Heavier snow was starting to fall. The air felt thin and cold. He understood now why Coral Wogan had told him not to bother with his own clothes—he didn’t have any warm enough. But what was he supposed to do until he arrived at Tularema? Freeze to death?
The bus was one of the new autopilot runabouts, still illegal for city use. Rick had seen them on the tube, but he had no idea how they worked. Some sort of overall navigation gadget, he guessed, taking its position from a satellite receiver in the bus’s roof. A radar told the onboard computer where other cars and trucks were, and how fast they were going.
Rick approached the bus and hesitated. He had seen a dozen accident videos in the past year, people killed in autopilot buses and cars that ran off the road into rivers or smashed into bridge supports and other cars. An autopilot bus was not his choice for a middle-of-the-night ride with snow and slippery roads.
While he stood there, the bus’s rear door opened and a gruff voice came from the dark interior.
“You gonna stand all night playing statues? We been waiting two hours. Get inside and let’s hustle outa here.”
Rick swallowed his surprise—he had expected to be the only passenger. He bent his head and climbed into the bus. It was hardly warmer inside than out. Two other people were sitting on the broad seat, so muffled up in dark blankets that at first glance he could make out little more than their heads.
“Tularema?” asked the same voice. As Rick’s eyes began to adjust he saw next to him a big, broad-shouldered youth, not much older than him.
“Yes.”
“Vanguard Mining?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t this dumb bus get out of here?”
“Because the door is still open,” the other passenger said calmly. It was a girl, sitting on the far left. She touched something on the panel in front of them. The rear door clunked shut, and at the same moment a blue interior light came on and the bus began to move smoothly forward.
Rick studied the other two, aware that they were staring at him with equal curiosity. The male was easy. He could have fitted right in at Rick’s school. He was big—even bigger than he seemed at first glance, because it turned out that most of that bulk was muscle and not clothing. He had long, swept-back frizzy hair, a broad, very black face, and dark, close-set eyes. The left one was bloodshot, and he kept rubbing it. He had the same cocky, look-at-me expression as Hoss Carlin.
“I’m Vido Valdez,” he said. He did not offer to shake hands.
“Rick Luban.”
“You’re gonna freeze your ass off in that outfit.” Valdez did not offer to share the blanket sitting on his lap.
“Let’s hope it’s going to be a short ride,” Rick said, and reached out to pull part of the blanket across his chilled legs and feet. He ignored Valdez’s scowl—he could see trouble ahead there—and turned his attention to the girl who was smiling at him in a superior sort of way.
“It won’t be,” she said.
She was something else. For a start, she was tall and thin and pale and weak-looking, like a plant left too long in the dark. Mr. Hamel had taught the class a special word for that—eeti-o-something. Even her hair, pulled back from her narrow face, seemed weak and thin. If she was heading for the physical tests that Coral Wogan had promised Rick at Tularema, it was hard to believe she would pass any one of them.
The real shock, though, was those eyes. Rick stared at them, and had the feeling that there was nothing behind them. They were grey and wide and utterly without expression. The smile that she offered Rick somehow did not extend from her mouth to the rest of her face.
“If you’re hoping for a short ride, forget it,” she went on. Her voice was small and precise, a little girl’s voice. Rick had the strange feeling that despite her size she hadn’t matured sexually. “Albuquerque to Tularema,” she continued, “is nearly three hundred kilometers. Even without stops, and I don’t know if the bus has any scheduled, we won’t get to Tularema until the middle of the night. It shouldn’t be too bad, though. The heat comes on a lot better when we’re moving.” Almost as an afterthought, she added, “And I’m Alice Klein. From the Black Hills—western South Dakota.”
Rick decided that, physical weakling or not, in her own way Alice Klein was as self-confident as Vido Valdez.
“I’m from Anchorage,” Valdez said. “If you think this is cold. . .” He stared at Rick, and he was grinning. “I think she’s right, though. This shouldn’t be too bad—once we get to Tularema.”
He looked with satisfaction at Rick’s puzzled expression. “Didn’t they tell you? Or didn’t you sign up with Vanguard Mining?”
“I did sign up. Tell me what?”
“That you’re out here for physical tests.”
“They told me that.”
“Ah, but did they tell you the rest of it?” Valdez turned, so that his smirk could take in both Rick and Alice Klein. “I guess they didn’t. Don’t you realize that these will be competitive tests? Not everyone who signs up gets a job and goes to space. We’re going to be fighting against each other. And I’ll tell you now: I intend to win.”
Tests. Rick had been taking them in school for as long as he could remember. There was a definite technique to them.
Rule number one: find out if it mattered. Some teachers gave you tests, but there was no penalty if you scored zero or filled the screen with doodles. Then you and your buddies horsed around through the whole thing or cut it completely.
If the teacher played tough like old Hamel, you changed tactics to rule number two: sit near one of the goody-goodies like Belinda Jacob, someone who was likely to know the answers. Watch what she did, copy all you could, and deny to the death that you had cheated.
He knew within minutes of arriving at Tularema that this was going to be different. For starters, they arrived tired out and chilled in a bleak February overcast. Rick expected food and rest. Instead they were ushered at once into a grim medical facility. A man in a grey suit greeted them. Doctor Alonzo Bretherton, read his ID card, but he didn’t look like any doctor Rick had ever seen—he was more like a bar-room bruiser, all muscles, jug ears, flattened nose and broken veins. He took one look at them and said, “Klein, Luban and Valdez. Right. A quick physical, then it’s track suits and a treadmill.”
“We’re frozen,” protested Valdez.
“And starving,” Rick added.
It was no lie. Even with the blankets, the night journey at two thousand meters above sea level (Alice Klein seemed to know everything) had numbed them. There had been no stops, for food or anything else.
“Exactly as you should be,” Bretherton said cheerfully. “I need to catch you at a physical low point, and it’s easier to do it now than starve you or keep you up all night later. Let’s go. Those three cubicles.”
Rick was ready to say it—Screw you, Doc, I’m not doing no stupid Treadmill—when he saw Vido Valdez’s mouth opening. They stared at each other. Finally Vido scowled and walked forward toward one of the three rooms that Bretherton had pointed out. Alice Klein had already vanished into the left-hand one.
Find someone who was likely to know the answers. That was a laugh. Rick changed into the skimpy grey gown that he found in the cubicle and stared at himself in the mirror. Wonderful. Enough to cover him to the thighs, but no matter how he adjusted it part of his ass was showing. Alice Klein was due for a treat.
Except that there was no sign of her when he emerged. Rick was shuttled along to another room, where a man and woman he had never seen before performed an hour-long physical on him. It was more unpleasant and painful than one of Mick’s grade-A beatings.