return through CM-2's interior would mark the end of the exercise.

  But as Deedee remarked, the devil was in the details. Smartness in a mining robot was a mixed blessing, and the instructions given to it must limit its initiative. That meant learning the interaction manual and understanding the robot's powers and limitations. The ore carrier was no better. Examining its flight path and fuel needs, Rick and Deedee learned that the fuel supply provided for the round trip was barely enough. One mistake, even a small one, would leave them drifting helplessly away from CM-2 and calling for help from an empty carrier. Turkey Gossage, obviously by intention, had provided no precomputed flight trajectory.

  Finally there was a hidden variable mentioned nowhere in the project description: according to training course rumor and legend, Gossage always threw in some extra problem on a practical test, a zinger that could not be predicted ahead of time. You found out about it when it hit you in the face.

  Working with Deedee, Rick grudgingly had to admit that she was smart. She seemed less cocky and belligerent than he remembered her, and she caught on to new ideas at least as fast as he did. He suspected that in a pinch she could read and remember better. And she never seemed to get tired. The cocky statements from Chick Teazle and others of the New Mexico training group, that the East Coasters were all butt-head weirdos, hardly applied to Deedee Mao.

  Rick tried to match her. He drove himself harder than ever before, until late at night they found themselves sitting side-by-side and staring helplessly at a set of schematics. The lines on the screen seemed to blur and curve as Rick watched. The circuit had to be completed correctly before the display would advance, but nothing seemed to work.

  "It can't be that hard," Rick muttered at last.

  "It isn't." Deedee sighed and reached forward to turn off the display. "It's us. We've saturated. At least, I have. How about you?"

  "An hour ago. I just didn't want to admit it." Rick stood and reached up to rub at his stiffened neck muscles. "Better get some sleep. We've got a big day ahead."

  "Yeah." Deedee stretched. "I'm in Cabin Twenty-Eight. Wanna get it on? Y'know, in freefall. I hear it's somethin' special."

  Her tone of voice was casual and she wasn't looking at Rick. But she was smiling.

  He shook his head. "Better with a swamp toad. God. That was us. Only a few weeks ago, and it seems like ten years.

  "It was ten years. Ten real years." Deedee headed for the exit. "Who said that time proceeds at a uniform rate? Whoever it was, he was crazy."

  "Or she was."

  "Fair enough. Good night, Rick."

  "Night, Deedee. Sleep well."

  Maybe she did. Rick certainly didn't. He woke long before he needed to, the details of the project swarming through his mind. After half an hour of tossing and turning, he rose, dressed, and headed for the cafeteria. It was deserted, as it usually was at such an early hour. He was ordering a meal when Deedee wandered in. Her face was calm but a little pale.

  She came straight up to him. "Anything in the rules that says we can't start early?"

  "Nothing I know of."

  "Right. Let's get going."

  "No." Rick gestured to the place opposite him. "First you eat."

  "Hunger sharpens the brain."

  "And low blood sugar turns it off." Rick keyed in a huge meal for her, then felt obliged to increase his own order. "We eat. Then we go."

  They chewed doggedly, without enjoyment, watching each other's plate until both were empty. By the time they had finished it was close to official breakfast time. Unwilling to talk to other trainees they hurried out and headed for the lock that led to the interior of CM-2.

  The hardest thing of all was to avoid rushing. They put their suits on carefully and checked each other's seals. No little surprises there from Turkey Gossage. But as Deedee pointed out, he was not likely to do anything so obvious.

  "Which means if he did do something obvious," Rick pointed out, "it would surprise us. No assumptions."

  "Agreed. No assumptions."

  They drifted together through the deep interior of CM-2, heading for the side of the planetoid opposite to the main training facilities. The corridor by now seemed as familiar as home. They did not need to consult map or tracers. The ore carrier and the mining robot, as promised, were waiting in the main loading chamber. The tailings had already been sintered to form oddly-shaped but identical solid blocks, each weighing half a ton. In a pinch, Rick and Deedee could load each one themselves; but that was a sure way to flunk the exercise.

  They put the mining robot through its paces on a dummy run, checking that each movement corresponded exactly to that pictured. Finally, and gingerly, Deedee directed the machine to begin loading. She watched the pick-up stage, while Rick counted blocks and monitored their stowing aboard the ore carrier. There were still a hundred more to go
when he came out and told Deedee to stop.

  "Why? The robot's doing fine."

  "Maybe. But we have a problem. The carrier is nearly full. It won't take more than another couple of dozen and we've only loaded nine hundred."

  "That can't be right. The carrier is rated for at least five hundred tons cargo mass. Maybe the blocks are heavier than they're supposed to be? Or maybe they're less dense and bigger."

  They checked the mass of a sintered block. It was half a ton exactly. Its density was as it should be. Then they crouched in the loading chamber, helmet to helmet, and pored over the electronic and printed manuals. At last Rick sighed. "I get it. I'm a dummy. I should have realized it as soon as the loading started."