back there. I found a dozen or so students sitting on grey flexiplas chairs around grey flexiplas tables and looking at the grey flexiplas walls. More were arriving.
I sat near the back, and tried to get in character. For a month, I’d studied Military vids. I’d trained in unarmed combat. I’d built an entire life history and family for Jarra Military kid, or JMK as I’d nicknamed her. By this time, I knew JMK better than I knew myself.
Lecturer Playdon was sitting at the front of the room and looking depressed. After a few minutes, he seemed to decide he had a full class present. He started with exactly the same words he’d said when I arrived.
‘Welcome to University Asgard Pre-history Foundation course at the New York Dig Site. I’m Lecturer Playdon.’
After that, he branched out into daring new verbal territory. ‘We will be staying at New York for the next two months before moving on to our next dig site. This is the dining hall, used for meals and classes. You’ll have noticed all the other rooms in this dome are very small. Has everyone found their rooms, and have you any problems or questions?’
A hand went up, from a blonde girl in a clinging dress of glowing fabric that showed patches of bare skin in unexpected places. None of them were actually over restricted body areas, but they were certainly very close to them. She could have stepped straight out of a wild party scene in a vid.
‘I couldn’t find the concealed door to the bathroom in my room, or the concealed window,’ she said. ‘Should I have a special key code?’
There were a few giggles from round the room. I was one of the guilty parties.
Lecturer Playdon broke the bad news to her. ‘That’s probably because there is no concealed door. There’s a bathroom at the end of each corridor. That’s one bathroom between ten of you, so no lingering in the shower. There are no windows in the dome. Anyone else?’
Everyone else kept quiet.
‘Good. I’ve one very important warning for you. Don’t go outside the dome until instructed to do so. I really mean that. Now I’ll let you get on with your meet and greet.’
He went to sit in a corner and ostentatiously started working through some info on his lookup. Apparently we were supposed to run things ourselves now. There was a nervous silence, and then a girl stood up. She looked just like a vid presenter, with glittering rainbow lights flickering randomly through her waist long, straight black hair. Expertly applied makeup emphasized the delicate features of her classically-beautiful dark face, and her clothes must have cost a fortune.
‘We’d better start introducing ourselves,’ she said, gazing round at us with a superlatively confident smile. ‘I’m Dalmora Rostha.’ The slow drawling way she spoke told me her home sector before she said it. ‘I’m from Alpha sector. My father is Ventrak Rostha. He’s made some info vids, and I’m hoping to make history vids myself some day.’
There was a sort of stunned silence. What got to me was the sweetly modest way she said it. ‘Made some info vids’ … Ventrak Rostha was famous. Just about everyone followed his History of Humanity series, each eagerly awaited episode covering another key event of the period since the first colony was set up on an Alpha sector world until the present day.
Ventrak Rostha was a brilliant man. I loved his vids so much that I could even forgive him for being an exo. That didn’t stop me hating his daughter though. She was probably a rich and spoilt nardle brain, who thought the rest of humanity should just lie down and be trampled on by her elegant little Alphan feet. It would happen too. She was guaranteed a glistening career ahead of her making vids. It didn’t matter how second-rate and incompetent they were, everyone would praise them to the skies because she was the daughter of the incomparable Ventrak Rostha.
Yes, I admit it, I was jealous.
Ventrak Rostha’s daughter smiled round at the grazzed class. ‘So who next? Anyone else from Alpha?’
There was dead silence.
‘Anyone from Beta sector then?’ asked our new celebrity leader.
The one in the party dress stood up and gave a theatrical wiggle. Oh yes, of course she was Betan. I’d worked that one out already from her dress.
‘I’m Lolia. I see we have sixteen men and fourteen women, so I know you won’t think I’m greedy when I say I’m looking out for a trio with two of you gorgeous boys.’
There were a few startled giggles. The sixteen gorgeous boys seemed a bit nervous as Lolia gave them each a predatory look of assessment. All except one, who was lounging back in his chair advertising the fact he didn’t care. He spotted me looking at him, and gave me what I could best describe as a leer.
I remembered I was Jarra the Military kid, gave him a long cold look in return, and then turned away. I hoped the general effect was that I’d considered him and was unimpressed. I made a mental bet that he was Betan too. I was right. He was the next one to stand up and introduce himself.
After that, we had a whole mob from Gamma sector, who talked with a slightly lilting quality to their sentences. The number of Gammans made sense since Asgard was in Gamma sector. I grudgingly had to admit they seemed a quiet and inoffensive bunch. The thought occurred to me that my random selection of University could have landed me on a Beta sector course. I shuddered, and mentally thanked Arrack San Domex for being from Asgard.
Miss Celebrity took us through the people from sectors Delta through Kappa after that. There were a few from Delta, a solitary girl from Epsilon, and no one from Kappa. That was hardly surprising. Epsilon sector is still busy building everything on its colony worlds, but Kappa is even newer so it’s still mostly in Planet First or Colony Ten phase.
Dalmora smiled at me. ‘I’m really sorry, but if you aren’t from Kappa then we seem to have missed you out somehow.’ She was a good actress, because she actually sounded like she cared.
I stood up. I noticed Playdon abandon his lookup to watch this, but I refused to let him intimidate me. ‘I’m Jarra,’ I said. ‘My family is Military.’
‘Interest!’ Celebrity Dalmora gazed at me in what appeared to be absolute delight and fascination. ‘A Military doing history! Are you going to go Military later?’
‘Unsure.’ I smiled. ‘I love history, but it’s difficult to combine it with a Military career.’
The boy from Beta chipped in. ‘I’ve never met anyone Military before. What does a Military girl do when a man kisses her?’
I gave him the cold stare. ‘That depends. If he asks politely first, and I say yes, then I kiss him back. If he doesn’t ask politely, or doesn’t take no for an answer, then I throw him across the room as a gentle hint to improve his manners.’
There were a few startled expressions round the room.
‘Do you do that often?’ asked the boy from Beta.
‘The last time was yesterday,’ I said, quite truthfully.
Everyone laughed.
I sat down again. I could see Lecturer Playdon looking at me with a raised eyebrow. I turned my head to give him a wide smile. He knew I was telling a pack of lies, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He wasn’t allowed to tell the others my confidential data.
