"Think so?"
It began to rain. A brisk wind came up abruptly, and off in the distance
Smith heard the roar of thunder. It came closer. Still closer. Like in a
straight line. Smith watched the lightnings prance.
"We'd better get back to the school!" he cried. He didn't think she
could hear his voice above the thunder. He started to shout again, but
lightning crackled before his eyes. Between him and the girl. Something
rumbled, and Smith started to fall. They had been blasted off the crag,
and now they hurtled down through the sheets of hot rain....
"Feel yourself," the girl told him. The huge crimson sun still sat on
the horizon. The air was hot and warm and Smith was dry.
"Suggestion," she smiled again. "Most of us have it to some degree, but
we of Bortinot have it still more. Still think you should be a
dominant?"
"Well--" The girl's face swam before his eyes. Lovely. Smith took a step
forward, reached out and placed his big hands on her shoulders.
"Well what?" She was smiling.
"What's your name?"
"Geria."
His lips were big and hers were little, if full. He quivered as he
kissed her. "I love you, Geria."
"I know it," she said.
* * * * *
"The reason I went outside to watch the sea," Smith said, "was because I
didn't know how to get to room 4027. I didn't want to ask anyone, not
after--"
"That makes sense. I'll take you, Smith. I'm just down the hall from
you, anyway."
"Thank you, Geria." Smith wondered how he knew her name was Geria. Nice
name. "What happened after I thought there was a storm, Geria?" Smith
suppressed a smile.
"Oh, nothing much. I just planted another suggestion in your mind. For
now you've forgotten, but you will remember. Shall we go?"
They walked back down the path from the top of the crag, and soon Smith
saw other students in groups of two and three. Ahead was the long low
school, a dull rectangle of metal perhaps two miles long and half as
wide. With Geria, Smith entered through one of the hundreds of doorways
and followed her wordlessly up a mechanical staircase.
They flashed past many landings, and after a time Smith followed the
girl across one of them and into a long hall.
"Simple," she said. "You have the twenty-seventh room here on the
fortieth floor. Mine is room eighteen. Will we be seeing more of each
other, Smith?"
"As much as you'd like," he said, but it made him feel foolish. He had
merely spoken to the girl for a few minutes, and yet he could not quite
fathom his emotions. To some extent she had made him feel the same as
had the man Jorak, and yet she liked him. She wanted to see more of him.
She said so.
"Smith, you're blushing again. I tell you what: if you can do that every
day, then I will see you every day. It's so nice and--unaffected."
Was that the word she really had in mind? Smith remembered once when he
was little, a farmer had come to the city and everyone had called him an
ancient word which they said came from a still more ancient name. Rube
they had called him. Rube. He didn't like it. He had had a fight, Smith
recalled, and a big plateglass window was broken. He went to jail for a
few weeks on the moon, and after that he didn't come to the city any
more. Smith was little at the time, but he had never forgotten the look
on the farmer's face when the security officers took him off to the moon
rocket.
Had he known it, Jorak would have used the word rube, but what about
Geria?
The green number on the white door was painted sharply--4027. "Here's my
room," Smith said. He tried an indifferent wave, but it hardly worked,
and he began to blush again.
Geria skipped lightly down the hall, and he couldn't see her face to
tell if she were smiling. He shrugged, opened the door.
* * * * *
"Earthsmith! Oh, no ... I come half way across the galaxy to get here,
so what are the odds against any particular room mate? Huge, that's
what. But I got me--hello, Earthsmith."
It was the purple man, Jorak. He had just recently greased his shock of
bright green hair, and he had turned away from the mirror when Smith
opened the door. Now he turned back to the tinted glass and held his
head at various angles.
"Well, can you change rooms if you want to?" Smith asked pleasantly.
"You're not going to chase me out of my own room, Earthsmith. You can
change if you'd like. Not me."
"All right if you want me to I'll change."
"If I want you to! Don't pass the blame to me, Earthsmith. I didn't say
a thing about changing, not me. Don't you think I'm good enough for
you?"
"I don't care one way or the other," Smith said. "I suggested you change
because I thought you'd be happier that way. Look, I'll mind my own
business and pretend you are not even here. How's that?"
"Pretend I'm not here? Like cepheid you will. If you want to be ornery,
Smith, or Earthsmith, or whatever your name is, I'll give you plenty to
be ornery about. I'm a dominant, you know, so just watch out."
"I'll change if that will make you happy." Smith didn't want any
trouble. He still felt more than a little strange and out of place here,
and a fight with Jorak wouldn't help matters. Briefly, he wondered what
sort of psi-powers Jorak possessed.
The purple man stood up. "What kind of a slap in the face is that? We
haven't even started courses or anything. You think I'd need you to help
me with my work or something?"
"No, I'm quite sure you wouldn't. But I'll change my room, anyway. I'll
probably get in your way--"
"Well, _I_ wouldn't get into _your_ hair, satellite-head! If you think
you're going to leave here and say I started a fight or something.... My
father made quite a record for himself here at the school, and I'll have
to beat it, of course."
"Of course," Smith agreed, but he did not really know why.
"Are you implying anyone, just anyone, could top my father's record,
Earthsmith? Not a man from Gyra ever did it, and intellectually Gyra is
top planet in its own sector. Not a woman from Bortinot came close, but
then, you probably don't even know where Bortinot is."
Smith said no, he didn't, but he had just met a woman from Bortinot.
Perhaps if he changed the subject....
Jorak ran his fingers up along each side of his shock of hair. They came
away greasy green. "Exquisite, those women of Bortinot. But then, you
probably wouldn't appreciate them, eh, Earthsmith?"
Smith said that he could appreciate them very well indeed, especially
since, except for a few minor structural differences, they looked like
women of Earth. It was a mistake, and the muscles in Jorak's cheeks
began to twitch.
"I say they look exquisite, you say they look like women of Earth. Which
is it, Earthsmith? Not both, surely--a contradiction in terms. I believe
you're trying to provoke me."
Smith sighed. He wanted no trouble--they had spent a year with him on
Earth, indoctrinating that. He was to be a paragon at the school, as
Earth's first student there, he had to be a paragon--even if he turned
out to be more awkward in this situation than the farmer on Earth
everyone had called Rube.
"I think I will go to sleep," Smith said.
"Why, don't you men of Earth ever eat, Smith?"
Smith said yes, they ate, but he wasn't very hungry now. As a matter of
fact, he was ravenously hungry, but he did not relish the idea of going
to some public eating place either with Jorak or alone. His heart began
to beat a little faster when he thought that he might meet Geria if he
did, but then he felt the heat rise up his neck and into his cheeks.
He'd hardly know what to say to her, and besides, he knew there was
something he should remember but couldn't quite. No, he'd skip dinner
this first day at the school.
Now he watched Jorak open the door and step into the hallway, and for a
moment he heard gay voices and the shuffling of many feet, and Jorak's
voice louder than the rest: "Kard of Shilon! How long has it been? I can
remember that day near Raginsdild...."
Smith turned to the window, and for a long time he sat watching the fat
red sun.
* * * * *
He got up early and he showered, and then he heard a clicking sound. Two
cards had been deposited in a tray from a slot in the wall. At the top
of one were the words "Jorak of Gyra," and Smith's name and planet were
printed on the other. He picked it up and began to read, and then Jorak
sat up and took the other card.
"Programs," said Jorak. "Everyone takes transtellar history, of course,
and a section or two in the humanities. My electives are Wortan fighting
and dream-empathy."
Smith smiled. "Me too--same program. I suppose we'll be in class
together, Jorak."
"Rather stupid," the purple man observed. "They've given you a
dominant's program. But then, I remember you questioned your receptive
classification, and the registrar's known to do this on occasion, just
to put you in your place. You'll be in Garlonian dancing in a few days,
Earthsmith."
"Well, I sure hope not. I didn't come here to learn how to dance--"
"Hah! So what? If you're an R you'll learn how to dance and like it.
Cook, too. There's no such thing as a misfit at the school, not
permanently. They'll find you out soon enough, Earthsmith. Hmmm, wait
till Kard of Shilon finds out what they've put in Wortan. Kard's top man
in his sector, and it's just possible they'll pair you off with him.
"Well, you going to eat this morning? I'd hate to see you in Wortan
without a good meal in you. But I suppose it really wouldn't help,
anyway. Coming, Earthsmith?"
There weren't any people out in the hall this early, and Smith breathed
more easily when they moved in a direction opposite that of Geria's
room. Soon they had descended a score of levels, and the moving ramp
became more crowded. Smith tried to ignore the eager hum of
conversation, but it was all around him. He realized he should be
feeling that way too. But you couldn't drum up a student's eager
appetite within yourself, not when you didn't feel that way, not when
your entire planet waited to see how you made out here and you felt
unsure of yourself, even in such simple things as eating.
That part of it at least turned out better than Smith had hoped. There
were eggs, and while he was sure he would not recognize the fowl if he
saw it, he could at least order his over-light and get something
familiar. And there were long strips of fatty meat which almost could
have been bacon, except Smith was sure the pig wouldn't be a pig at all.
And Smith was lost in the hordes of white men, green men, purple, orange
and brown, and no one paid him too much attention. Jorak busied himself
remembering old times with a gruff burly orange man named Kard, whose
planet was Shilon, and Smith ate in silence. Once he thought he saw
Geria far off at another table, but it could have been his imagination,
and when he looked again she was gone.
Home, Smith always had been a quick eater, but now he found himself
pawing at his food. Soon the great dining room began to clear. Jorak and
Kard leaned back in their chairs, watching Smith.