Melchiza
Transit School
Theo had always liked math, not the least because she was good at it, disposing in mere minutes problem-sets that Lesset claimed had taken her hours to derive. She had always considered that math was easy—and it had been.
Delgado math, that was.
The math taught in the Piloting Section of the Transit School was another matter altogether. She was not only behind the class's work, but her general scores were . . . low.
Theo wasn't used to having low scores. It was one thing to be physically challenged, and quite another to be . . . stupid.
True to his word, Pilot Arman had assigned her to a tutor, who drilled her in what she called "the basics" until Theo's shirt was damp with sweat. She'd been given self-paced modules, to which she devoted herself, taking the datapad with her everywhere, while her lace needle and thread languished at the bottom of her bag. Occasionally, she would blink out of a haze of temporal fractions to glance at the calendar, and wonder how Kamele was, and if the research was going well.
Running to class after a working breakfast, she was bemused to realize that she had been at school for three local days. It seemed as though she'd been taking pilot classes for half a 'mester at least. Part of that was the fact Melchiza's day was longer than Delgado's, which meant a longer school-day.
The other part was that there was so much to learn! Not just needing to catch up on math, but the mechanics class—not theory of mechanics, either! They were actually building and repairing devices; reminding her of pleasant hours spent in the garage with Father, handing him tools, and watching him tinker. He would tell her what he was doing and why, not as a lesson, really, and sometimes ask her help in setting a screw or reattaching a wire. She'd apparently learned more from those informal sessions than she had realized; Gayl said she'd already brought the team repair-bay average up by a dozen points.
She hurried across the room to her team's square and slid into her seat just as the bell blared the beginning of the school day. Jeren, Gayl, and Moxi were already in place.
"Hey, Theo," Gayl said. Jeren nodded.
Moxi, the lower half of his face hidden by an embroidered half-veil, turned his head slightly. Moxi was in Cleansing, Jeren had told her, preparing for his ianota, which sounded to Theo like a Gigneri. He was only allowed to speak to his teacher, his father, and his nya—sort of like a mentor, Theo guessed. Gayl said that, usually, boys from Ecbatana didn't travel during Cleansing; she speculated that there had been an emergency in Moxi's family, but of course nobody could ask him.
Theo touched her computer screen, timing in just under the wire and not a heartbeat before Pilot-Instructor Arman strolled into the room accompanied by a short woman wearing a blue shirt and a frown.
"Uh-oh," Gayl muttered.
"What?" Theo whispered.
"Physical dynamics exhibit. I shouldn't have eaten breakfast!"
"Physical dynamics" was menfri'at. The piloting class had menfri'at practice twice each day. Despite that, Theo's teammates weren't particularly skilled, and most sessions left her missing Win Ton and Phobai, though she'd have welcomed any of the pilots she'd danced with on Vashtara.
"Pilots arise!" Pilot Arman called, and everybody leapt to their feet, facing front, hands at their sides.
Theo stood between Gayl and Jeren. Usually, Pilot Arman would walk down the line of students—pilots—looking each one down from face to shoes, like he was inspecting them for design flaws, then he would return to the front of the room, call out a module number, and everyone would dance.
This morning, though, Pilot Arman didn't perform his usual inspection. He stood near the door, arms folded over his chest, while the blue-shirt walked forward, her frown growing more pronounced with every step.
She came to rest midway between Pilot Arman and the line of waiting pilots.
"From the left," she snapped. "Module Six."
The leftmost team came forward three steps and danced Module Six, not very well, Theo thought, but better than her team usually managed.
The blue-shirt nodded and called for the next team to stand forward, assigning them Module Three. They were better as a team, and one boy was pretty good. The woman pointed a finger at him when the dance was over, and he walked to the front of the room to stand next to Pilot Arman.
"Our turn," Jeren said, sounding as dejected as Moxi's shoulders looked.
Theo led the way out the floor, her head pleasurably full of something besides math. The four of them stood in a line, facing the woman in the blue shirt. Theo smiled as she relaxed into the ready position.
"Module Eight," said the frowning woman.
Theo flowed forward, arms rising together on the left side of her body, the back of the right hand reinforced by the palm of the left. She spun—and realized that she was too quick; the rest of her team was two beats behind her—Gayl nearly three.
Biting her lip, she slowed, and used the tempo-step Phobai had shown her, so they could catch her up and they'd be on the same—
"Pilot Waitley!" snapped Pilot Arman.
Theo let the move complete itself, centered herself and turned, suddenly and forcibly reminded of Gayl's comment about breakfast.
"Sir?" she asked, but it was the woman who answered her.
"Why did you amend your process?"
Theo swallowed, and met the woman's eyes. "I didn't want to over-dance my team," she said.
The woman looked to Arman, who sighed and shook his head.
"Theo Waitley," he said, "these pilots are not your crew, they are your study group. You have no obligation to them."
Theo stared. "They're my team," she repeated. "I—"
"Enough," the woman in the blue shirt directed. She pointed at Theo, who blinked, then hurried to the front of the room to stand next to Pilot Arman and the other dancer who had been pulled out of line.
The last team in line danced without distinction. The blue-shirted woman turned without a word and marched to the front of the room.
Pilot Arman nodded. "You two pilots will attend Inspector Vidige." He looked out over the room and raised his voice. "Pilots! Return to places and open to general self-test twenty-seven."
Theo stared at the frowning woman—Inspector Vidige. Was she going to be relocated again? she thought, stomach tightening even more. This woman wasn't even a teacher! What if she was taken outside of the school? What if—
"Attend me, please, pilots," Inspector Vidige said, her voice polite if not cordial. "We adjourn to another room within this building for a fuller testing of your abilities."
* * *
They fell almost too quickly into the work. During one of their meetings aboard Vashtara, Kamele, Able, and Crowley had divided Beltaire's list between them. Hafley was therefore assigned the chores of internal librarian and secondary fact verification—roles she accepted with surprising grace, and performed with a degree of astuteness.
The room they labored in was cold to the point of being a health hazard; they all wore multiple layers of clothing from the luggage that had appeared in the dorm room sometime during the second—or possibly the third—day. While periods of intense study such as this project demanded did tend to dim awareness of outer conditions, yet Kamele did from time to time wish for a hot cup of coffee to warm her.
That, of course, was quite impossible; Solmin would never permit the precious papers under his care to be put at risk of a coffee-spill. Kamele could sign herself out of the study room when Solmin came in on one of his scheduled pick-ups, but she would then have to time her return to his next visit, and an entire Melchizan hour was far too long to stand away from the work.
There was very little conversation; there would be time for synthesis and comparison during the return trip to Delgado. Kamele's own findings were disturbing enough, in the rare moments that she allowed herself to lose focus, that a recertification of the University of Delgado's central library, at the very least, seemed mandated. Considerations of the expense might have kept her awake, but her few hours of sleep were deep and dreamless.
And, yet, for all the work they accomplished here, they only verified what they had known: That certified copies of documents in the Delgado library had somehow been altered.
What they—what she—lacked even now was proof. Suspicion of conspiracy was not enough. Conversations were subject to interpretation, as were expectations. Jen Sar's phrase: "No one is right until there is proof," had used to infuriate her, and yet . . . she needed not only proof, but the names of those involved in what would seem to be a vast conspiracy.
Whenever she tried to count out the number of people necessary to wreak such havoc upon Delgado and Delgadan scholars, she caught up on the shoals of who and why? Who attacked historic documents? And why?
* * *
"Very well, Pilots, who will be first to demonstrate their ability?"
Inspector Vidige frowned impartially at all eight of them. The other six had been waiting for them in this exercise area—three girls and three boys, each wearing a green badge and a wary expression. Behind them was a sight both familiar and unfamiliar. It was, Theo thought tentatively, a dance machine. Unlike the machine she and Win Ton had beat, it was only one level high, hulking and dark, where the other had been brightly lit and colorful. Theo felt a thrill. Maybe this was like the machine Win Ton had learned on, at his school? Maybe—
"Come, come!" Inspector Vidige said sharply. "Modesty flies no ship, Pilots! But, I am previous." She turned to Theo and the other student who had been chosen from her class—Robit Josin, he'd told her during their quick march down the hall—and pointed at the machine. "Have the newest additions to our group used one of these devices?"
"I've used one like it," Theo said, and Robit nodded in agreement.
"Me, too. An arcade game."
"And how well did you score, on this arcade game?"
Robit shrugged. "I hit level thirty-two."
Inspector Vidige nodded and frowned at Theo.
"I—my friend and I danced through the overdrive level," she said. "My friend said it wasn't a true overdrive, though."
"Well, then. Do either of you wish to lead the group?"
Robit shrugged again. "If nobody else wants to go first, I'll break the ice," he said, and jerked his head at a thin girl with her blond hair pulled into a knot at the crown of her head. "Show me the controls, why not?"
"No reason," she answered and walked with him to the machine, the rest of the group trailing after, and Inspector Vidige behind them all.
"Now the rules," she said loudly, after the girl had finished showing Robit the on-switch and the selector buttons. "The pilot-at-dance may dance so long as he likes, until he makes a misstep. You may begin at any level you like and advance to any level you can. One misstep and you must dismount. The machine is set to enforce this. Am I understood, Pilot?"
"Yes, Pilot," Robit said.
"Begin at will."
Robit looked at the rest of the class, bit his lip and looked back to the controls. He looked nervous and Theo didn't blame him.
"Come along, Pilot! Surely you'd like a little exercise?" Inspector Vidige sounded mean, Theo thought, and she was pushing. A couple of the other students giggled, like they thought intimidation was funny.
Theo cleared her throat.
"Excuse me, Inspector Vidige," she said, stepping forward.
The blue-shirt frowned at her.
"Pilot Waitley. What is it?"
"I was just wondering if he wasn't going to pick a partner," Theo said. "I thought this was a team game."
Inspector Vidige was seen to sigh.
"What planet are you from, Pilot Waitley?"
Theo blinked. "Delgado."
The boy to her left sniggered, and the blond girl with the top-knot covered her face with her hand.
"Oh," somebody else further along the arc said, sotto-voce. "Safety first."
"No chit-chat!" snapped the blue-shirt. "Pilot Waitley. The responsibilities borne by a pilot in the commission of his duties, heavy as they sometimes may be, are borne by him alone. This is the reality of piloting and of pilots. Melchiza recognizes that the mating of skill and temperament that creates a pilot is rare, which is why we honor our pilots and grant them privilege beyond what is allowed ordinary citizens. To be a pilot is to be the final judge of weighty—by which I mean life-and-death—decisions.
"To return to the point of today's exercise—no, despite what you may have learned from your friend, this is not a team effort." She turned her head. "Pilot Josin, your colleagues are waiting."
"Yes, ma'am," Robit said, and kicked the start-switch.
Robit danced three levels before he made a mistake and the machine froze, knocking him off-balance. He staggered, recovered, and dismounted warily, but really, Theo thought angrily, he could've fallen on his head! There was no reason that the machine had to stop so hard—the silly game she and Win Ton had beat had just rocked to a gentle rest when the set was over. If a game could do it—
The blond girl mounted the machine next, spun the dial without hesitation and began to dance. She might've been good, but she didn't give herself any chance to warm up, so it looked like she was always half-a-beat behind the projected pattern. Eighteen moves in, she tried to recover the lag, got her feet tangled and jumped clear with a yell when the machine locked.
She'd barely landed when a tall boy with a shaved head, his right ear a-jingle with gold rings, stepped up for his turn. He turned the dials deliberately, and dropped back to the dance pad, his eyes half closed; his movements exact, but lazy. Theo thought of Bek—and then she thought of the man on the machine at the Arcade, dancing half-asleep, as if the challenge was too small to take seriously.
The boy with the earrings danced through four levels by Theo's count—and probably could've gone further, if he'd been paying attention.
He turned the stagger generated by the machine's abrupt stop into a somersault, landing light on his feet.
There was a hesitation then, as if the rest of the pilots were weighing whether they could beat the record so far.
Theo shook her head and walked forward.
* * *
Kamele rubbed her eyes and looked at the shelf again. Surely, the fifth book in the diary set she was studying had been right here on the shelf, next to the fourth, which she had just placed in the outgoing cart? She knew she was tired—they were all tired by now, but—no, she decided, she must have been mistaken. It must have been the fifth book in another set, even now under study by one of the other team members.
Sighing, she picked up the next on her list and took it back to the study station.
* * *
Unlike the dance machine aboard Vashtara, this machine wanted you to lose, Theo thought. It would throw in sneaky little half-steps, and change tempo when neither made sense. It also had a sensor for how hard you hit the pad, which she'd realized just in time to avoid getting tossed off about four moves in.
She'd started at level fifteen, so she'd have a chance to warm up, and now she was cooking, like Phobai said. While she wasn't particularly having fun, she wasn't mad anymore, either. Her legs were beginning to get tired though, and she scanned the control board, looking for the stop switch. The pattern switched into a fast jig, and she gave up her search to attend to that, fuffing her hair out her face.
What if there isn't a stop switch? she wondered. Do I have to flub a step to make it stop?
The idea of flubbing a step on purpose made her feel cranky all over again. The machine switched to the next level—her eighth, unless she'd lost count—with a series of movements that didn't go together at all. By the time she'd negotiated those, she was seriously considering flubbing that step. She was so sweaty, her hair was stuck to her face, and there was a stitch burning along her right side. Maybe, she thought, it wouldn't be so bad. It wasn't as if she hadn't done better than—
There was a flash of pale blue light, and a soft tone. The pattern-screen went blank and the machine . . . gently rocked to stop.
Theo wiped her forehead on her sleeve and looked out over the exercise area. The girl with the top-knot was shaking her head, and Robit's mouth was frankly hanging open. Inspector Vidige cleared her throat.
"Thank you, Pilot Waitley," she said. "That was most instructive."
* * *
Orkan Hafley was working at the carts, sorting the books the scholars had finished with onto the outgoing bin. Kamele watched as the Chair worked; she handled the volumes with respect, as any scholar would, making certain that they were arranged in short stacks, which were less likely to fall over, and using all of the shelves. When she finished with the outgoing shelf, she moved to the incoming shelf, straightening the tumbled volumes there, picking one up in her off-hand and continuing with her work. While Kamele watched, she stepped over to the outgoing cart and slipped the volume she had taken from the incoming into the back of a stack.
Kamele came to her feet so suddenly her chair tipped backward and clattered to the hard, white floor.
"How long has this been going on?" she cried.
Able jerked back in her seat, clearly disoriented. Crowley, showing commendable reflexes for a man of his years, leapt up, and caught Hafley's shoulder, effectively restraining her.
"You don't have permission to touch me!" Hafley snapped. Crowley ignored her, as he looked to Kamele.
"Treachery, Sub-Chair?" he asked quietly.
Kamele took a breath. "I fear so, Professor."
* * *
As it turned out, Inspector Vidige's Advance Class was Theo and Robit's new posting. They didn't have to change dorm rooms again—that was the good news. Theo still had math remediation—that was the bad news. That, and the fact that all of the other pilots in her class thought she'd deliberately shown up better at dance than they were, and she didn't have a chance to do any social engineering to smooth things over, because the Advance Class didn't sit by team; they sat solo.
It made for a long school-day, and, despite the extra load of math Inspector Vidige had off-loaded onto her datapad for her off-hours work, Theo was glad when the bell rang for the free period before supper.
"Hey, Safety First!"
Theo turned, frowning as the blond girl—Initha, her name was—swaggered forward, her thumbs hooked in her belt. Beside her came Fruma, skating a bowli ball from hand to hand, his eyes on Theo's face. The other members of the Advance Class, including Robit, were spreading out on either side of them.
"What do you want?" she asked Initha.
"Want to ask you a question," Fruma answered.
Theo looked to the right, and to the left. She stood at the center of ragged circle. Somehow, she didn't think that was good. She slipped the datapad into a pocket and shook out her hands.
"Ask it, then," she said.
"You know why there aren't any Delgadan pilots?" Initha, again.
"No, why?"
"Because," yelled Fruma, "it's too dangerous!"
He threw the bowli ball, and Theo jumped.