Fledgling Page 8

  Kartor laughed, Lesset gasped, Estan looked stern, Anj kept on smiling.

  Roni's face turned an interesting sort of purple-red color. Her lips parted. Theo watched her interestedly, wondering what she would say next.

  But apparently Roni thought better of taking the argument further. She closed her mouth and faced front, shoulders stiff.

  Theo took a shaky, secret breath, and looked around at the passing corridor, pretending she didn't see Estan frowning at her.

  In spite of the acrimonious start, the rest of the day went smoothly for Four Team Three. 'Course, Theo admitted to herself, as they filed into study hall, that was mostly because their Team mates had been very careful to keep Theo and Roni as far away from each other as possible. Theo did her part by grabbing the study table at the very back of the room, and opened her school book with a feeling of relief tainted by the knowledge that the worst part of the day was still before her.

  She'd just have to hang back at teamplay, she decided. Four Team Three couldn't afford any more downs—Roni was right about that. The best thing to do would be to let her teammates play while she concentrated on not bumping into anybody, or falling, or tripping over the cracks in the floor. . . .

  Theo sighed. For the millionth-and-twelfth time, she wished she wasn't so clumsy. In her head, she wasn't clumsy at all. In her head, she could see a pattern of how she and all the people and things in her vicinity ought to move, but when she tried to move like the pattern, she'd inevitably trip over a teammate, or pull them down, like she had done to Lesset yesterday. Teamplay was worse, even, than walking down the hall; and scavage was worst of all.

  She sighed again as she remembered that she was supposed to have a "chat" with Marjene after teamplay. As her mentor, Marjene was committed to helping Theo negotiate and internalize the intricacies of social and intellectual interaction—that's what the Concierge said. Theo knew Marjene wanted to help make things easier for her, and she felt guilty—a little—for not liking her better and for not taking her advice more often.

  Still, she thought, in an attempt to cheer herself up, after she lived through teamplay and her chat with Marjene, she could look forward to the delivery of her rug.

  . . . which was good, she acknowledged, frowning at her 'book, but didn't quite make up for the fact that Kamele hadn't yet given her a decision about Oktavi evening. She had to see Father. The 'book's screen blurred, and Theo bit her lip, blinking hard—and blinked again, staring at the unfamiliar icon sitting in the bottom left corner of the screen.

  It was a small, even a demure, icon, in official-looking dark green: a coiled Serpent of Knowledge, Research floating above it in precise green letters. Theo frowned. She was certain the green icon hadn't been on her screen yesterday, so it must've been downloaded from one of today's classes, but . . . All their Sci work was done in Group Space, and Professor Wilit, their Social Engineering instructor, hadn't shared any links with the class today. Though Professor Wilit didn't always announce downloads or extra work assignments.

  Well, Theo thought, it couldn't have gotten there by accident. She must've just not noticed the download.

  "Advertency," she muttered, remembering Roni's jibe. "As if."

  She touched the green icon.

  It unfolded, like a flower blooming, until the entire screen was limned in green, with a query box centered.

  Name? The floating green text asked.

  A quiz, Theo thought, staring at the familiar layout. How in chaos had she missed that?

  She keyed in her name. The center box faded as a new one glowed into being at center top.

  Protocol, the floating text said. List primary line of inquiry.

  Theo closed her eyes, thinking back to Social Engineering. She didn't remember Professor Wilit saying anything about a solo quiz, or an unscheduled paper. On the other hand, she discovered to her chagrin, she didn't remember much about any of the day's classes; it was like she'd been doing the work in her sleep.

  She took a breath and brought her attention back to the screen.

  Primary line of inquiry, for a Social Engineering solo? She chewed her lip. It had to be a Social Engineering solo, she decided. It was just like Professor Wilit. So. The little bit she remembered from today's class had to do with the mechanisms that societies put into place in order to enforce the goals of that society. She probably couldn't go wrong by initiating a line of inquiry into an enforcer protocol. The problem was narrowing the subject.

  The Eyes don't watch everything, she heard the bus whisperer's voice again. Even we know that.

  Which was, now that she thought about it, kind of an . . . interesting . . . thing to know. Especially since she knew that the Eyes did watch everything. It was knowing that, as much as the Eyes themselves, that kept society safe.

  Except . . . getting pushed wasn't exactly safe, was it? she asked herself, and reached for the keys.

  Primary line of inquiry: The Eyes, their purpose and their programmed watch cycles, she typed, and paused . . .

  The box closed.

  "I wasn't finished," Theo muttered, tapping the screen where the box had been. It did not reappear, but a third one did, at the right margin.

  Result Sought: A graph or map, Theo typed rapidly, illustrating unwatched areas, with timetable.

  The box faded, and a fourth came into existence on the left.

  Deadline? it inquired, which gave her pause until she remembered that Professor Wilit never gave them deadlines for their work. She'd told them during their first class that she'd be doing a term-long study, and would share the results with them before the Interval. She'd said it would amuse them. Theo wasn't so sure—and, anyway, she liked to get her work done promptly. It wasn't like there was a lot of it, though if you listened to Lesset . . .

  ASAP, Theo typed. The final box faded.

  Accepted, came the message, and Theo nodded, fingering open a notepad and beginning to tap in a preliminary source list. She wondered if anyone at the Safety Office would talk to her about the Eyes, and if she should ask Professor Wilit for a study-chit. Each student got three per grade-term, and she'd already used one of hers. If the Safeties wouldn't talk to her, even with the chit, then she'd have wasted it, and would have only one in reserve for the rest of the term.

  Her mumu was suddenly warm, signaling receipt of a message. Theo pulled it out of the pocket in her coveralls and thumbed the window up; her stomach clenching when she saw the text was from Kamele. If she couldn't see Father on Oktavi . . .

  Theo, you may keep your dinner engagement with Professor Kiladi.

  That was all.

  Theo smiled and just sat there, holding her mumu and rereading that single line until the warning whistle sounded and it was time to pack up and go to teamplay.

  They'd changed clothes and got to the practice floor ahead of time with Roni's, "Don't be slow, don't be late!" echoing through the corridor the whole way. Of course they weren't going to be late—everyone on the team was trying to be on their mettle with the last few sessions worth of setbacks and point-bleeds threatening to drop Four Team Three to the lowest in the school for the year, much less to the lowest ever in the team's history. Seventy-eight Four Team Threes had come before them, and only five had had lower scores at this point in the year.

  Father had once threatened to write a column for The Faq in order to gain, so he said, a greater audience for what he called the Fallacy of Infinite Comparability. Kamele had given him one of those frowns that quivered at the edges, like she was covering up a laugh, and said that if he wanted to commit academic suicide over a triviality it was up to him.

  Apparently he had decided that publishing the Fallacy wasn't quite worth academic suicide, because the column never appeared. Despite that, Theo knew he had a valid point—comparing their team to teams from so long ago was . . . meaningless, really, given tech advancements, alterations in teaching theory and four dozen other facts. She felt the weight of team history anyway, and it wasn't made any lighter
by the fact that she was the one holding the rest of them down.

  Theo escaped the girls' dressing room with more relief than usual.

  Roni'd been walking around with her shirt half-on explaining in a loud voice to the female team members the importance of bringing the Team average up, starting right now; and some more time complaining that she'd have to buy another new set of blouses, and maybe new shoes, too, because she was growing so much.

  "Every one of us has got to start acting mature!" she'd said sternly, veering between topics like a honeybumble between two nectar-filled blossoms. "We've got to take responsibility for our own actions and support the team properly!"

  Theo had tried not to cringe under the barrage of "mature, growing-up, and act-adult," sentiments Roni'd thrown around—it sounded like she was just re-broadcasting the last things she'd heard from her mentor. Worse, Roni had particularly stared at Theo's chest when when she'd said, "growing up."

  It wasn't until Theo arrived at the game court that she realized why Roni had been talking quite so loudly and importantly. Normally, Roni wasn't much for the active games like Scavage—she said they made her sweat too much—but this was her second turn as captain, and Roni liked to be in charge!

  That's antisocial! Theo told herself, and bent into her warm ups with a will, trying to focus on the Team, rather than the individuals.

  As she warmed up, she heard the sounds of the balls being readied above the court; the slow clunks and chirps as they rode the ball-lift up to the ceiling feed tubes. Involuntarily, she looked up—but the launch bin wasn't open yet so she wasn't really trying to get a jump on the game.

  The nearby smack of shoes against floor brought her attention to court-level again, stomach clenching as she saw that Roni was deliberately coming toward her. She was almost as noisy as Lesset, Theo thought, like she thought making noise was proof of effort. Roni came closer, the captain's band already around her arm, and her Team smile locked in place. Her forehead showed a sheen already, as if even the warm-ups were work for her.

  "Theo, I just wanted to say—I don't believe those rumors that you knocked Lesset down on purpose," Roni said surprisingly. "I was right there and I saw the whole thing. It really was an accident! I think you really do try to be a good Team member, but you can't help it if you're clumsy!"

  Theo stared, feeling her fingers curl in toward the palms. She needed her needle and her thread right now, she thought, or she was going to—going to—

  Orange flashed at the edge of her vision. Gasping, she spun, and called out to the Team.

  "Professor Viverain is on the court!"

  Viverain was the acting head of the L & R department, but unlike Professor Appletorn, who held a full-time collegiate position, she was a traveling academic who sought work where she could now that her old college had been decertified. Viverain rarely instructed the Four Team students, but when she did she wanted them to play just as sharp as graduating Fifth Forms.

  "Four Team Three, I expect everyone to be in position by the time the ball-bin is full!" Viverain called out. "We're going right to a game!"

  Groronk!

  The first round buzzer went off and the bin overhead emitted a rumplety-bumplety sound as the balls loaded. The Team members stared up into the bin, trying to get a look at the balls they'd drawn—and each called a number. The Team Captain would then make the consensus call. Together, they had all of ten clicks to bid.

  "Fourteen," said Lesset, which was predictable, because fourteen was about the least you could score on a round.

  The greens . . . Theo thought she saw a lot of greens! Green was a high score ball if you could get a good shot . . .

  "Sixteen," said Kartor. Theo thought that was a mite low . . . but the balls still weren't finished loading.

  "Nineteen!" Estan and Anj called at practically the same second. That was starting to be high, in Theo's opinion . . . but no, maybe they'd seen how many greens there were.

  Surer now, Theo called out her bid—"Eighteen!"—just as the bidding clock hit eight.

  Roni stared, soundless, at the overhead . . . the clock hit nine, then . . .

  "Twenty-one!" she called; the official Team bid. Everyone else gasped. That hadn't been a consensus call!

  The buzzer double-clucked and the first ball began to roll down the spiraling wire chute, dropping toward the launch spout. Roni hurried down court while her team members darted glances and shrugged shoulders at each other. Twenty-one would take a lot of luck.

  Overhead, the chute vibrated and sang as the ball picked up momentum.

  "Let's go!" Theo called. She pointed at Kartor, whose face was just shy of grim.

  "Third Ring!" she said. "Estan, you back Lesset in Second. Anj—" but Anj had already drifted dreamily off down-court. Theo sighed. The Team Captain should've set the positions, but Roni didn't care where the rest of them were, as long as she was in First Ring, where scoring was easiest.

  Roni liked to score.

  They did work up a sweat on the first round, with Theo's off-the-cuff positioning proving to be reasonable. She and Kartor were in the outer, largest, Ring. They could, if required, dive or drive into Ring Two. Ordinarily, you tried to get fast people into the middle ring . . . but having Lesset on one side of Ring Two wasn't too bad, because not only could Estan help her when she flubbed, but Team members in Rings One or Three could back her up, too. Depending on how, and how bad, she flubbed, if the ball got back into Two or Three on the other side of the court, it might still be playable. Roni was hogging Ring One, even though she shared it with Anj.

  On good days Anj was their best player; and she could rove into Ring Two at need. Playing at the edge of Two, where Lesset should be, she could keep the errors to a minimum. Estan played opposite Anj except when back-up was required, and Lesset wandered between her supposed posts, sometimes blocking good passes and other times causing bad bounces.

  On the whole, they did better then they had a right to on the first set. A typical ball started out on the spiral, gaining speed, rapidly, until one of the rotating tubular launch points matched the slot the ball was passing over. The circular court was entirely contained within a tall thinly-padded wall and it was Kartor and Theo's job to gather the ball off the wall, if that had been its trajectory, and sling it underhanded toward the center; or if it were falling elsewhere in the outer ring to make sure that it didn't continue to the outside or bounce away from the other team members.

  Once in Ring One—or if lucky tossed or kicked from Ring Two—the ball had to be scored by getting it—for a single point—into one of the waist-high stationary chutes on a flaring parabolic column rising seamlessly from the floor and extending—with a similar flare at the top—to the ceiling. The three rotating chutes higher up the column scored more, with the highest, fastest and smallest chute scoring top points.

  The column at school was well padded at the base and, like the spirals, formed of a lightweight open mesh fabric mounted on highly visible mechanicals. In the higher levels and in the pro game the column was a near invisible crystal structure which was often a nexus of collision, but which could be used to aim and deflect the ball to someone in better position for a shot. In this scholastic version, the column was less dependable as a tactic; its safety factor a minus rather than a plus.

  Time was of the essence in every version of the game, because as soon as a ball crossed into Ring One, or numbered beats after it crossed into Ring Two, the next ball started down the spiral. It was bad form—and cost points—to scavage, or score, the second ball first.

  They only did that three times, the scavage, and came out of the game with twenty-three points, which was good for a first go, and was aided by a lucky score on the part of Estan, who tossed the ball into the rotating upper goal just as the timer buzzed, and Roni calling for it from the other side.

  The second round was a disaster.

  Lesset managed to toss two balls in entirely the wrong direction, causing two double scavages early in the s
et after Roni had bid a slightly more conservative twenty in the face of her teammates' grumbling of how lucky they'd been in the first game. Everyone rushed to try to make up the difference, the sounds of their running sounding extra clumsy to Theo, and it didn't help that Viverain added to the noise and confusion, by leaning over the wall of the Instructor's Tower, shouting suggestions for all of them.

  Twice, Viverain called encouragement, as Kartor and Theo got the ball toward the center, but once into the Lesset Zone things tended to go astray. Lesset's shoes constantly scraped and squealed against the floor as she tried to get back to where she wasn't, and Roni's footfalls sounded like nads slapping water in the pool. In the end, the team missed their bid by five, with the instructor counting out their errors, loudly, the while.

  "Theo, you've got to get me the ball more!" Roni was panting, her face almost as red as her shorts. "I think if you hadn't kept passing to Kartor and Estan you really could have helped me score more. You know, maybe if you'd managed to get the ball to other females we'd've been in the game!"

  Theo gritted her teeth. She'd counted. She'd passed the ball to Anj nine times, Kartor seven times, Roni five times, Estan four times, and Lesset three. Far more . . . oh, never mind. Roni's real complaint was that she hadn't scored when she had the ball, and that wasn't Theo's fault.

  Viverain leaned over the wall. "Waitley, you've got a good touch on those passes. You might go to the inside a bit more, but otherwise . . . you're keeping Third Ring strong. And you, Grinmordi—you've got to keep an eye on where your tenders are. Instead of trying to intercept you ought to be letting some of those go through for the best shot."

  Theo saw the look Roni gave her as Viverain clicked the remote for the round-buzzer. The balls tumbled into the rig and before anyone else could bid—without even looking up!—Roni called, "Twenty-five, Team, twenty-five!"

  Theo caught the shock on Viverain's face, then she was running, because the first ball through was a blue one—the smallest and hence the fastest to the floor.