Galileo (Battle of the Species) (16 page)

Desh died, nevertheless, when he became outnumbered fifty-to-one, and fell lifeless beside the Toran, until Ava cleared the simulation.

When the hologram descended, Desh could be seen walking back to the fighter’s tank, with his head hanging low and blushed cheeks, despite the crowd’s thunderous applause.

Renn looked over to the fighters' tank and saw that Kia was already there, grinning as Desh walked up. When Desh got there, he seemed unable to make eye contact with the Toran and instead stood at the edge of the holding tank as if ready to watch the next battle.

Kia remained silent until he couldn’t take it anymore. “I thought you were gonna cry there for a second, Brother,” he said, still grinning.

“Shut up,” Desh replied.

“You want a hug?” Kia teased.

“Shut up, shut up,” Desh persisted, while his cheeks turned a deeper shade of rouge and his palms an illuminated blue.

Kia, however, wasn’t going to let it go, and his grin broadened.

Desh finally submitted. “I just can’t get used to seeing you die, all right?” Desh said.

“Good,” Kia replied, starting to get serious. “Cause the second you do, is the second you start to get careless with my life, and outside of simulation, I can only die for you once.”

“I know,” Desh said solemnly.

Renn listened in amazement to their conversation, bewildered that the question wasn’t whether Kia would sacrifice his life for Desh, rather when that day would come and whether or not Desh could handle it.

Dylan nudged Renn, bringing him back to the conversation. “So you want to compete next time?” he asked. “You and I could partner up.”

“Hey, why didn’t you ask me?” Rudy asked, sounding offended.

Dylan looked at Rudy as if that had been the stupidest question known to man. “Two humans? Really?” Dylan replied, unable to keep his upper lip from curling.

Rudy thought about it a second. “Yeah, okay. Good point,” he said, and then looked at Renn for his response.

“Yeah, that’d be cool,” Renn replied. He watched the games for the rest of the day, only taking short breaks to eat or go to the bathroom, but it was the game that followed Desh and Kia, that became the most talked about, thanks to Ivan.

Ivan had fought against Breman and Unden, the Zorgre brothers who were big and clumsy, and always bumping into things. Their limbs were like tree trunks and their species were known throughout the Federation as not being the brightest suns in the universe. For Zorgres it was attack or don’t attack, kill or don’t kill, black or white, on, off. Anything further than that and they would sit there scratching their heads, until the enemy came and cut their heads off.

Watching the Zorgre brothers fight was, however, the most exciting thing about the game, since Ivan died on level one, having gotten too cocky and gone after the enemy, a large furry creature he should have chosen to outrun. But Ivan, trying to cover up his mistake, brought even more attention to himself by giving vainglorious accounts of the incident to anyone who would listen, despite the whole school having been there and knowing what really happened.

When they all got back to their dorm rooms, Renn and his roommates listened to Ivan’s recount of the story as many times as they could tolerate, until politely asking him to “shut the hell up” so they could study before the sleep regulators sent them to sleep.

CHAPTER 8

Bottom of the Food Chain

Renn woke up and made his way to the bathroom. When he got out of the shower, he saw his dog sitting in front of the sinks, waiting for him, like he always had on Earth. “Hey, Upgrade,” Renn said, grabbing his uniform.

Upgrade wagged his tail and meowed.

Renn froze, then turned to the dog. “Come again?” he said.

Upgrade meowed, panting in excitement.

“Dylan!” Renn called out. “What’d you do to my dog?”

Renn could hear Dylan laughing hysterically in the other room while Renn fussed with Upgrade’s controls. He went through a series of meows, squeaks, roars, hisses, honks, and quacks till he found a good manly bark. “There you go, Buddy,” he said, scratching Upgrade behind his ears.

It took Renn longer than usual to get dressed that morning and he came to the conclusion that Tom had come in while he was in the shower and put everything, including his shoes, in its rightful place. That is, where an android felt their rightful place should be.

“Come on, we’re going to be late for physics and I heard a Sensatus is teaching the class,” Leo said, while he and Dylan stood next to the door, waiting. “Everybody knows how Sensati get about punctuality.”

“I can’t find my shoes,” Renn said, looking around.

“Searching for shoes,” Ava complied.

Renn looked up in amazement as a red beam scanned the room, until a closet door lit up and opened, displaying his shoes at its base.

“Thanks, Ava!” Renn said, grabbing his shoes and sliding them on.

“You’re welcome,” the computer generated voice replied.

“That’s cool!” Renn said, looking over at Rudy, who was taking his time getting ready.

“Yeah, you can do that in all the dorm rooms,” Rudy replied. “I don’t know how I’d find my Fep without it.”

“Couldn’t you just turn out the lights?” Renn asked, as he grabbed his tablet and headed for the door.

Rudy looked over at the Fep, who was curled up asleep next to its teddy bear. “Oh. I never thought of that,” Rudy muttered.

Dylan, Leo, and Renn made their way to class, finding Desh, Kia, and Etienne already seated. Dylan and Renn looked at each other, mumbling a sarcastic, “Great,” then saw Lux, and sat down next to her, while Desh glared at them.

The class filled up with students running in at the last minute, as the professor stood at the front of the class, greeting them with a rather high-pitched “Hello,” when they entered.

Renn cocked his head, staring at the professor for a moment, not having noticed him when they first walked in. The more he looked, the more he wondered whether the professor was human or not. He was short, maybe only four feet tall, with eyes a little too big to be human, but hid them behind a pair of thick glasses, which magnified them even more. The professor’s thick black hair was slicked back, revealing a widow’s peak on his forehead and ears half the size of a human’s.

Is he human?
Renn projected to Dylan.

Dylan jumped, startled, looking around, then to Renn.

“What?” Renn asked. “You’ve really never had someone talk in your head before?”

“No, and may I remind you, neither had you till you got to the Galileo.”

“Good point,” Renn said.

“And the professor is a Sensatus, by the way,” Dylan added.

The bell chimed and the professor walked to the door, locking it in preparation for class. He had only walked a couple steps back, when Rudy ran up on the wrong side of the door, unable to get it to slide open. He knocked on the circular glass partition in the door and waved, trying to get the professor’s attention.

The Sensatus turned around at the noise, walked back, and tapped on the window twice, prompting the window to turn black and shut out the sound.

The class giggled and snickered, as Rudy’s eyes widened and disappeared, making it very clear that the punishment for being late was to miss class. If it was like the other classes Renn had been in so far, if a student missed a class, there was no way to make up the grades or retrieve the lessons without prior approval, and was as good as failing the class for the day.

“Is he really our physics instructor?” Renn asked Dylan. “I once heard that Sensati’s IQs are so far advanced that they can’t teach humans.”

“Yeah, but I heard this one’s good at dumbing things down so we can understand them,” Dylan replied.

“Hello,” the Sensatus began with a smile. “My name is Professor Ozrot. Let’s begin, let’s begin, turn your tablets on and pull up lesson one, please.” He then proceeded to give the class a lecture on quarks and leptons, but lost the students when he rattled off a long formula at a rapid fire pace.

Renn looked around the class to see if he was the only one mystified and then leaned over to Dylan. “Was that English?” he asked.

“Some of the words sounded familiar,” Dylan said.

“Like what?” Leo asked in amazement.

“Like ‘the’,” Dylan replied.

After a moment, Professor Ozrot looked up and saw a room full of blank faces staring back at him. “Oh dear, I might be going too fast.”

“You think?” Renn said, under his breath.

The professor looked down at the call sheet on his tablet. “Etienne Durrant. Can you please explain to me what I just said?” Professor Ozrot asked.

“Sure, you’re explaining how to isolate a quark,” Etienne replied, causing the professor to beam with approval.

“Good, good. I just wanted to make sure you all understood before we proceeded,” the professor said with a smile, as if the mere thought of someone not understanding the simple formula was ridiculous.

Desh and Kia looked over at Etienne as if wanting to strangle him like the rest of the class.

“Hey, I like this guy,” Etienne whispered with a shrug.

Desh shook his head grinning, until he realized Renn was watching him and the smile disappeared.

Renn looked back at the board, but couldn’t help but think about the last BOTS game and the odd relationship between Desh and Kia.

Mind your own business
, suddenly rattled in his head, and Renn tried to clear his thoughts when he realized Desh was listening.

After physics, Renn parted ways with Dylan, who was taking a language class in Pathorian, and Leo, who was headed to an Eilex language class.

Renn walked into the simulation room, finding Paro standing there, waiting to teach him Mindeerian.

“Let’s begin,” Paro said, clapping his hands together when the bell chimed.

Renn looked around the empty room and couldn’t help but ask, “Aren’t we going to wait for the other students?”

“What other students?” Paro replied, amused by the question. “The Mindeerian language isn’t a spoken language, it’s based on telepathy. The only reason we speak is to communicate with non-telepaths, since most non-telepaths think in a language, as opposed to through imagery. Since you are the only telepath on the ship, unable to communicate through telepathy, the answer is no. There are no other students who will be joining us.”

“Oh,” Renn muttered, making a mental note to try to stop asking stupid questions.

“Now, this shouldn’t take too long to learn. I expect you should be able to understand and communicate in Mindeerian by the end of the lesson today,” Paro said, thinking about it.

Renn’s stomach lurched, thinking that might be a little ambitious, but tried to keep an open mind.

“For the rest of the year, we will be using this room for fighting practice, since I don’t see how else you will learn to fight like a Mindeerian. Like telepathy, you have many strengths, but they are useless if you don’t use them for their intended purpose,” Paro continued. “For now, however, let’s start with communication.” Paro looked up and commanded, “Ava, please give us two comfortable chairs for this lesson,” and with that, two plush armchairs appeared behind Renn and Paro, facing each other.

“Okay,” Renn replied, flopping into one of the chairs. He set his tablet next to his feet, but suddenly got an image projected into his head of him setting it on his lap.

“Uh…” Renn said, not sure what Paro wanted him to do. “Do you want me to pick up the tablet and set it on my lap?”  Renn asked.

Paro smiled. “Yes, that is what I just asked you to do. Now let’s try something else…” Paro went through a series of scenarios, communicating with imagery, until the Professor noticed the furrow getting deeper between Renn’s eyebrows. Paro projected the image of Renn back to Renn, so he could see what a quizzical expression he had, making Renn laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got a question,” Renn said.

“Good, I expect questions,” Paro encouraged.

“We’ve been communicating with one another for the last half hour or so and I don’t really feel like I know you any better than when I first got here. If we were talking in English like humans…I don’t know, I think I would have learned more about you by now.”

Paro smiled and nodded at the observation. “Mindeerians are inordinately secretive. We don’t share with each other like humans do. We all seem to try, when we meet someone from another species we develop feelings for, but we are by nature a very reticent species. Do you find it natural to open up to others?” Paro asked.

“Very,” Renn replied, not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, just the truth.

Paro nodded. “It’s okay, I do expect you to display some human traits under the circumstances. I don’t think that one is necessarily a bad one unless you open up to the wrong person. You just need to be careful. Mindeerians are well trusted, but we are very cautious of others. I’m sure you can understand why, considering recent events.”

“What happened to all the Mindeerians?” Renn asked in almost a whisper, understanding the answer would hurt Paro more to say than for Renn to hear.

Paro took a deep breath, shaking his head, as if fighting the memories the question evoked. “Some escaped,” he answered. “The Federation sent as many ships as they could to help when the Eminites attacked. When the Mindeerians realized they were going to lose the battle, they used the ships to evacuate as many people as possible.”

“Where are the ships now?” Renn asked.

“Hidden until the war is over. All that is known is that Mindeerians are refugees, and will remain so until the Eminites are defeated. Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to do anything about them yet,” Paro said.

“I’m sorry, ‘yet’?” Renn asked, curious what he was expected to do to help. “What would I…”

The bell chimed and Paro stood up without clarifying the statement, then projected an image of Renn wearing his simulation suit to class, and entering through the door to the simulation room, over and over. “Understand?”

Renn nodded. “You want me to wear my battle suit from now on.”

Paro smiled in approval. “Good.”