"It was all I could see, Tiffy. Keep the head down, keep . . ."
"Yah, right. Did what you wanted; the comp counted it as a disable three since your shot would have gone through the hand and put something on the gun, too."
Theo realized she was still breathing hard, threw a hand-signed excuse this toward the woman, and danced about three breaths' worth of relaxation. Her shoulders and arms crackled with the first moves, but by the end of the sequence she was feeling a lot more sure of her footing.
"So, you don't think you want to be a gunfighter?"
Theo laughed. "Give me a ship to fly. I'll be happy if I never have to pull a gun again."
"Excellent. The ones that scare me are the ones who think doing a sim is enough like the real thing to go out looking for trouble."
"I'd go to merc school if I really wanted to be a fighter."
Tiffy grinned. "I been to merc school. Say no if you get the chance, that's what I say. But then, that's experience for you."
Before Theo could answer, the armorer held her hand out for the gun.
"So, while I was waiting for you to finish cleaning up Trantor's docks, I ran the report on your gun. What's good is that we don't have any links to it; no law enforcement or military looking for it. What's bad is the last owner of record died a dozen years ago. That don't really matter—this is a case of who has it now owns it now, and that's you. The thing is—you listen up, Theo Waitley!—is that this weapon is not going to make muster as a day-carry here on Eylot. Most places won't measure the difference, but here, this is a what they call a service weapon. See, it's derived from a LaDemeter mini, uses the same basic design, even if there's no doubt that Ianic built it. That design is why you got that shot off at the end of the sim. That design also makes it too much gun for carrying on walkabouts for fun. If you're on duty, going to duty, or coming from duty—on Eylot you can carry it. Else you gotta leave it at home. That's official, and you'll sign a paper saying that."
Tiffy sighed gently.
"Me, I'd carry it. Get yourself an on-call notation somewhere, and that ought to cover, 'cause that's a technical duty level. I hate to travel without something on me. You can't always depend on hitting someone upside the head with your hand." She nodded. "Tell you what, let's make that impression, now. If you trust to leave it, I'll have it ready for this evening."
As it turned out, between "after breakfast" and "this evening" encompassed a long day filled with petty annoyances. She had to get her class schedule filed for next year, and every required course looked to be arranged as inconveniently as possible for people who were actually trying to fill their credit-hours with real work. Both the kids she was tutoring were late for their sessions, and Kon could just as well have stayed in bed and slept it off, for all the headway he made on his board drills. In retrospect, she probably hadn't been as sharp as she should've been, either—the adrenaline taking its balance.
After her last class, she went past the armorer's, though by then she could barely keep her eyes open. Her gun with its new grip was ready. She tried it, and Tiffy pronounced her "good to go."
Back at the dorm, it was her turn to fix the midweek, in-dorm meal she shared with Asu, the last vestige of their first year together. She laid down, figuring to take a short nap, and woke up, refreshed, and behind time for starting the meal.
Annoyed, she rushed the batch of maize buttons, and almost burned them while she was getting the rest of the meal together. A taste test showed they were a touch on the dry side so she made up a nice moist icing, using the last of her prized bethberry jam, at which point Asu swung in, only a little late, ate a third of the icing before it could get on the maize buttons, and rushed off to her personal comm unit, leaving behind a cryptic, "Theo, you've got to be seen in public to stop all these rumors!"
"Dinner's almost ready!" Theo called at the blank faux wood; whatever Asu was saying, which went on for some time, was muffled beyond recognition. Maybe she was on voice comm.
Now on task, Theo set the table, brewed tea for herself and Asu's special blend of coffee for her.
Asu reappeared, dressed to go partying. Theo stepped between her and the maize buttons, coffee in hand.
"Sit. I serve. You talk about rumors. Clear?"
Asu took the proffered cup, sipped, and sat as Theo brought the meal to the table.
"You know there's been some disquiet among the local Terran population; they have some grievances that they feel aren't being addressed, and they're starting to take action. I tried to introduce you, remember, and bring you along to some of their events, so you could meet people and they could get used to you, see that you weren't a threat?"
Theo sipped. Since they'd moved out of Erkes, it was true that Asu was always trying to drag her off to parties where she promised Theo would meet "interesting people," but—
"You're always too busy. And now look! Things are going to happen—everybody says so. Even some of the instructors are dropping hints that the school's changing direction, soon—and your name keeps coming up when students talk. The local kids think I'm local since I'm not into DCCT. They want to know why I'm still rooming with you when I had a chance to change things when we moved out and got the double together."
"But," Theo began as her hands said stay course, Pilot, "there wasn't any reason to change, I mean . . ."
"See, even there! Theo, you want to go to hand-talk all the time. You double-talk, hands and words at the same time. You started off bad in math and now you're doing special labs and teaching special labs. You get extra flight time—look at yos'Senchul having you haul him up to the little port! So what happens is that with all the political things and the social stuff where you aren't hanging around with your class, but always bucking for more work and more time and . . ." Asu shook her hands—not finger-talk, but simple frustration.
"I don't think you're deliberately trying to upstage the locals, Theo. I think you're just plain not paying attention to life and to society. It shows up all the time. You miss parties because you have work to do. You don't socialize nearly as much as most of us. You miss DCCT stuff, too, I guess, because your Kara is half the time calling here to see if I can roust you from your studies."
Theo took a deep breath, and put her teacup on the table.
"Asu, I'm not here to party. I'm here to be a pilot. And the DCCT people, some of them come from ships, or they've lived their life in trade families. Look at you; you have a tradeship named after you!"
Asu sat back, blushing.
"I didn't know you knew."
Theo suppressed the hand gesture read the ship lists and said with exasperation, "Why wouldn't I know? I've been reading job postings the last two semesters, for practice. You're going to have a spot to go to when you get out. But my family doesn't have ten tradeships to rub together in one port, and I can't make a living scraping my way up the teaching wall. As a pilot, I am what I am. I can do the math or I can't. I can handle the docking or I can't. When I get out of here, I'm going to be the best pilot I can be!
"This other stuff, the rumors here—I'm only going to worry about them if they get in my way. I don't have the energy for this superiority game. If the locals want to be better than I am, or better than DCCT, then all they have to do is the work!"
Asu squinched her eyes together, hard. When she opened them they looked watery.
"Theo, I'm in a spot. I keep telling people you're really not a bad person. I tell them that. I tell them that you're just really busy. I tell them that. What am I going to tell them now—that all the rumors about my roomie being a spy and a provocateur are wrong? I tried telling them that."