Theo shifted from one foot to the other. She was getting tired of waiting in all the din and confusion, and was beginning to think longingly of her nice, quiet bunk, soon to be achieved—There!
Yet another sled came into the hall, her bag with its tag clearly visible perched on top of the pile. The gate snapped closed smartly behind it; a student work gang including—to her surprise and regret—the three troublemakers from Vestrin, ran for the cart to toss the last items off.
Ah, she thought, that explains it! The three knew exactly where their luggage was, and hauled it free with a fine disregard for physics. The surrounding bags shifted and tumbled. Her bag slid from its high perch, caught, and fell. Theo jumped forward—
Just before her bag hit the floor, one of the crew caught it, neatly and without flourish, looked down, blinked, and turned to display it to his friends. Maybe he was checking the tags, though she didn't know why they should care.
Theo continued toward them, and was almost knocked down by the tall girl in the bright green jacket, who had been looking lost earlier. She didn't look lost now. She looked mad.
"That box need not be thrown!" She sounded mad, too.
Indeed, the tallest of the three from the ship was hoisting a small box as if he meant to toss it to the floor.
He glared, put the box down hard on the cart, off-handedly caught another bag tossed to him by the stubbier guy, dropped it to the floor, and picked up Theo's bag. He made a show out of reading the tag, and laughed too loud.
"I'll take that, thank you."
Startlement.
Theo flushed; her words had come out louder than she'd expected, and into a lull in the racket of the hall, turning heads and dropping conversation levels all around.
"Yours? It's got a pilot tag on it!" This from the ringleader who'd offered, several times and pointedly, to permit Theo to accompany him—or all of them—to his cabin on the Vestrin. The oversize pilot's wings glittered on his shirt collar, just as it had when he'd leaned toward her conspiratorially on the ship, as if his offer had been some kind of favor.
"My bag." Theo nodded, trying for Kamele's crispest, most efficient voice. "Thank you."
A flick of fingers from the stubby one; quick and with an accent she wasn't sure of, though she caught the sense: Throw me now run catch back toy's bag.
"Don't!" Theo snapped, accompanying that with a slashing STOP ALL! that brought a laugh from an onlooker and a too-loudly muttered, "Miss Purity strikes again!" from the ringleader.
"And I want my box," the girl in the green jacket said imperiously. "You make me late for lunch."
The guy holding Theo's bag sat on the box and looked down at her, ignoring the girl in the jacket.
"This tag—" He held the bag up and shook it at her, like she needed help understanding which tag he was talking about. "This tag is from Melchiza, in case you don't know that. I can read the sight-code, and that's a pilot-rated clearance. I bet you don't have a pilot ID, do you? If you do, now's the time to show it. If you don't, I'm filing this as stolen."
Theo glared, and touched the patch on her jacket, that still carried her Vestrin photo pass-card and—
As if from all the walls at once came a lilting, if loud, announcement.
"Attention. Registration jitney leaves in two minutes from door four. Load now."
"This tag," Theo said, showing the strip she'd gotten at Melchiza Station, "matches that tag. I got them on Melchiza, and they're current for the Standard. My name is on both. My bag. Sir."
She spoke calmly, and the sir was almost gentle, but she couldn't stop herself from dropping into a posture of alert waiting—nor, judging by the murmurs behind her, was that lost on others. She sighed to herself. Father had warned her—
"Oho, Wilsmyth, I think you ought to give the pretty her bag," said someone Theo couldn't see. "Before she breaks you."
"I want my box!" snapped the girl in the green jacket. "Rise, oaf! I must have lunch! I must register!" She moved forward purposefully, jacket billowing.
Wilsmyth hesitated for another fraction of a second. He rose then, fast and sudden, and threw Theo's bag at her, hard. The other girl ducked beneath it to grab the box.
Theo fielded the bag one-handed, feeling a pull in her shoulder, and used the other hand to sign a curt receipt acknowledged, before she turned to seek door four.
Two
New Student Orientation
Ozler Auditorium
Anlingdin Piloting Academy
The woman in the plain grey uniform had the room's full attention as she strode about the low stage, left to right, right to left, talking at times as much to herself as to the group. The simple acts of walking on stage wearing a Jump pilot's jacket, slipping it off and casually throwing it over a nearby chair, had caught them as much as the quick hand-and-voice: Welcome and listen up. "I'm Commander Ronagy."
The basic intro was about what Theo had expected, a highly condensed repeat of the information in the school's orientation packet, but the follow-on was not.
Commander Ronagy came to the front of the stage and stood, legs braced, hands at ready, looking sternly out over the first four center rows, which was all the newbie class filled in this big auditorium.
"If you have any doubts about being here," she said soberly, "please, there's a shuttle scheduled to lift in the morning. If you're here under duress, come talk to me tonight, and we'll get you out of here as soon as we can, as neatly as we can. If you don't want to be here, we don't want you here."
Her right hand rose, fingers dancing briefly, several subdued metallic rings marking time in the spotlight, before she turned to pace again. Theo turned her head slightly and saw that tables and tray carts were being moved in the side door and rolling silently toward the back.
"I can tell you that not every pilot trainee has survived the course at Anlingdin Piloting Academy," the Commander continued. "The records speak for themselves and I suggest you avail yourselves of them if you haven't already. But you're here now, and this is what I can tell you without doubt: This will be one of the most physically and mentally challenging periods of your life. You may succumb to any of the hazards that claimed those of your less successful predecessors here at the academy: carelessness, bravado, inattention, suicide—these are the more common.
"You'll study some of the more dramatic errors in your training sims and if they don't leave you shaken, then perhaps you're in the wrong field. Our testing is designed to ensure that you're always at your peak, and always up to the next level of instruction. If you find you're falling behind, speak up."
Here she stopped in midstride, appeared to look at all the students at once and emphatically finger-yelled GET HELP. Her hands fluttered into a more subtle motion . . . she might, Theo thought, have been reminding herself of where she was in her presentation—point six.
"I can tell you that, statistically, your chance of survival and graduation is higher than the average. That's because you—this group—are something special. On the whole you're older than the school cohort groups we get for first and second semester. There's a compelling reason to start you now, rather than with the freshman class starting in a few months. Someone we trust told us you don't need to be babied or coddled, that you'll be able to do the job of becoming a pilot on your own terms. On the whole your recommendations have come directly from pilots who know you, and who are teachers in their own right.
"I can also tell you that if one of you errs to the point of death, it will greatly sadden us all, and we will mourn, but we will continue, as we have for three hundred years."
Theo caught the quick hand motion: point seven.
"Remember, yours is the interim group, and you're replacing those who washed themselves out, who flunked, who were asked not to return, who were claimed by their families for other duties, or who got drafted by their governments. Those ahead of you are technically your seniors. As we're at midyear, you will be moved into classes already in progress—and if necessary into remedial classes. Our charter with the planetary government requires the academy not only to enroll so many pilots per year, but to graduate so many a year. We are depending on you to be able to graduate, and while you'll get as much help as we can give to make you ready, your group is not supported by the general rebates and fees Anlingdin pays for local students and you'll generally not have the option to retake entire semesters."
Boy, was that ever true, Theo thought. She'd seen what the annual fee was, and it would have taken three years of Kamele's base salary to pay for her first year here . . . without Captain Cho's sponsorship she'd have never been able to enroll. And if she didn't keep her grades up, she wouldn't be able to afford to stay.
Point eight.
"If we were at the beginning of either half-term, I would be able to tell you how many of you will be sharing dormitory rooms, and give other housekeeping details. As it is, you will be scattered among existing housing arrangements, and might have anywhere from one to three other students with you. Generally, one student in each suite will clearly be the senior. Though we're not strictly military about these things—pilots are flexible, after all!—allow me to strongly suggest that the senior student be regarded as a mentor and guide, at least during your first semester. Your housing and meal information will be delivered at the tables which will be set up here while we all take advantage of the meal being laid at the back now. After the break, please have your Anlingdin cards at the ready and we'll get your piloting career under way. For the safety of all, please, no bowli balls in this room!"
There was an undercurrent of laughter as the Commander pointed out the tables piled with plates and food being being uncovered and set to serve.
The next signed but unspoken command was clearly all eat.
The buffet was surprisingly lavish, especially after the stifling sameness of Vestrin's menus. There was a mix of what Theo considered to be morning food and day food, to accommodate different personal times and preferences. Theo grabbed what looked like a cheese sandwich on dark bread, and a salad plate. Real, green vegetables! Carrots! And whole slices of tomato! She hadn't seen anything so good in weeks.