I shared the office with a Man and Jynn Silver. Jynn had not been at the meeting, because she’d gone to Centrus for her son’s wedding, but I was pretty sure she would be on our side. She had no love for Man in general, and for the one who shared our office, in particular.
He was there when I came in, after a quick bowl of soup at the lounge. That was odd; he taught mornings and didn’t usually hang around.
He was staring out the window. “You know,” he said without preamble. “You’re one of the first to know that you might join us. Rather than leave us.”
“True.” I sat down and turned on my screen. “I was tempted for about a microsecond. Then sanity returned.”
“Joking aside. You should take some time to consider the advantages.”
“I’m not joking.” I looked over at him. “To me it would be a kind of death.”
“The death of your individuality.” He pronounced the last word very slowly, with just a breath of contempt.
“It’s not something you could really understand. Human thing.”
“I’m human.” Technically true. “If you wanted more children, you could adopt.”
Now there was a compelling argument. “Two’s plenty, thanks.” I blinked through the index outline.
“You could save so much research time–”
“I’m not doing research. I’m a modest fisherman who’s trying to teach rotational kinematics. If you’ll let me get to my notes.”
“Sorry.”
There was a light knock on the doorframe. “Master Mandella?”
Baril Dain, from last term. “Come on in, Baril.”
He glanced at Man. “I don’t want to take up your time. Just that, well, I heard about your time trip thing. Can anyone go?”
“We’ll have to pick from volunteers.” He’d been a below-average student, but I’d made allowance for home conditions. His mother a drunk and his father living over in Filbin. “Are you six yet?”
“I will be in Archimedes, 13 Archimedes.”
“That’ll be plenty of time.” Six months. “We’ll need young people. What are you best at?”
“Music. I don’t remember your word, the English word for it…the chosed-reng.”
“Harp,” Man supplied, not looking up. “Forty-four-string magneto-harmonic neoharp.”
God, I hated the whining sound of those. “We’ll see. We’ll need all kinds of talents.” Probably human music would have priority, though.
“Thank you, sir.” He nodded and backed out, as if I were still his teacher.
“The children know already,” Man said. “I’m surprised.”
“Good news travels fast.” I opened a drawer with a screech and took out a pad and stylus, and pretended to copy something from the screen.
The classroom was stuffy, stale with three classes’ exhalations. I opened the window partway and sat on the table in front. All twelve students were there.
A pretty girl in front raised her hand. “What’s it like to be in jail, Master?”
“As many years as you’ve been in school, Pratha, you know all there is to know about jail.” That got a slight laugh. “It’s just a room with no windows.” I picked up the text and brushed the face with my sleeve.
“Were you scared, Master?” Modea, my best pupil.
“Of course. Man isn’t accountable to us. I could have been locked up forever, eating the slop they and you call food.” They smiled indulgently at my old-fashionedness. “Or they could have executed me.”
“Man wouldn’t, sir.”
“I guess you know them better than I do. But the sheriff was careful to point out that that was in their power.” I held up the text. “Let’s go back for a minute and review what we know about the big I, moment of inertia.”
It was a difficult period. Rotational kinematics is not intuitive. I remembered how much trouble I’d had with it, more than halfway back to Newton’s day. The kids paid attention and took notes, but most of them had that “on autopilot” look. Taking it down by rote, hoping they could puzzle it out later. Some of them would not. (Three were hopelessly lost, I suspected, and I’d have to talk to them soon.)
We ground through to the end of the lesson. While they were putting on their coats and capes, Gol Pri voiced an obvious concern. “Master Mandella, if Man does let you take the starship, who will our teacher be? For mathematical physics?”