Nightmare

class.'

'See you,' Jeren said. Kendi watched him go.

'So what’s up with you this morning, guy?' Dorna said.

'Nothing.' Kendi moodily tore another chunk of cinnamon roll off and felt his temper rise again. He was just getting into a conversation with Pitr and these two had to show up and chase him off.

Why do I care? he thought. I shouldn’t. I don’t.

The hell I don’t.

'Something wrong?' Jeren asked.

'No.'

Dorna and Jeren both gave him an odd look but said nothing. They all three ate in silence for a moment, then Dorna said, 'Today you register for classes, yeah? Given any thought to what you want to take?'

'I’ll end up in basics,' Kendi said gloomily. 'My scores were so low.'

'I want to take sex ed,' Jeren said with his mouth full. Dorna beaned him with a hard roll.

A while later Willa and Kite appeared. The five of them finished breakfast and trouped back up to the lobby where Mother Ara was waiting for them. A large bag hung from her shoulder. She took them across several walkways and up two flights of stairs to another building. Kendi was completely lost again. The numbers carved into the front of the registration building read '130452,' but there was no street Kendi could see.

'How do they do addresses around here?' he asked, pointing to the numbers.

'By feet above ground level,' Mother Ara said. 'Everyone on the lowest level has an address starting with the numbers one-zero-zero because the lowest you can build is one hundred meters above the forest floor. The next level up is one-zero-two, and so on right up to three hundred for the people way up at the top. The next two numbers indicate what section you’re in-forty-five in this case-and the last number or numbers indicate what order the building went up in. So the registration office is 130 meters above the ground in sector 45 and it was the second building built at that level in this sector.'

'Makes perfect sense,' Jeren muttered.

Mother Ara laughed. 'If you need directions to someplace, ask the dorm computer to download them into your data pad.'

'Don’thaveone,' Kite said.

'That’s why I stopped at requisitions before picking you all up.' Mother Ara reached into her bag and handed each new student a data pad the size of a small book. 'This belongs to you, even if you leave the Children. If you lose it, you have to buy a new one yourself or charge one against your future earnings. Upgrades are every two years or so, and those are free.'

The computers gave them all something to do in the waiting area while they were waiting to talk with the registration counselor. Holographic screens were new to Kendi, and fun, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever figure out everything his little pad could do.

'That’s why you’ll take a course in basic computers,' said Brother Strauts when he had called up the course requirements for Kendi. They were in his tiny cubicle of an office. Strauts was a portly man with a fringe of gray hair and equally gray eyes that looked out above a quivering pile of chins. His robe was brown and the ring on his finger was yellow amber. The course list on his holographic display looked depressingly long, but Brother Strauts assured Kendi that he wasn’t expected to do it all at once. 'This is for the long haul, son. And one day you’ll look back on this and wonder where all the time went.'

Right, Kendi thought. That’s what adults always say.

'Now this part here,' Brother Strauts continued, pointing at one part of the display, 'says you’re supposed to start flying lessons this morning.'

Kendi bolted upright. 'You mean today?'

'That’s what it says. Toshi will be your instructor. And it also says someone’s already put in to be your one- on-one.'

'One-on-one?' Kendi echoed.

Strauts nodded, setting his chins to quivering again. 'Everyone gets individual tutoring on meditation and entering the Dream. It’s a very intense kind of thing, and it doesn’t work very well in groups.'

'So who’s my one-on-one?' Kendi asked curiously. The only person he’d really interacted much with here was-

'Mother Araceil Rymar.'

Kendi wasn’t sure how to react, so he didn’t. Instead Brother Strauts finished registering him for a varied array of classes-history, language studies, beginning flight, basic science, mathematics, self defense, and Silent ethics. When they were finished, he found Mother Ara out in the lobby, where Kite and Jeren had figured out how to link their data pads together so they could play a game. A pair of holographic monsters wrestled in mid-air between them while Willa and Doran conversed on a nearby couch.

'You’re my one-on-one teacher?' Kendi blurted.

Mother Ara nodded. 'I haven’t had a one-on-one student in a while, and I thought we’d be a good match.' She hesitated. 'If you don’t think it would work-'

'No,' Kendi said quickly. 'I’d like it, I think. Thanks. And thanks for the jacket. It’s great. I was going to wear it today, but it …I think it’s going to be too warm.'

'You’re welcome,' Mother Ara said. 'I wanted you to have it.'

That hadn’t been nearly as awkward as Kendi had thought it would be. And Ara had chosen him for her student. That made him feel special for the first time in a long time.

Jeren’s monster tore the head off Kite’s monster. Kite made a sound of disgust. Jeren’s green eyes filled with glee. 'Wanna try that again?'

'I think we have other things to do,' Ara said. 'Dorna, would you show Kendi to the ultralight landing strip? I’ll take the others.'

Dorna agreed, and a fresh surge of excitement waved through Kendi. He was going to learn to fly! Already he imagined himself at the helm of a starship, dipping and weaving through an asteroid field, dodging enemy fire.

Blowing up slavers.

A grim smile slid over his face as he and Dorna headed off, their feet clumping up and down more wooden walkways. The monastery was fully awake and active now. The starship daydream faded in the full sunlight, and Kendi became slowly aware of the number of Ched-Balaar around him and Dorna. He found it hard not to stare at them.

'It’s all right too look,' Dorna said. Her voice was oddly soft, barely audible.

'Look?' Kendi asked, faintly embarrassed at being caught.

'At the Ched-Balaar. They don’t think staring is rude. They think humans are strange because we don’t look at other people.'

Oh. So Kendi stared. There was definite grace and power among the Ched-Balaar, and they were so dissimilar from anything Kendi had ever seen. His mind kept wanting to categorize them as horses or cows or even giant dogs, but they moved so differently and made such odd sounds that they continued to attract his eye. One of them ducked its head in greeting as they passed, and Kendi barely remembered to press his fingertips to the middle of his forehead as Dorna did.

'You’ll get used to them,' Dorna said, still in her soft voice. Kendi wondered if something were wrong with her. 'I stared a lot when I first got here, but now seeing them and the other non-human Children is nothing strange at all.'

'If you say so,' Kendi replied. 'Is that tooth-chattering and hooting really language?'

'Oh yes. I don’t understand it well, but I’m learning. Buck and Lucinda know it better than I do.'

'Buck and Lucinda?'

'Friends of mine. Here’s the staircase. We have to go down almost to the ground for this.'

The wide stairs wound downward around the talltree. As they descended, Kendi’s earlier excitement returned. He was actually going to fly. He hadn’t realized how much this actually appealed to him until the opportunity came up. After all, poor kids growing up on the streets of Sydney and mucker slaves working on a frog farm don’t think of themselves as having the chance to become pilots. But that had all changed now.