Higher Education

Chapter Eight

Rick did not exactly avoid Vido Valdez for the next two weeks. He preferred to think that he was so impossibly busy that they did not run into each other. With the increasing difficulty of the assignments set by Turkey Gossage and Rick’s self-imposed work-out schedule, there was no time to do more than study, exercise, and collapse exhausted into bed.

On the other hand, Rick knew that he was not going any place where he was likely to run into Vido. That made him secretly uncomfortable with himself.

He kept exercising, but he didn’t feel either fitter or stronger. He was surprised when after ten days he went to the gym and again found Alice Klein there, and they ran thirty silent laps side by side with Rick hardly aware of either his legs or his breathing. Apparently physical fitness crept up on you.

After they had showered they walked back to the school area together, discussing the latest horror that Turkey Gossage was trying to inflict on them: algebra. It produced the greatest outburst of eloquence that Rick had ever seen in Alice.

“Useless!” she said. “Why does he make us learn it? I’ll never get the hang of all his a’s and b’s and x’s. It’s not as though you would ever run into a situation where you might want to use it.”

Rick was not quite so sure. Certainly, he could see zero value in the equations that Turkey made them set up and solve. But Turkey Gossage did not strike Rick as someone likely to make anybody learn things just for the sake of learning. Every activity on CM-2 seemed to have a defined goal.

“It’s like the ladder thing this morning,” Alice went on. “He told us how long it was and how far the end was from the wall, and he asked us to find how high up you could reach with it. I don’t know how to do that, but it doesn’t matter. Out here you don’t need a ladder. You just jump!”

She was trying to justify the fact that she didn’t know how to solve the problem. Rick was pretty sure that he did. It raised a real question: Should he explain to her what she had to do to get an answer? Just as in the physical tests back in New Mexico, the trainees were in competition with each other. Some were going to fail. If Rick helped Alice Klein, or anyone else, might he be ruining his own chances?

On the other hand, Alice had encouraged him to run and to work out with the exercise equipment. She didn’t have to do that.

Rick sighed. “The ladder isn’t really the point,” he said. “Turkey put it that way, but really it’s just an equation we have to set up and solve. All you need is that formula we did the other day about the sides of triangles with a right angle. See, think of the ladder as the long side of the triangle. . . .”

Alice listened in silence as Rick explained and they walked to the study cubicles. “You’re right,” she said at last. “That does it. But it doesn’t change my basic point. You can solve dumb problems with algebra, but it isn’t something anybody needs in the real world. Thanks anyway.”

She left, leaving Rick to go on into one of the cubicles, close the door, and wonder. He also couldn’t see any practical use for what they were being taught. But Vanguard Mining was not an organization to waste money. More importantly, you did what you were told on CM-2 if you wanted to eat and rest.

He bent over the day’s assignments. His own trouble spot wasn’t the math, it was the reading. He was sure he was falling behind. Why wasn’t anything written the way it sounded? Why were words that were spelled almost the same and ought to sound almost the same completely different when you spoke them?

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Rick, hard at work, heard the cubicle door slide open behind him. He turned, suddenly nervous, then relaxed. It was only Monkey. She had lost a few pounds since arriving on CM-2, and it suited her. The uniform showed off her new and slimmer figure, and with her thinner face her brown eyes looked gigantic.

She slid the door closed behind her. Rick wasn’t worried—but he was puzzled. Perpetually horny or not, Monkey had shown not the slightest interest in him. It went both ways. He knew she was attractive, but she didn’t light his fires the way a couple of the other trainees did. Attraction between the sexes was a total mystery, but it was a definite reality.

Which left the mystery of what Monkey was doing in Rick’s cubicle. Study cubicles were supposed to be private, not the place for social chit-chat.

Monkey answered that at once, by setting the printout sheet she was holding down on the working surface in front of Rick. It showed an array of blank squares, with writing alongside. She touched the sheet. “I got no idea what any of this means.”

“Yeah? Well what the hell has that got to do with—”

“Alice says you’re real good at explaining math stuff. She says you just helped her.”

“So what if I did? What you think I am, some free service center? I got my own work and my own problems.”

“If you’d help me, I’d pay you back.” Monkey saw the look on Rick’s face, and shook her head. “I’m not talking about anything like that. I’d help you with your assignments.”

“What makes you think I need any help?”

“I got a look at your history paper. You trying to tell me you don’t need help?” Monkey smiled. “I like that stuff, and I know it. I can show you. So what do you say?”

Rick had already taken a look at the sheet that she had placed in front of him. It was one of Turkey Gossage’s damnable math crossword puzzles. You had clues for across and down, but the answers were all numbers. There was enough information provided to fill in the whole thing—just—but to do that you had to work enough logical connections between the clues to pin down unique digital values for each square.

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.