“You did?”
“Graduate? No. I was waiting for you.”
“And that’s it? The whole thing?” Rick had dreaded and half-expected the pomp and circumstance of a high school graduation ceremony, with robes and pictures and diplomas and celebrities, and boring windbag speeches ad nauseam. What people seemed to be getting was one quick handshake from an overall-clad Jigger Tait, “standing in for Turkey Gossage the one and only,” as he put it.
“What about my certificate?” Chick Teazle called out from halfway along the line.
“What would you do with a certificate if you had one?” Jigger was beaming. “You can’t hang it on the wall where you’re going—none of you will have a wall. You’ll be lucky if you get food and air.”
“We’d treasure your signature, sir.” Gladys de Witt was still wearing a cast and performed a southpaw handshake with Jigger. A sprung cable had broken her right arm on the final stage of her practical test, but she had finished, flying the ship home to base one-handed. Now she waved her white cast in the air. “You can sign this for me instead.”
Jigger did so, to enormous applause. The ones closest to them hooted at what he had written, while Gladys turned pink and held her arm against her body.
The line moved along slowly. Deedee and Rick were at the very end. “Thank God!” Jigger said, when they finally reached him. “How do politicians stand it? The only good part must be kissing babies—once they reach the right age.” He bent over and gave Deedee a hug and kiss instead of a handshake, producing cries of “No fair!” and “Do one, you do us all!” from the other girls who saw it happen.
“You can come and see me in private,” Jigger called back. “That’s my quota for tonight.” He winked at Rick, the last in the line. “Not a word to Gina, all right? She’ll be here a bit later, she can’t resist a dance.”
Music was beginning, loud and with a foot-tapping bass. A few couples came out to move awkwardly in time to it. Walking and running in low gravity was something that they had all practiced. Dancing was another matter. It was the first time that most trainees had tried it on CM-2. Rick, standing at the edge of the area cleared for dancing, was in even worse shape. He and his friends at school had always sneered at dancing and he had no idea how to do it.
He stared around the room. He had not seen the list that Turkey had mentioned, but he didn’t need it. He knew every trainee by name.
Vido of course had made it. Rick wondered if the two of them had again achieved near-identical scores. There was Chick Teazle, no surprise, and Gladys and Deedee next to him. At the edge of the dance floor, standing by herself and staring blank-eyed at the dancers, was Alice Klein. Rick was not surprised by that, either. In spite of her troubles with math, Alice had a way of scraping through. So did Goggles Landau, standing next to her. He wasn’t wearing glasses and he must have taken out his contacts, because he was squinting his eyes at everyone, probably wondering who they were.
So who was missing? Monkey, of course. So far as Vido was concerned she was the only one who mattered. Who else?
There was no sign of Cokie Mulligan. He had sworn at the beginning that he was done with school forever, and now it looked like he was right. Rick also couldn’t see Henrik Voelker, the “Carolina Kid” that the other East Coasters all swore was a mad genius. He had probably aced the hardest theory questions, but screwed up totally on anything that needed a bit of common sense. A handful of others had been no-hopers after their failed efforts on the practical test. They had been given a chance to make it up somehow on the theory, but apparently none of them had.
All the same, it looked like the class as a whole had beaten the odds. From a total of forty trainees starting out, thirty or so were here in the room. Rick started to count. He had reached seventeen when he became aware of Jigger Tait at his side.
“Not dancing?”
Rick shook his head. “Not yet. I was just counting how many of us there are left.”
“You’ll have plenty of time for that on the way out to the Belt. You shouldn’t do it now. You’ve done enough work for one day, and you ought to make the most of tonight. Tomorrow the honeymoon’s over. No more spoon-feeding. Things get tough, and you learn what real work is like. Come on.”
He grabbed Rick by the arm and led him puzzled around the dance floor. They were heading for the place from which Gladys de Witt had now vanished, leaving Deedee standing alone.
“After the first dance you’re on your own. For this one you get no choice.” Jigger beckoned Deedee onto the floor, faced her and Rick toward each other, and walked briskly away.
There was a long, awkward moment. Finally Deedee shrugged, stuck her tongue out after Jigger, and began to move her shoulders and arms in time to the music. “You hear what the man said.”
“I’m a lousy dancer.” An understatement if ever there was one.
“So what? You’re not here for prizes.” And, when Rick still stood rooted to the spot, “Look, Luban, I know you got no more rhythm than a fire hydrant. You want everybody to know that as well as me? Watch what I do, and move them big feet.”
They were standing out on the dance floor. He would be even more conspicuous not dancing than dancing badly. Rick began to move, trying to follow what Deedee was doing. After the first minute he realized that no one but Deedee would notice whatever dumb moves he made. They were all too wrapped up in their own efforts.
He began to relax. Deedee was grinning at him, yet he knew she wasn’t grinning at him. She was just enjoying herself. And she could dance like a professional. Rick tried to mimic that supple, limber action. He knew he was failing, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Tomorrow the honeymoon’s over. No more spoon-feeding. Things get tough, and you learn what real work is like.
What was it going to be like, out there in the Belt? That thought flashed into Rick’s mind, and was followed at once by the sudden memory of an answer he had given on the theory test. It was the wrong answer, and now he knew the right one. But—it didn’t matter.
He smiled at Deedee, and was rewarded by a flash of white teeth and a graceful sexy pirouette that was offered for him alone.
He caught her as she finished the turn and moved her body against him. She put her mouth to his ear and whispered, “Hey! That’s more like it.”
Unbelievably, the tests were over. They had passed, and Jigger Tait was right. They had done enough work for one day. For tonight at least they had earned some fun.
Chapter Eleven
The change predicted by Jigger came sooner and harder than expected. The trainees had partied all night and collapsed into their bunks at dawn. They were still settling into exhausted sleep when a fist hammered on the door and a loud female voice shouted from the corridor: “Ten minutes to get to the main assembly hall. If you’re not there, you won’t be going anywhere.”
It wasn’t Gina Styan or Coral Wogan. In fact, it wasn’t anyone who Rick recognized when he stumbled, still yawning and stretching, into the main hall with the rest of the groaning trainees. The woman waiting for them was tall and big-shouldered. She had black hair and bright blue eyes, and she might have been pretty but for her oddly lopsided face.
She counted, and nodded. “You don’t know me—yet. And I’ve seen your names but not your faces. So let’s begin with that. I’m Barney French. Start there at the right.” She pointed at Chick Teazle, who had been first into the hall. “Each of you state your last name.”
As the roll-call proceeded she hardly seemed to be listening. But at the end of it she pointed to Vido Valdez. “You. Valdez. You came close to flunking geography on your test. That won’t do. You’ll be given special assignments to bring you up to speed.