Higher Education Read online

  "What the hell for?" Chick Teazle protested. "My mother hates my guts—and anyway, she can't read."

  "I'm sure she loves you dearly." The smile never left Turkey's face. "She'll find a reader, or get somebody else to read it to her. But even if she doesn't, even if she tears it up and throws it straight down the chute, that doesn't let you off the hook. You still have to write—and I have to be able to read it."

  Rick had started a letter three times in the first two weeks, and scrapped the result after a couple of sentences. What was he supposed to say? That he preferred it out here to being with his mother and Alick? Even if that was true, Rick suspected that Turkey Gossage wouldn't let a letter go out that way. The problem of what to write was going to be as difficult as the writing itself.

  Rick crumpled up his fourth shot at writing, threw it away, and stared at the cubicle wall. Never mind letters to his mother. They wouldn't make him feel any less horny. The big problem now was Gina Styan. How was he ever going to make out with her if they were never alone?

  A possible answer came in the third week, when the pure theory of space operations gave way to practical experience. All the trainees had become accustomed to freefall, so nausea was a thing of the past. But manual work in space was another matter. That took lots of practice.

  And practice they were going to get, in assignments that Turkey Gossage described as "Manual coordination and control in a weightless environment." A euphemism, as Rick soon discovered, for unpaid hard labor.

  Weightless environment. Moving things around in space, where an object didn't weigh anything, sounded easy as breathing. Nothing to it. Jigger Tait, staying a while on CM-2 with Turkey Gossage before shipping to the Belt again, assured Rick as much. Then he and Rick went together to the deep interior of CM-2 to clear one of the chambers. They moved massive pilings and metal I-beams and irregular chunks of rock.

  After four hours of that Rick ached in every bone. His burdens might have no weight, but they still possessed inertia. And inertia was worse than weight. In fact, it was twice as bad. Back on Earth, once you had lifted something you could just let it drop and gravity would do the rest. Here you had to work to start a rock moving, then put in just as much labor to stop it.

  But Jigger had not been lying. He did the work effortlessly. It was easy as breathing—for him.

  Rick wondered how many other half-truths and hidden catches were tucked away in the Vanguard Mining training program. Turkey Gossage was sticking to his policy on the meal vouchers. After two bowls of cold and sticky oatmeal, Rick had finally handed in his last assignment. He had been handed a meal ticket just before he left with Jigger. It sat burning a hole in his pocket while his stomach growled in protest. He could hardly wait for the word to quit.

  But when Jigger Tait told him they were done for the day, Rick still had enough energy and curiosity to notice something when they emerged through the airlock from the planetoid's stony interior. It was a different lock from their entry point, and next to it sat another small chamber. It was like no other structure that Rick had seen. There were flat, solid, windowless walls and a massive close-fitting door.

  Rick's question about it produced no more than a shrug and a dismissive "Historical interest only" from Jigger. Tait would have continued back around the planetoid toward the training facility quarters, but Rick stopped in front of him and swung open the heavy door.

  "Hey! Padded floor and walls. What's the deal?"

  "Bolt-hole." Jigger followed him inside. The interior lights had come on automatically. "Before the mining work produced the deep interior tunnels, the miners always faced a radiation danger. Our suits aren't enough to protect us."

  "Solar flares?"

  "Yeah." Jigger stared at Rick. "I thought you couldn't read."

  "Videos. Show it as a standard hazard for space travel."

  "Well, for once they got it right. If you're out on the surface of an asteroid and a big flare hits, you have three choices: you can move to the interior tunnels, if there are any, or you can head for a special shielded chamber like this one. Me, I'll take this any day. Your own air, see, the interior fills by itself when the door is locked. And there's plenty of reserves of food and drink. Stay here for a week if you had to."

  "But there's no airlock."

  "There is on the inside. That was put in later. When they built this they figured anyone coming in from space might be in one hell of a hurry."

  "You said there are three choices?"

  "Sure." Jigger was already moving back through the thick door. "You can stay outside and fry if you want to. Freedom of choice. Isn't that what people back on Earth are all so proud of?"

  "Freedom to die?"

  "Sure. Most basic right of all." Jigger started around the planetoid, swinging easily along on the fixed network of cables. "Hell, you should be free to die when you want, where you want, how you want. If you're not, your body and your life don't belong to you at all. They belong to your keepers."

  "You can die any way you want to?"

  "Sure I can. Anyone works for Vanguard Mining has that right. But dying is a right, no more. It's not an obligation. So watch your step, Rick. Space is more dangerous than you think."

  Chapter Seven

  RICK remembered Jigger Tait's words about the dangers of space, more or less. But what he thought about a lot more in the next few days was that shielded chamber. Radiation-proof—and soundproof. He visited it a couple more times when he had no other duties. Thick walls, padded floor, and tight-fitting door. Total privacy. Just what he needed.

  It took four days before he could trade with Monkey Cruse for her next one-on-one training session with Gina Styan in the interior of CM-2. Fortunately Monkey had her own hot ideas about Jigger Tait. She didn't tell Rick what this particular training was for, and Rick didn't ask. He'd be willing to move a lot of rocks for a chance at Gina.

  This time his job turned out to be both easier and harder than manual labor. Rick had to learn to operate remote-controlled cutting equipment, and Gina proved to be a hell of a tough teacher. She ran him through scores of operating steps again and again, watching him with that slightly mocking, sexy and intimate look on her face whenever he messed up a sequence.

  "There's a lot to this." Rick felt obliged to defend himself when the session ended with the cutter under his control waltzing wildly sideways to gouge a hole in the tunnel side wall. "How long did it take to remember all the variations?"

  "I'm not sure I ever did."

  "You have a pictorial prompt in your suit helmet? Then why in hell didn't you give me one?"

  "No prompt." Gina waved a small red book at Rick. "The control steps are in here, along with a lot of other stuff. But it's all in words and formulas. Once you can read well—"

  "This is really dumb. A few simple pictures, that's all it would take."

  "You think so? Listen to this, then you tell me how you would put it into pictures. 'Pressure equalization between old and new drilling is best achieved by releasing stored air into the evacuated chamber. The cutting equipment normally produces a straight cylindrical cavity three meters in diameter, so the volume to be filled is simply 2.25-TrL cubic meters, where L is the length of the new drilled tunnel in meters.' You know what n is?"

  "I think so. I'm not sure." Rick was actually quite sure. Sure he didn't.

  "It's a mathematical constant. Draw me a picture of that if you can. Do you know its value?"

  Rick shook his head. This wasn't going the way he had imagined it, but he'd bide his time. Let Gina feel superior for the moment. She would find out soon enough who was the real boss.

  "Why should I bother to know any of that math stuff? If I ever need it I'll pull it up on a calculator."

  "Pi is equal to 3.14159." She didn't seem to have heard him. "That's to six significant figures. It's as accurate as you'll probably ever need unless you get into orbit work, then you'll want it to twelve. You'll have the value of n engraved on your brain stem and your butt before
you leave CM-2, along with a lot of other numbers you've never heard of yet. And while we're at it, let me tell you what happens to a calculator or an electronic prompter during a blow-out or a big radiation storm: they die, or they become totally unreliable. But this"—Gina held up the red book—"it can stand more radiation, heat, and cold than you can. By the time a book like this became unusable, you or I would be long dead."

  She tucked the book into a pocket on her suit. "You'll learn, Ricky boy. Let's go."

  Rick had learned, at least some things. He had spent most of his few free hours studying and committing to memory the network of passages and chambers that criss-crossed the interior of CM-2. Without saying anything to Gina he headed for the surface along a particular set of passages. He emerged, just as planned, right beside the shielded chamber. The door was as he had left it, slightly ajar.

  He stopped when he came to it, and led the way inside.

  "You ever been in one of these?"

  "Ages ago. This, or one just like it." Gina had followed him and was glancing around her with no particular interest. "I don't know why they keep this place in working order. It has no uses since the interior was excavated."

  "It does." Rick swung the heavy door into position and pressed the sealing button. Interior lights came on at once and there was a hiss of released air. He went across and checked that the inner door was also sealed.

  "Not needed for radiation protection," he went on, "but it has other uses." He took off his suit helmet and gestured to Gina to do the same.

  "You're wasting air." But Gina did not sound much concerned by that, and she followed Rick's lead and removed her own helmet. "Other uses? Like what?"

  "Like this." Rick had been sizing up their positions and rehearsing his own next action. He knew the moves and he was pretty experienced, but that had been back on Earth. He had to do things differently in freefall.

  The smart thing was to make a first move that he knew he could manage. He was close to the chamber wall. He kicked off from it, drove hard across the room, and pinned Gina against the opposite wall. He had to use both arms and legs to hold her there, but they finished face to face.

  "Gina." He spoke in a whisper, though he could have screamed and no one else would have heard a thing. "Gina, you're really something special. Let's get out of these dumb suits and have some fun."

  He tried to kiss her, but she turned her head away.

  "Dammit, Rick, that's enough fooling. And it's not funny. Let me go."

  He almost did. Then he remembered Screw Savage's advice to him and Hoss. "No, never means no with a woman. They say it because they like to play hard to get, but they really want it bad as you do. You gotta ignore what they say and keep chargin'. Go for the gold!"

  Rick moved his left arm quickly to turn Gina's head back toward him, pressed his mouth to hers, and started to give her a French kiss. His right hand felt at the same time for her breast.

  It was as though he had pressed a starter button. As his fingers met her left nipple through the resilient material of the suit, her right knee pistoned up between his legs. It hit him squarely in the crotch like a bony hammer.

  Rick gasped and curled up into a ball, hanging in midair. He was sure that the blow had burst his testicles and driven them right back inside his body. He vaguely heard Gina speak through his fog of pain.

  "You little shit! Nobody does that to me, ever. Apologize." She had him by the ear, pulling it off his head. "Apologize, right now, or I'll really hurt you."

  Rick was curled up, forehead close to his knees. He could hardly breathe, and he certainly couldn't apologize. But if he didn't she might do the same thing to him again.

  "Sorry!" It was more a gasp than a word. "Sorry."

  "I don't know what made you think I'd be interested in a semiliterate oaf like you, but here's news: I'm not."

  She let go of his ear, then clapped his helmet back onto his head hard enough to make his ears ring. While he hung dizzy and helpless, she flipped his suit seals into position.

  "You can find your own way back, dummy, or you can die trying. I don't much care which."

  Rick heard the inner door slam shut and the airlock cycling. He tried to lift his head to see if Gina had gone, until a worse worry took over. Nausea swept through him. He felt ready to vomit—inside his suit.

  He swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and fought the urge. The spasm slowly faded. By the time it was over his forehead was beaded with cold sweat and the sickness had been replaced by an agonizing throbbing in his belly and groin.

  Fifteen minutes passed before he felt strong enough to leave the chamber. Then it was a miserable splay-legged crawl back to the training facilities. He paused before entering.

  What had Gina told Turkey Gossage? Surely, the whole horrible episode. Rick was done for. He was going to be kicked out of this place, just as he had been kicked out of school. And where could he go now? Back to join the Pool on Earth?

  Might as well get it over with. He couldn't hang around outside forever, and there was no way he could avoid the rage of Turkey Gossage.

  Rick eased his way out of his suit and limped to Turkey's office. He didn't see anyone on the way, and he almost changed his mind when he was right at the entrance. But Gossage had already seen him on the threshold and waved him in.

  "You took your time." Gossage nodded to Rick and at once returned his attention to the screen in front of him. "I didn't think you'd make it before I closed for the day. Help yourself to a meal voucher."

  Rick, tensed and ready for a storm of anger, stared at Gossage open-mouthed. "What did Gina say?"

  Turkey really looked at Rick for the first time. "Say? Why, what do you think she said? She said you did well. I know you rammed the wall with the cutter at the end, but Gina said that the test she gave you was harder than anything in the standard course. So you passed. Now, go and eat before I change my mind."

  Rick grabbed the voucher and left before Gossage could ask him anything. But he didn't feel in the least like eating, and still less like going into the cafeteria where he might have to face Gina. He was sore, exhausted, and bewildered. He started for his cabin, knowing that he needed rest. Then he visualized Cokie Mulligan and the other trainees, watching him limp in and starting with their questions.

  He couldn't stand that, either. Where could he go? The study cubicles were always crowded at this time of day.

  The only place he could think of was the gym. It was a bit of a mystery why CM-2 even had a gym, because so far as he knew no one ever went there. But the region had light centrifugal gravity, and there were showers. He could examine and bathe his bruised and tender balls, stretch out on a couch, and not move until it was time to wake up and use his meal voucher for breakfast.

  He dragged his way toward the outer circle of the station where the gym was located, thankful that it was a time when few people were about. Safe inside the bath-house, he removed all his clothes and took a warm bath. He examined himself closely. So far as he could tell everything down there was perfectly normal. He didn't even seem to be swollen, though it felt that way from the inside. Finally he went into the shower, set the water temperature as hot as he could stand, and simply let the stream run over his head and back for a long time.

  By the time he dried himself and put on a change of clothing he was feeling human again. He emerged from the shower area and stopped. The gym was no longer deserted. Jigger Tait was running laps, round and round the inside of the big high-gee wheel. He must have been there for a while, because his blue tee-shirt was stained with sweat.

  He nodded down at Rick when he caught sight of him and ran around the hoop of the track toward him. "Want to join me?"

  Rick shook his head and started toward the exit. But he couldn't help moving in an awkward bow-legged fashion.

  "You all right?" Jigger stepped closer.

  "Yeah. I'm all right."

  "You sure don't look it. That's a John Wayne walk—like you got a bad case of hemorrhoids,
or you just took a dump in your pants. What happened?"

  "I just—" Rick paused. He didn't have a lie in his head. Anyway, Jigger would find out soon enough, along with everybody else. He sighed. "I just did something really dumb."

  And then, when Jigger said not a word, it all came spilling out. It seemed even worse in retelling than in reality. Jigger stood and listened in silence, the sweat cooling on his moon face and steam rising from his damp tee-shirt. It was only after Rick told how he had made his move on Gina, and she had kneed him in the testicles, that Jigger shook his head and said, "Wish I'd been there."