I groaned and rolled my eyes.
“Come on. Get your tablet. If we get a head start, you’ll be able to sail through tomorrow’s lesson. Wouldn’t Valka be surprised?”
I reluctantly retrieved my tablet from where I had left it by the door and we started. I wanted to sulk. I wanted to lie there and let my weakness for math just end things, and if it had been Valka tutoring me, that’s exactly what would have happened.
Shirley surprised me. For one thing, we never sat down the whole time. She had me set my tablet down in the middle of the bed, activate the holographic display, and made the entire room into our workspace. The transformations and demonstrations didn’t sit in the tiny box of the tablet, but they were all around us, as big as life. Whenever there was any kind of obstacle, she found another way to put the concept, and another, and another. Mathematics, to her, wasn’t a collection of cold transformations and sterile equations to memorize. For Shirley, it was a dance of art and science binding the galaxy together in pure, shining threads, and she wanted to teach me the steps.
When we finally noticed the time, she shook her head and sent me to the shower. I talked through my shower about what I had learned, then through Shirley’s as well. Finally, as we lay side by side in the bed, she had to put her finger over my lips and shush me. I tried to relax, certain that the new revelations bursting in my mind would keep me up all night long.
And then I remembered the data wafer, sitting in the bottom of my carry-pouch. I tried to stay awake until I knew Shirley was asleep, but there was no way. I fell asleep as soon as I stopped moving.
The next morning, we overslept a bit and had to rush to make Physicality on time. The class went pretty much the same as the previous day’s, though Valka and I had an easier time working into the partner movement exercises. I pushed hard, trying to wear us out, so we could have some more time to talk privately. Shirley noticed, though, and held me back, forcing me to maintain the correct forms. When we completed the program, there wasn’t time for a walk together, and the four of us went directly to the showers.
In the showers, I noticed a change. “Valka, your pubic hair is gone.”
She looked down and ran her hand over the smooth skin above her cleft. “Yeah, it really shows in the cadet uniform. I thought it would look better.”
I wanted to ask whether Masters had suggested it. He probably had. I glanced over at Shirley and Masters. Both were hairless below the neck.
I felt another knot of jealousy forming in my stomach, but I ignored it. “So how do I join the club?”
Shirley took a tube from a shelf of toiletries on the wall. “You can shave it, just like you do your face, but I recommend this stuff. It’s a nice depilatory—leaves your skin smooth, and lasts a long time before getting stubble.”
I squeezed some out onto my fingertips. “Can I use it on my face, too? I’d like to be able to skip shaving there.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Masters. “If you get any on your head, you’d lose hair in strange patches.”
I grunted an acknowledgment and rubbed the thick paste into my pubic hair. Gradually, the hair disintegrated, and when I turned my body back under the shower, it rinsed away and down the drain. The skin was smooth and sensitive where the hair had been. It would certainly make everything feel different with the hair gone.
When I finished, Masters and Valka had already finished their showers.
Shirley stepped over and ran her hand over my naked skin. “Nice, isn’t it?”
My cock responded instantly, twitching just below her hand.
“You’re teasing me,” I said. “You know we can’t just do it here.”
“Oh, we can, but we don’t have time. Later, maybe.” She gave my cock a squeeze and headed for the warm air vents, giving me a smile over her shoulder. “I imagine you’re hungry.”
In the dressing area, Valka spotted my erection and flashed Shirley a little smile. I couldn’t help checking to see what Valka’s body looked like in the sheer cadet uniform, making my erection even worse. I pulled on my shirt and shorts, but that only served to make it more prominent.
By keeping my mind occupied with some of the equations I learned the night before, I managed to get myself distracted enough for it to subside before we sat down for breakfast, but that just left me with a mild ache in my testicles.
It wouldn’t be the last.
The morning passed roughly the same as it had the day before, except that I felt a bit more comfortable with the routine. By lunchtime, the pain in my groin from Shirley’s teasing had eased. I asked if Valka and I could go for another walk together during our free hour. Since our studies had gone well through the morning, Shirley and Masters gave their permission.
I stayed quiet until we were out of the academy, in the long corridor leading out to the oxygen deck, then took a moment to prepare. “You’re doing so much better than me at this.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like a kick in the stomach every time I think of you and Masters being together, but you seem to be taking everything that happens with a smile and a nod.” It sounded like an accusation, but I couldn’t think of any other way to put it.
She shrugged. “Just the way I am, I guess. I’ve never been real jealous. Do you remember when you had that thing for Sindra Colpey?”
“What thing?”
“Oh, I saw the way you looked at her. I could tell what was going on in your mind, but I know you, Challers.” She went up on her tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek. “We’re in love, right?”
“I don’t know, Valka, I feel like this whole thing is changing us.”
“Yes, we’re growing, becoming Scouts. But love is more important than that.”
I pulled her close. “We have to hold onto it, Valka. We have to hold onto it hard. I feel it, I don’t know, slipping away.” I bent down to give her a kiss, a kiss that would seal us together, a kiss like we had never had before.
When I opened my mouth, probing with a tentative tongue, she pulled back. “Challers . . .”
“What?” I held on. I couldn’t let her go, not like this, not now.
She stiffened. “I don’t think we should take our relationship down that road right now. It’ll be a long time before we can really do anything about it, and I’d really just rather not start.”
Reflexively, my hands gripped tighter. “What are you talking about? Valka, I love you. You don’t want to kiss me?”
“Mmm, not like that.” She smiled. “I want us to be like we were back on the station.”
She pushed out of my grip, took my hand in hers, and wrapped my arm around her waist to walk with me. Just like always.
I yanked my arm away from her. “Not like what? Not like having sex? Not like Masters?”
“Oh, don’t be like that, Challers. You don’t have anything to be jealous about. I have a completely different relationship with Masters. It’s business, you know?”
“No, I don’t know! You can’t have sex with someone without having feelings for them. Look at Masters and Shirley!”
“I did look at them. If you might recall, we saw them having sex, and there was no passion there at all. They were just going through the motions. You didn’t see that?” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you didn’t see that.”
“Shirley said . . .”
“Oh, please,” said Valka, sneering. “You have to look at what she does, not what she says.”
“Are you saying she’s lying to me?”
“Shirley and Masters are not in love. Not even close. It’s just business between them, the same as between Masters and me. People say things they don’t mean all the time.”
“Oh, does that include you, too? Because what I’m hearing is that you’re putting Masters—who you say you don’t love—ahead of me. In less than a year, you’re going to be having sex with him, probably every day, and you won’t even kiss me! Do you love me, Valka? Do you really? Because you’re not acting like it.”
“Vacuum take him!” She gestured wildly with the foul curse on her lips. “No, I don’t love Masters, and I shouldn’t have to prove it to you by having sex with you!”
“I don’t want to have sex with you! I just want a vacking kiss! Is that so much to ask? I love you, Valka!”
She set her jaw, lip trembling, as if about to burst into tears.
“What? What did I say? People who love each other kiss! What’s the big problem?”
“You go on your walk, Challers,” she said, voice trembling. “I don’t want to come this time.”
She turned her back on me, and slowly made her way back into the academy.
I stood there, blinking, throat tight and cramped. I wanted to stop her, I wanted to scream at her to come back, but the words just wouldn’t come.
What had happened to her? What had I said to upset her like that?
I watched her until tears blurred my vision and I had to wipe them away. I stumbled out to the oxygen deck, down the path between the fields and orchards, until I came to the water.
The newgens weren’t there. I was glad of the solitude. I didn’t want anyone to see me right then. I sat down on the bank, letting my thoughts slide by like the slow-moving current.
After a time, my tablet bipped. I ignored it. It bipped again. I took it out and silenced it. I wanted to throw the stupid thing into the water.
I wanted to throw myself in.
Shirley sat down next to me. She didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything, just sat.
“I guess you know what happened,” I said.
“A little of it. You and Valka had a fight.”
The tears threatened to start flowing again. “She doesn’t want me anymore.” The effort of holding back the emotions made it hard to talk.
“You want to have Astronavigation class out here? We can just lay out your tablet and listen to the lecture. You already know today’s material. It’ll be easy.”
I shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.” Everything I had been fighting for had evaporated.
Shirley took my tablet and laid it on the grass between us. “Just access the classroom feed, there.”
“I know.” I tabbed through the menus and pulled up the Astronavigation class for day two, and routed it to the tablet’s projector. The semi-transparent form of the lecturer appeared and immediately began the day’s material.
I tried to lose myself in it, but the image of Valka’s snarling face kept coming back to me. I shut it off and collapsed onto the grass. Too tired to hold it back any longer, I let the tears out, let the sobs out, let everything just pour out of me.
Shirley put her hand on my back.
I felt empty. I felt like my only reason for being there, at the academy, was gone. Why should I bother with the classes? What was there for me? I was alone. If I just disappeared right there, no one would miss me. My parents would think I was safely cruising the stars, among the galaxy’s elites. To everyone else, I was just a resource. A resource that could be replaced.
Even to Valka.
Then a thought occurred to me: she had used me. She had never been sincere about her feelings. It was all a lie to get me to help her get off the station. She told me she loved me, because she knew that would make me want to help her, to save her. I had been shamelessly manipulated. Or at least . . .
No. It was easier to believe she had no feelings at all for me, easier to believe it was all a lie.
“We really shouldn’t skip two classes, Challers. We need to get back for Medical. It’s not a holographic lecture; this is hands-on equipment training.”
“I don’t think I want to be in the same room with her right now.”
“We’ll find another room. Come on.”
She helped me to my feet and picked up my tablet. As I put it in the carry-pouch, I heard a little
tic
of plastic on plastic. The little data wafer was still down there, the one that had been handed to me by the mysterious cadet the day before.
As we walked up the path, I found my thoughts drifting back to it. A part of me wanted to put those thoughts out of my head. It was too dangerous. If she felt a need to be secretive about it, then there must be some penalty. I could feel a hungry curiosity building, though, and I knew it would not be sated without reading that wafer.
Back at the academy, Shirley opened a supply closet with her palm implant and took out an excursion kit. She brought it to a nearby classroom and laid it out on the desk, and then went up to her place behind me. The lecture started. Each item in the kit was named. I repeated the names. The items were named, and I presented them. Items were presented, and I named them. Each item’s function was described. Each item in the kit was named, and I described their functions. The functions were described, and I named the items and presented them. The rote memorization of these isolated bits of information made an uncomplicated drone of my consciousness that I found strangely comforting, like a hot shower. Steady. Mindless.