- Prologue

'You wanna finish out the course, you better lose some of that attitude, Waitley.'

This from a guy who'd been making her life miserable for the last—Theo sat up, face hot. 'What's the matter with my attitude?'

'That's what!' he yelled. 'You think nobody noticed you daring Wil to come dancing, there at baggage? You think maybe you don't already have a note by your name that you got aggression problems?'

'I've got aggression problems?' Theo shook her head and just stared down at him, absolutely unable to believe what she'd just heard.

'I—all right.' She took a breath, and another one, centering herself there on the bunk and letting the tension —well, as much of the tension as she could, flow out of her toes and fingertips.

'Look, Chelly,' she said, over Asu's slamming open storage bays. 'I don't know what people saw. What I know is that Wilsmyth was trying to make trouble for me. I don't know why, but I don't need to know why to know that he was, from the very first time I saw him, on Vestrin. From my perspective, he was trying to get me to lose my temper, or maybe get me in trouble with Admin for having a stolen bag, like he said. If I was edgy, I think that's reasonable. And I think anybody who saw me drop to neutral would also have seen why I did it.' She took a breath. 'So, there might be a note in my file. It wouldn't be the first time. And I'm probably not alone.'

Chelly chewed his lip, and looked over his shoulder into the joint room. 'Wil gets chaizy when he's not working,' he muttered. 'He'll buckle, now there's work.' He sighed, and shook his head, looking back to Asu.

'You'd think somebody whose family owns tradeships would know how to pack,' he said.

Head and shoulders inside the bottommost storage compartment, Asu sniffed. 'We own them,' she said, her voice echoing hollowly, 'we do not live on them.'

'Yeah, well, you think you'll have all this stuff stowed soon? It's gotta be put away—those're regs, and if the house father does an inspect while you're at class, he can clean up anything that's not in its place.' He grimaced. 'He gets a real buzz outta cleaning up after newbies.'

'Thank you,' Asu said, emerging carefully from the compartment, and sitting back on her heels. She ran a hand through her damp curls. Unfairly, they sprang neatly back into place, unlike Theo's hair, which had frizzed out into its most uncombable.

'Were you in this room . . . last semester?' Theo asked Chelly, and then wondered why she cared.

He nodded. 'Yeah. I was top bunk. Panvay was senior—she challenged out. Tildenburg was low bunk—he flunked out. Finally.'

'Finally?' That final word even caught Asu, who gave Chelly an over-the-shoulder look.

'Yeah, he should've been outta here before the end of his second semester, but his family paid the fee and convinced Ronagy he'd stick with the program. Only he just did the same thing over again, like he couldn't help himself, and flunked again, just like the first time and—that was it.' He shook his head. 'It wasn't like Pan didn't tell him, or like he didn't know, it—' Another head shake. 'Didn't want to be a pilot, is what it came down to. His parents, they wanted it. Tildenburg, he wanted to be a poet.'

'A person may be both a poet and a pilot,' Asu said soberly.

'Not,' Chelly answered, 'if you only work on the poet side.' He looked around again and shook his head.

'Look,' he said. 'I am the senior and I'm telling you this straight—' His hands moved lightly: affirm, affirm. 'You gotta get this stuff stowed and get some downtime. When you start on-mester you get a couple days' slack while you catch on to things, 'cause everybody's slow and sleepy, see? But the off-shift—you guys are gonna go into classes that are already moving and they're gonna expect you to run to keep up—and no whining. I'm telling you.'

'Thanks,' Theo said. 'But why are you telling us?'

He looked up at her, strong eyebrows pulled over blue eyes. 'I'm senior,' he repeated. 'And I'm on command track. If you two screw up, it's gonna go against me, too.'

Asu laughed.

Chelly glared at the back of her head, then transferred his glare to Theo, who did her best to keep her face neutral.

'I'm going to bed,' he said, turning away. 'Try to get sensible, right?'

'Sleep well, Chelly Frosher,' Asu caroled brightly. He didn't answer, and Theo really couldn't blame him.

'Why'd you laugh when he said he'd get marked down if we flunked out on his watch?' Theo asked as Asu climbed to her feet.

The taller girl put her elbows on Theo's bunk and smiled.

'He admits to an interest,' she said, around a yawn. 'Therefore, we have leverage.'

'Oh,' Theo said, and looked over the edge of the bunk at the wreckage below. It seemed to her that Asu had managed to get an astonishing amount of stuff stowed while seeming to be ineffective. Unfortunately, that still left a lot to put . . . somewhere.

'Theo, I cannot help but notice that you have unused space,' Asu said, and Theo sighed.

'We've been—' she began, and blinked, remembering the dusty smell of rugs and an old woman's voice: No dickering here, I see!

She considered the side of Asu's face, and decided the other girl looked at least as tired as she felt. The sooner the stuff got put away, the sooner they both could get some rest after what had become a really, really long day.