by Deva Fagan
"I'd love to be roommates," I say finally.
Nola beams. "Wait until you see our room. It's the best! I've put in a ton of customizations. You'll love it! I mean, I hope you will."
"I bet it's amazing. So, is that our next stop?"
She shakes her head. "There's no way to reach the dorms right now. We have to wait for the decompaction bell. Everybody's probably hanging out in the commons. Come on, I'll introduce you."
Nola's know-it-all leads us back out past the spacewings, then up two sets of ladders and down a pearly white corridor that spirals like a giant snail shell. We come out into a large round room with mirrored walls, like an inside-out disco ball. About thirty other kids are gathered around a raised platform lit by orange lights. Inside, a figure jumps and catapults as puffs of smoke, bursts of flame, and several nasty-looking metal mallets chomp through the air. I guess "hanging out" in an intergalactic circus involves more than flopping onto the sofa and watching bad TV.
"Someone's in the Arena!" says Nola, clapping her hands together. "Oh. It's Sirra. Well, it's still fun to watch." She leads the way to a spot along the side with a good view. With Sirra putting on a show, nobody pays us much attention.
The Galacticus crew all look about my age or a few years older and oddly normal, for aliens. You could have pulled most of them off the street back home, if you were in the artsy, punked-out part of town. And then there are the really weird ones.
I try not to stare at the guy who looks like a walking boulder, or the one with antennae like a moth. Far out! I wonder how much of it is thanks to the Tinkers. Or are there entire planets of rock people?
"I guess I wouldn't mind watching Sirra get pulverized," I say, turning back to Nola. "What is it, some kind of training machine?"
"More like a game. People play one another to see who can stay in longest. I once pawned off a whole week's bilge-cleaning duty to Jom on a bet that Ghost would beat Etander. And it's fun. Sirra won't get pulverized, though. She's too good. Watch."
Sirra cartwheels over two smashing metal plates and hangs in midair for a long moment, arms flung out artistically. Even with a giant deathtrap trying to take her out, she's going for the glamour shots. I'm kind of impressed, in spite of myself.
The lights in the Arena abruptly switch from orange to blue. The flames wink out. Sirra flips down to land triumphantly outside the Arena.
"She's good, isn't she?" says Nola, sounding wistful.
"You could totally take her, with your Tech mojo."
"Oh, they'd call it cheating."
"She's using her superpowers. Who says you can't?"
Nola ducks her head. "I couldn't go in there, anyway. It's too dangerous. Look." She points at a dial on the side of the ring. "That was only level five, and did you see those fire jets?" She shudders.
"Eh, it doesn't look too hard."
Me and my big mouth. My words ring out into one of those weird lulls in the conversations around us. Every single person hears me. And stares.
"Hey, everybody," says Nola, doing her best to cover for me. "This is Trix. She's new. Trix, this is ... uh ... everybody!"
"Not too hard, is it?" Sirra bounds down from the platform, arms crossed, chin high. "I'd like to see you last three minutes, Earth Girl."
No backing down now. "Sure. But only if we make it interesting."
"Interesting?"
I march over to the panel and spin the dial as high as it goes. Excitement buzzes through the crowd. Sirra's eyes go wide.
"Trix!" says Nola. "Are you sure? Level thirteen?"
"It's okay. I know what I'm doing." I lower my voice. "If we stick to the easy stuff and Sirra beats me, I'll look like an idiot. Even Sirra is scared of level thirteen."
"And what about you?"
I try to smile. "I'm more scared of looking stupid."
"Sirra, don't," says a boy with the same coppery skin and slippery dark hair as Sirra. "You don't need to prove—"
"I do, Etander. Someone needs to show the new girl how things work around here. She obviously doesn't know her place. She probably can't even do a cartwheel."
I say nothing. Instead I try to shake out some of the tension from my arms, roll my neck, and wiggle my toes.
"Trix," whispers Nola, "don't do it!"
I'm already moving, taking the three bounding steps that propel me into a front handspring, step out, round-off, back handspring. As I slam down from my double twisting layout onto the edge of the Arena, the crowd erupts in whoops of surprise. I wink at Sirra. "Ready when you are, Sparkles."
Sirra grimaces, then vaults over the steps, pulling a midair somersault to land on her hands beside me. Supporting herself one-armed, she waves. The onlookers cheer even louder.
"Watch out in there," says Sirra, bobbing upright. "This is no place for newbies."
"How's your nose?" I don't wait to see her reaction. It's time to face the Arena.
Someone, probably Nola, shouts, "Go, Trix!"
As soon as my feet touch the floor, about five billion things start trying to kill me. I duck under a giant rolling pin studded with jabby spikes. I twist out of the way of shooting flames. I leap up to grab a dangling hook, narrowly avoiding a pit that falls away under my feet. It's taking all my energy just to stay in the game. I've got to focus. I only need to last three minutes.
It feels like it's been an hour already. Sweat streams down my neck, tickling my skin. I throw myself under another swipe of the giant rolling pin. I may not be posing, but I'm surviving.
Then the net gets me.
Threads of fire burn through my body. It catches me by the legs and one arm. It's going to toss me out. I claw with my free hand for anything that can keep me inside the Arena.
My slippery fingers scrabble against smooth metal, then catch. I grit my teeth against the crackling pain that pulses from the net. I'm holding one of the spikes that pokes up from the floor. All I want is to let go and escape the pain, but I can't. I won't give up.
"You'll never make it, Earth Girl!" Sirra pirouettes aside, evading a blast of flame. "Let go!"
"Make me."
"Fine. If that's what it takes." Sirra leaps, soaring over the intervening obstacles to thump down in front of me. "What do you think of the Arena now?" Her eyes glitter with the reflected blue sparks popping off the net.
"Not ... so tough," I huff. "Might ... take ... a nap." I force a grin. I can tell her patience is running out. I only need her to come a little bit closer.
Sirra snarls, reaching for my fingers. Before she can wrench them free, I let go and grab her instead. She shrieks and kicks, but I've got a good grip. I hold tight as the net flips me up into the air, so that we both go flying out of the Arena. We slam to the ground in a tangled heap.
Sirra throws herself off me, planting an elbow in my gut along the way. I don't care. I made it a tie. That's good enough.
The translator can't handle whatever it is Sirra's saying as she stalks off, but I get the picture. I start to laugh, but it hurts.
"Trix!" cries Nola, popping up over my head. "You were amazing!"
I manage a smile, barely. All I want is to lie there for a few years enjoying my victory and waiting for my body to feel less like a sack of jelly.
A weird wailing echoes from the ceiling. All at once everybody's moving, heading for doors and chattering.
"Trix?" Nola asks. "Are you all right?"
I shake myself. "Considering that the day started with my hair turning pink and ended on a circus spaceship filled with mutant outlaws, yeah, I'm surprisingly all right."
"Come on, then. Let's check out your new home."
My new home.
CHAPTER 6
Breakfast of Champions
THE NEXT MORNING I'm still tucked into my bed yawning as Nola bops around showing off the different gadgets she's installed "for fun." She tried giving me the rundown last night, but I was so wiped I fell asleep pretty much as soon as she popped down my foldaway bed. I'm still not entirely sure this isn't
all a crazy dream, except that if it were, the dorm would probably be bigger. It's actually smaller than my room at Bleeker, but about a million times more comfy.
The walls are chock-full of all kinds of stuff. A woman sitting on a giant thresher waves from one picture. It could be a cornfield in Iowa, except there are two moons in the sky. One whole wall is filled with engineering schematics. And there's a pair of impossibly beautiful identical women gazing smolderingly from a poster right beside Nola's bed. I can't read the alien script above them, but I'm pretty sure it says Love Among the Stars.
"And see this?" Nola gives her desk a push. It flips up, disappearing into the wall. "All the furniture is foldaway. Oh, and check this out." She presses her palm to the wall. It changes color, from green to bright pink.
"To match your hair," Nola says. "Or try this." The walls go dark, speckled with stars. "It's what you'd see if we were outside. The program patches in from the external sensors, so it's all live feed. It took me three days to work out how to integrate them, but isn't it neat?"
"Whoa!" I pull myself out of bed to spin around, taking it all in. "You even did the floor." Stars drift below my feet. It's kind of freaky, but amazing.
"So you like it? You think you'll be okay here? I mean, rooming here?"
"Absolutely. Who wouldn't be? I've got supergenius Tech Girl to show me the ropes and the cushiest bed in the galaxy."
But as I stare out into the limitless expanse, I can't help shivering. Nyl is out there, somewhere, waiting to get his hands on my meteorite. What if he finds us? Just how safe is my fabulous new life?
"What?" Nola glances around. "Is it making you space-sick?"
I shake off my fears. There's no reason to worry Nola. Nyl's probably light-years away. "No. It's great. So where do we get breakfast? I'm starved. Please tell me you don't live on weird energy drinks and protein pills."
"Oh, no—the food here is amazing! Jom isn't even a Tech, but he's got the culinary protocols figured out better than any of us, what with the family business and all that. You just have to be careful with his experiments..."
Nola trails off, her eyes wandering. She cocks her head, raising one hand to her know-it-all. She nods, then says, "Got it, Miss Three. I'll be there quick as I can. I need to drop Trix off for breakfast." Her conversation apparently finished, she looks at me, a hint of worry in her eyes.
"What's up?"
"I need to help with the test setup. They want to run you through after breakfast, to find out what you can do. Don't worry; you'll be fine."
A pang of fear twists my stomach. Breakfast suddenly sounds a lot less appealing. "Sounds like fun. Can't wait."
My insides don't quiet down, even with the distraction of Nola showing me the bathrooms, the storage lockers, and the laundry chute. By the time we reach the cafeteria, I feel like a pair of boa constrictors is having a fight in my stomach.
The rest of the troupe crowds around four of the tables, helping themselves from the army of steaming platters. There's a fifth table standing lonely in the corner, completely empty. Yeah, that's a good sign. Social failure, here I come.
"I'm sorry," Nola says, twisting her hands together. "I feel horrible setting you loose in the cafeteria by yourself."
"Are you worried about me or the rest of the troupe?" I say, smiling so maybe she won't see how nervous I am.
"Heh. Maybe both. But seriously, you'll be fine. You could sit with the Techs. They wouldn't mind."
"Yeah." I follow her gesture to the seven kids at the nearest table. "I don't think they'd even realize I was there." Every one of them has a sparky wrench insignia and is wearing what look like large wraparound sunglasses. They sit staring straight ahead, eating in complete silence.
Nola winces. "It's easier to talk and eat at the same time if you do the talking virtually. No choking."
"Smart. It's okay; I can handle this. Go on. I'll see you later."
Nola still looks worried, but she nods. "You really better turn on your know-it-all, Trix. You'll need it to find the testing room."
"Okay, okay. After breakfast. I'm not eating with that thing babbling in my ear about evil twins from some silly soap opera."
I watch Nola head off, glad for an excuse to keep my back to the room while I come up with a plan of attack. I'll turn around, walk past each of the tables, and see if anyone looks friendly. If they completely ignore me, I'll sit at the empty one and make it my own.
I really hope they don't ignore me. Please let just one person give me a smile. Even a smirk! I can work with a smirk. All right. Here I go. I straighten my shoulders and turn around.
The Techs are a lost cause, so I move on to the next table, where a dozen or so boys and girls lounge like a pack of lions in the sun. Stars glitter from the patches decorating their jackets, shirts, and scarves. Sirra doesn't ignore me, that's for sure, but her look hardly says "Come sit at my table and we'll make up." It's more like "Get out of my spaceship and never come back." I keep walking.
The third table is the smallest, and the collection of people around it is definitely the oddest. A boy who looks a lot like a giant snail sits snuffling a plate of spongy brown cutlets. He's flanked by the rock boy I saw last night and a kid who looks like a walking alligator. The most normal of the group is a girl with a crackling haystack of white-blond hair who stares at me through thick, dark-rimmed goggles.
I guess I better give it a shot.
"Hey," I say. "I'm new here. My name's Trix."
The blonde tilts her head. "One thousand three hundred forty-nine. Go and find it. Go!"
I back away. "Ahhh. Okay. Table's full. Got it." Great. Even the Freaks don't want me. One more left before I'm doomed to the Siberia of table five.
I can't see much of the fourth table, because there are about twenty kids packed around it. Popcorn Boy is there, with his cockatoo crest of red hair. He's balancing three knives end to end as he tilts back in his chair. A girl with curly green hair sits perched on the back of her own seat, juggling what look like blueberry muffins. As I watch, she bounces one in a very unmuffinlike way off the table. The only person who isn't joking, juggling, laughing, or dancing is the girl in black at the very end of the table, who's completely ignoring the rest of them.
"Hey, Theon, do you like my new act?" asks Popcorn Boy as he adds a fourth knife to his tower.
"You call balancing a few knives an act?" says the green-haired girl. "Give it up, Jom. And while you're at it, try not to rubberize the muffins next time."
"They taste fine. Besides, this way no one will notice if you drop one." He gives her a cheeky grin.
"You are so going to regret that." The girl, Theon, begins pelting the redhead with her muffins. He yelps and topples backward.
Everyone ducks as the cutlery goes flying, except the goth chick at the end of the table. She just looks bored, even with one of the knives flying right into her forehead. No, through her forehead! Like she's a ghost or something! Unbelievable! The knife clatters onto the floor behind her. She picks up one of the muffins, dusts it off, and takes a bite.
This is definitely where I belong.
I run through possible lines. Hi, I'm Trix. Please let me sit with you so I don't look like a dork. No, definitely not. Hi, I'm Trix. I've got no idea what I can do, but you guys look like the most fun bunch, so here I am. I sigh. It might work.
I'm about to try it out when someone taps my shoulder. It's the boy who tried to call Sirra off last night. "Hi," he says, smiling. And it's an honest-to-goodness smile, too. "Do you need a place to sit?"
I shoot one look at the empty fifth table. "Um. Yeah. Guess it's a little obvious I'm new here. Trix. Is my name, I mean. Beatrix Ling. But you can call me Trix." Man, could I sound any dorkier?
"I'm Etander. Come on, you can sit with us." He starts back toward the Principals' table. Okay, I can do this. I slide into the chair Etander offers and hope I'm not smiling like a maniac as he introduces me to the Principals.
I'm sure my know-it-all wou
ld be happy to record their names, but I am not ready to deal with that level of crazy right now. Within five minutes about the only thing I can remember is that the black and white spotted girl who bends light is named Dalmatian, and she only joined the troupe a few months ago herself. The others are a mixture of flashy outfits and exotic colors who do things like contortion and tightrope balancing and sound sculpture, whatever that is.
"And you already met my sister, Sirra Centaurus," Etander finishes.
Sirra looks like she's sucking on a lemon. "This is the Principals' table, Etander. Not a home for strays."
"Don't mind her," says Etander, rolling his eyes. "She's not used to anyone matching her in the Arena. You did very well."
"Not as well as your sister," I answer, feeling generous now that I have potential allies. "So does that mean you're from the Centaurus galaxy cluster?"
Etander clears his throat, glancing at Sirra. "Yes."
"Ignore the humble act," says someone at the end of the table. "It means their family owns it."
"The Centaurus Corporation owns it," snaps Sirra. "And we're here now, like it or not. So it doesn't matter. Drop it. We're neglecting our guest of honor." She pushes a platter of bright yellow curds across the table. "Try the scrambled pepper-eggs, Trix. They're delicious."
"You ought to check with your know-it-all," says Etander. "It might not be safe."
"Oh, I'm sure Trix is up for anything." Sirra smiles. "She did match me in the Arena."
"Yeah, but I'm not stupid." I tap the button on my earpiece. Nothing. "Um. Know-it-all? Are you there?"
"Oh, so we're talking again, are we? You invite me in and then you shut me out. Don't you care about my feelings?"
"Not really," I say. "Are pepper-eggs safe to eat?"
My know-it-all huffs. "For that, my dear, I very well might keep the latest Love Among the Stars scoop to myself."
