"You walk everywhere don't you?"

    "Did the soldiers threaten you?"

    "We're you scared?"

    "How did you get the Slipper to do that?"

    "Are you sleeping with anyone?"

    The girl who asked that got poked in the ribs by the young man next to her and that  sparked some laughter and ribaldry and that gave Theo a chance to catch her breath and take a sip without looking like she wasn't paying attention.

    If any of the question surprised her more than any others she couldn't say; the good news was that a couple of the crowd were kind enough to use recognizable hand-talk, and that gave her something to concentrate on, besides trying to eat. 

    Wilsmyth had come looking for her at the end of the lab, she thought, but by then her new found acquaintances among the math lab had attached themselves and the last she'd seen of him was his back as he'd ducked hurriedly away. They'd walked her in to the lunch room like she was leader of the pack, but partly it might have been to make sure no one else joined them. 

    All of them were from the math lab; all had been at the school longer than her and they all wanted to be close to her, where before they barely smiled at her. 

    She managed to answer some questions.

    "I wasn't scared," she said after another sip of what ever soft drink someone had brought her, because I was just too busy."  Here she interjected with her hands, pointing toward the could-be instrument panel and signing updown, north, windspeed, drift, drift, updown, clock.

  "The order came and I had to find a way to get the ship out of the air, and the mountain was nearest..."

    "Afterwards, then I was shaky and wanted to dance!"

    For some reason that prompted laughter, and she grabbed a bite as people quieted and then looked at the youngster – she recognized him as one of the Erkes local students --
blurted into the the silence "You always walk so fast and ..."

    She agreed, nodding in his direction. "I do. I like to walk, but there's not really enough time to just take a hike, and I'm usually a little late..."

    Again some laughter and smiles, and the pair staring back and forth at each other with furtive hand-talk that looked like Later alone ask  and an assent and ...

    "But the Slipper was great," she said, getting back to another question, except we'd never landed in that kind of a headwind before.  I really had to trick her down with a sideslip...

    Here Theo demonstrated with a hand motion and a swing of the shoulders and then dual slide of hands toward the table top.  Then she laughed, doubling the attention on her.

    "The only time I worried about the soldiers is when I made them hold the Slipper and one didn't understand so good about paying attention.  He let loose the starboard wing before I got the tie downs set and it almost clipped his nose."

    "You made the soldiers help?"

    Theo snickered.

    "Did I have a choice?  You think I'm going to let a school Slipper fall off a mountain if I can help it?  They insisted  I was going with them, but the rotor pilot, he told them I was right, the ship needed to be tied down else it might run into his machine at lift off. So yes, the soldiers helped."

    The other hand-talkers, not the hormone-addicts, were more readable: saw flight well done come her way and bowli ball after?

    That sounded good, but she really wasn't going to have time. Not today she managed and thank you, had to be, no choice.

    Normally lunch was a chance to think over math or math lab, and even to eat. Today she was having a hard time fitting the food in around fielding questions and watching the hands for words.

    The quarter chime sounded, barely discernible above the conversation buzz at table; in moments the group -- all carefully nodding, saying, or signing their goodbye to Theo --  was off in disparate directions.

    Theo heard or felt the presence of someone behind her, and turned to see --

    Asu.

    Her roomie sighed gently, and without asking. pulled out a chair and sat heavily.

    "It won't last, you know." she said, waving at the empty chairs.  "Once people figure out that you don't want to be friends, don't need to be friends, and can't do anything for them, they'll look for some other fast line."

    Theo raised empty hands and shrugged.

    "I don't know why ..."

    Asu made a sound remarkably similar to one of Lesset's triumphant I-know-it noises.

    "Have you seen the news, Theo? Do you know how many comm-calls I've denied this morning? I mean  -- you survived!"

    Theo looked to the ceiling before hoisting the last of her drink and guzzling it. She was going to need to start walking in a couple ...

    "I don't much follow the news, Asu. Not politics, not finance, not even sports."

    That last was a bit of a cut, and she was exaggerating, anyway.

    Asu wrinkled her nose.

    "Look, what's going on is the local newsies – and I mean planetary, not continental! -- they've got these great long distance vids, even a satellite shot or two, of you throwing the Slipper around like it's an aerobat while the military chases public menace number one in your direction.  Two expert commentators following the chase say there's no possible place for you to land and right there you calmly slot the thing in with a half wing-span to spare, just in time for the public menace to get obliterated, kabloom!"

    For some reason Theo couldn't fathom, she blushed and looked away from Asu. When she looked back, Asu's full attention was on her face.

    "Look," Theo insisted, "all I did was land the Slipper. That's all. They told me they wanted the sky empty. That's what I did. This other stuff --" Theo found herself looking at the ceiling and it's model aircraft and space craft.

    Asu sighed slightly.

    "I know.  It wasn't your fault that Chelly's old best-guy and mentor was idiot enough to  get shot down."

    Theo looked up,eyes wide, shaking her head.

    Asu was nodding.

    "Chelly told me this morning.  The guy was bestboy till he left and then didn't ever answer a bit of comm.... left him flat"

    Theo grimaced. Just what they needed in close quarters, a senior with a problem love life come back to haunt him.

    Asu looked grim, then businesslike.

    "So, I caught news reports for you; they're filed. The only incoming messages now are official or from the school.  And I came looking for you because there's a package notice for our pod and you never carry your comm. Notice doesn't say for who, just says 'package pickup Suite 302'.  You want to go down together?"

    "Now?"

    "Not, now. I have a class now."

    Asu waved her hands about in front of her impatiently, ending with a barely readable decide decide decide.

    "Theo, really. Meet you here next break, right? We'll go down together."

    A package? It was probably something from the sports guy for Asu, or maybe a new CheckSec or ... still.

    Theo's hands answered affirm as she rose from her chair.

    Asu waved affirm affirm and was moving "Right, now to class!"

    Theo had class, too, and ran most of the way.



    Commerce and Transport 111 was usually a dry and test-heavy class with a long retired full Terran cargo master-pilot, Therny Chibs, the professor.  Theo saw his lanky form  just ahead and sped up to get to the door of the classroom as he did, squeezing by as he turned to address a question from someone who stood outside waiting.

    Theo found classmates making room for he as she hurried to the back of the lecture-room, still a bit unsettled by how many of the people acted like they knew who she was.  Not likely, given the size of the class.

    She'd already memorized and been tested on thirteen common forms for the class, and expected a quiz today on two more.  The professor had never met a form he didn't like, nor a a reporting protocol he didn't admire. If she was lucky it would be two more and not three, because she hadn't quite caught up with --

    "We'll start," said Chibs in his twangy accent, "by requesting those of you who who live by the syllabus or who are taking the class feed for catch-up to disconnect recording devices and save those pre-made form files for next class, when we'll return to boring you all with material that you'll only need to know if you graduate."

    He chuckled at the startled looks, the same way he chuckled when gleefully pointing out some overlooked tick-box on a paper adjunct filed form.

    "We have an object lesson to hand, and we shall use it. It comes to us in the form of perhaps the most widely known pilot on the planet for the next two days, our own Theo Waitely."

    It felt like the whole room turned to stare at her, tucked away as she was in the back corner. She sat up, and watched the professor warily.

    "Oh no, you've all seen the news, I'm sure.  Good landing, good landing yes.  Everyone knows what she did right, I'm sure.  Now, with the pilot's leave, if you will listen to me closely rather than staring at Pilot Waitely, I'm going to tell you what was done wrong."

    Pilot Waitely.  There it was again.

    The professor's hands flashed permission request pilot acknowledge  so fast she almost had to assume it rather than read it.

    Well, there.  If she'd done something wrong she better know about it.  She answered here for learning.

    "Good, good," the professor said out loud, turning his back momentarily on the class before unleashing a large image of a Slipper on every desk top.

    "Consider this," he said at volume as he turned back to peer at them, "your ship. You are a pilot, the ship is in your care.  At what point does local traffic control, or local military for that matter, get to dictate what you do with it?"


   
    Theo felt wrung out, if only from waiting for her errors to be told. Mostly, though, with the class over, they weren't exactly her mistakes. It was true that she'd failed to ask landing permission from the Mountain Commissioners, but that was arguably covered under the so-called Port In A Storm protocols.

    Still, it was unnerving hearing her name used in terms of "Waitley's liability to pay for the ship if it were damaged" and "In space, on a job-run, Waitely must, and all of you must, take tactical news reports for your flight zones. That she wasn't informed of this is unfortunate, and that mistake is partially the school's curriculum and partially the fault of the equipment or lack of it on the Slipper. Your ship is your life."

    He paused then, and an image of her Slipper, sitting on the mountain ridge, appeared.   She wanted a copy of that – the Slipper looked beautiful!

    "That's it then.  No one signed for the ship, no one accepted legal or fiscal responsibility. No one offered, promised, or required a written return-to-ship. No one offered or promised hazard pay or indemnity. No one apologized – well, her instructor did, but none of the authorities on the scene. The debriefing was not done in a neutral location. On site the pilot demanded and received, through another pilot, a very basic securing of the ship, which was well-done."  Here he fell into had talk for emphasis: listen listen listen.

    "Do not undervalue detail, people. Do not undervalue info-trails. Do not let the bureaucrats overwhelm you to the point that you, as a pilot, cannot fend for your ship.  Do not forget that, on the whole, in a trouble spot, you first depend on your ship and yourself. You may listen to traffic control, but you must depend on pilots to survive."

    Chib paused again, looked in her direction, and did a sort of half-bow.

    "Pilot Waitely, thank you."

    The he straightened, disappearing the Slipper from the desk-top, and raised his voice.

    "Essay assignment due in ten days is entered into the log.  I look forward to your analysis. Next class, back to the forms! Dismissed!"



    Chib's see me now was discreet, and she managed to get to the lecture desk with only a few comments from her fellows to slow her.  When she got there Chib was sliding the last if his lecture material back into the case, eyes half on what he was doing and half on her. When he straightened she had to look very far up.

    "I flew that Slipper, Waitely.  The sim.  You ought to see if they'll pay you back some tuition on that one, 'cause it'll be taught, right it will."

    Theo nodded, followed his my next class is this way lead as he began walking toward the outside.  If that clot of classmates had been waiting for her it dissolved when Professor Chib led her out the door.

    She considered Father's friend the rug merchant – was Chib seriously talking about trading?

    "I'm not sure I can ask for that bargain, since I'm not exactly paying..."

    "Yes, I know, it must be a scholarship."

    "Yessir, something like."

    "Ah, good. Excellent. And I can see why.  If you have any interest in going to cargo master first, I can..."

    She glanced up him, to see if he was serious, and by then they were to the door and out...

    "No sir, I think not. Pilot."  That was said quite firmly.

    "Well then, maybe you'll have me for one of the technical courses later on. It will be good to see how you're faring...."

    "Thank you sir.  I expect I'll need to learn some of that, too."

    "Yes, you you will."

    The professor stopped suddenly, pointing toward a fast-growing contrail. Within the point was a half-flashed attention. "Quite a bit of acceleration there..."

    "But listen," Chib said suddenly "you ought to know something." He was peering down at her face intently.

    "Sir?"

    "I don't think there's a mic here.  But what you need to know is that the people on this planet, the government, they want pilots, but they don't trust them.  Melchiza, they respect pilots. Here, they fear them.  The last three governmentsh ave been overthrown by pilots."

    He looked to the sky again.

    "So be careful! You got that ship down just in time, Waitely.  They'd have shot you down with the rebel, and just called it bad luck. They may regret that they didn't."

    Theo felt her stomach surge with the thought. She'd known it was close but --

    He handtalked:

    Good school good teachers good lessons  lesson lesson planet silly policy dangerous

    Maybe it wasn't policy. It was like policy. Maybe that extra motion was politics. She could ask...

    "You're going to need to know forms one day, Waitley," he said suddenly and startlingly loud, as if she wasn't listening. "Pay attention to my lessons and you'll have a chance to be a pilot. Ignore what I teach and you'll not go far. Study and be aware!"

    The hands said say thank you and she heard someone approaching with rapid steps.

    "Thank you professor," she got out shakily.  "I'll do as you say."

    He nodded, and then added "Good lift, Waitely. Good lift."