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THE BUZZ ABOUT THE bar fight between students and locals—which apparently had been started by a female student throwing a beer glass—died down after a while. The bar didn’t have cameras trained on its patrons, so no one could prove who had been the instigator, though verbal descriptions pointed fingers strongly at the only Martian on campus.
Jas’ combat training instructor didn’t need anything like firm evidence to support his opinion on the subject. His prejudice against her increased to the extent that he virtually ignored her in class and routinely ‛forgot’ to include her in sparring sessions. This was doubly annoying to her: combat skills would be essential in her job, and hand-to-hand fighting was about the only thing that she naturally learned quickly. Everything else she had to work for.
Meanwhile, all the other students except for Tamara had started to keep their distance. People she thought had been her friends began to pretend they didn’t see her in the corridors between classes. If Tamara and Sergei were busy, she ate lunch alone in the cafeteria. She seemed to have gained the reputation of being aggressive from the combat class too, which didn’t help.
Jas didn’t know what to do about it, or even if she should do something. Maybe she didn’t need friends who believed in gossip rather than finding out the truth from her. Tamara told her that she put straight anyone who talked about Jas within her earshot, but everyone knew they were friends and probably concluded that Tamara’s judgment was clouded. Jas didn’t think there was any point in defending herself. Anything she said would seem like an excuse or justification.
Her growing relationship with Sergei was the saving grace of the whole situation. As far as she could without slipping too far behind with her work, she spent every spare moment with him. After a couple of blissful weeks of having her room to themselves, another late transfer arrived and was allocated the empty place.
Sergei also shared, so they couldn’t be alone in his room without inconveniencing his roomie. He solved the problem by persuading Aaron to help him build something vaguely resembling an igloo a little way out of town. It was a chilly setting for love trysts, and they couldn’t run a heater too long without the walls melting and ice-water pooling on the floor, but Jas didn’t care. Wherever they were, being with him was enough, and he seemed to feel the same about her.
Yet Jas wasn’t so blindly in love that she couldn’t see they were very different. Sergei didn’t work as hard or pay as much attention to his studies as she did. He wasn’t the stereotypical ‛bad boy’, but he didn’t care about his grades, or even if he would make it to graduation. He often missed class because he was working on something in his room. In fact, one of advantage of the igloo was that wires, transistors, silicon ships and other paraphernalia weren’t strewn around the place. In the igloo, Jas didn’t suddenly become aware that a part from a motherboard was sticking in her back.
Sergei avoided Jas’ hints at questions about why he’d transferred from his previous college, but she had a strong suspicion it had something to do with flunking out. She didn’t press him for an answer. She didn’t really care. He was a good, kind person, and he didn’t have any addictions or vices, unless he hid them very well.
The only thing that niggled her was the fact that, if they both continued along their current paths, it would be hard for them to be together. She was studying to work in security on a starship, he was studying to...well, Sergei had no particular ambition, if the truth was told, but whatever it was that he did, it would never be aboard a starship with Jas. He had a deep dislike of the idea of traveling in space. Airplanes, he could handle, he’d said. Maybe even shuttles, though given the choice he’d rather not travel by them, but he seemed to have an actual phobia of deep space travel. The idea of disappearing from the physical universe, even for the few seconds that most starjumps took, sent chills down his spine.
It wouldn’t be fair for Jas to expect Sergei to wait the months or years a mission took, only to see her for a few weeks before she left again. As Jas could find no solution to this problem, she pushed it to the back of her mind and concentrated on enjoying the time that they had together. Decisions about their long-term future could wait. Maybe she would be content with an Earth-based job.
***
JAS WAS A LITTLE LATE for her zero-g combat training class, and when she arrived, she was surprised to find no one had changed into their swimwear. Though starship gravity drives could create gravitational forces, no one had invented a machine that could turn gravity off. The usual training for zero-g fighting consisted of underwater training. The students used rebreathers and practiced by using the swimming pool walls and each other as solid surfaces from which to propel themselves. No actual swimming was allowed as in space or a gaseous atmosphere that wouldn’t work.
The instructor—a man called Elba—had explained that water wasn’t much of a substitute for no gravity, but it was the best they could do for regular training sessions.
Jas bypassed the changing rooms and went to the only remaining seats, which were at the top of the tiered benches that bordered the swimming pool. As she sat down, she realized the instructor was going over their scheduled real zero-g training exercise in space. Her shoulders sagged. The training trip was taking place over the next weekend, and all she knew about it was that it cost a lot—far more than she could afford. She hoped it didn’t count as a large percentage of their final grade.
“And I have a little surprise for you all,” said the instructor. “Normally, this class would visit an orbiting space station for this training weekend. We’d be training in micro-gravity rather than zero-g, in fact. But I have a friend who runs an interplanetary import/export company, and it just so happens that this weekend she has a special consignment she has to take to Mars.”
Elba paused for effect, scanning the students’ faces. “She’s agreed to let us all travel on her ship at a discounted price that matches the usual fee. We’ll complete a starjump and train in real zero-g for a whole day.”
The students hollered and clapped, except for Jas. A trip to Mars would have been nice. The thought of returning for a visit there crossed her mind fairly often. Still, she thought, she would have a whole weekend with Sergei.
Elba went over the details of the trip and what the students had to bring with them. Then he took questions. He spent the remainder of the class explaining the combat techniques they would be practicing, and what differences the students could expect when sparring in zero-g.
Class finished a little early. Jas put her bag over her shoulder, ready to leave. She had to wait for most of the students to file out before she could make her way down the stairs between the benches. As she went past Elba, he stopped her. “Could I speak to you for a moment, Ms. Harrington?”
He waited until the last student had departed, then said, “Can I ask, is something wrong? You looked a little down in class today. Aren’t you excited about our trip?”
“It does sound exciting, and I hope you all have a great time, but I can’t come.”
“Is there a problem? Do you have something planned for the weekend? If so, I’m afraid it’ll have to wait. The real-life zero-g training isn’t optional. It counts toward your final assessment.”
“Yeah, I thought it might.” Jas sighed. “You see, I’m a scholarship student. I don’t have the creds to—”
“Is that all? Then there’s no problem. Jas, you need to read your entitlements document properly. Any mandatory class materials, equipment, and other expenses—including class trips—are covered by your scholarship. It would be a little silly if they weren’t, wouldn’t it? What’s the point of awarding a scholarship if the student can’t complete a whole class and graduate?”
“It’s all paid for?”
“Everything’s covered. Everything. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“You mean, I get a trip to Mars for free?”
The man’s face fell a little. “I’m sorry, but we won’t be landing on Mars. There isn’t time, and if there were, Mars has far too many visitation controls. We wouldn’t be able to arrange visas and health checks. But you will get to experience a starjump and real zero-g. That’s something, isn’t it?”
A tiny flicker of hope that had flared up in Jas sputtered out. She’d gone from expecting to miss out on a trip, to anticipating a visit to her birth planet, and then to the lesser delight of a space trip, within less than a minute.
“Yeah, it is something,” she said.
