Star Trek Page 8

  The next morning, Ms. Keith caught up with Tilly as she made her way to class. “Tilly,” she said. “I had a nice message from your grandmother last night. She says that the engineering club is back in the cards? Good news, eh?”

  Tilly smiled brightly. “Oh, yes! Mom said I could choose between it and rowing.”

  “And?”

  Tilly took a deep breath. “Well, I’ve decided I’m going to stick with the rowing.”

  Ms. Keith gave her an odd look. “The rowing?”

  Tilly nodded. “Well, I thought about it, really thought about it, and it’s like everyone keeps on saying—the engineering club isn’t really core to my career. It’s okay to be a generalist, and I think I’m good enough already as a generalist. Also, I was thinking about how doing rowing is really good for teamwork and leadership and all of that . . .” She gave a short, tight laugh. “You know, I’m the first to admit that people skills aren’t always my forte, and so it’s better to get some good experience there. I think it’s a much better addition to my résumé than the engineering club.” Plus it kept her in regular contact with Risera, and that was important . . . “And I don’t want to let the team down, not when we’ve come this far.”

  There was a short pause. “Tilly,” said Ms. Keith softly, “are you quite sure about this?”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure. Definitely. Very sure.” Tilly smiled brightly. “No contest really.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” said Tilly. Yes, she was absolutely sure. When you thought about it, really, there wasn’t a choice at all.

  “Okay,” said Keith. “Well, let’s see how it goes. Off to class, then.”

  Tilly smiled, and nodded, and bounced off into her classroom. She went straight over to open a window. Goodness, but these rooms got really stuffy, didn’t they? Sometimes you went in and you couldn’t breathe.

  4

  * * *

  With the second half of the term now under way, Tilly began to throw herself into preparations for the mock summit that was to be held at the end of the term. She had real ambitions for the event. At last, she thought, she had a chance to prove herself to her mother, to show how well she could do in something that her mother would understand. The task played to all her strengths: detailed research, putting together a presentation . . . Okay, so the speech was a big ask for her, but, over the years, Tilly had begun to get a sneaking impression that she wasn’t, in fact, as bad at speaking other languages as people (by which she meant her mom) made out. The problem was that some of her other grades were so exceptional that expectations had gotten high . . . Jeez, she thought in frustration, we can’t be good at everything. Take her own mom. Tilly knew for a fact that Mom relied on her immediate staff to explain, over and over, what Tilly thought were pretty straightforward statistical terms. Standard deviation, for goodness’ sake! Her mother had to ask every time and ask why it was important! Seriously, though, you couldn’t get more basic . . . And did anyone tell her mother that there were issues emerging? No, they didn’t, or, if they did, they didn’t get to tell her a second time.

  So Tilly set to work on the project with her usual focus. The first major task was to find a member species that nobody else was covering—you didn’t want to bore other people, and you didn’t want to get into comparisons. The other students from her year were pretty good about this, sharing their basic ideas rather than concealing them—everyone wanted a chance to shine rather than to compete. The teachers warmly encouraged this mutual support; they also gave a list of suggestions of worlds to cover, striking them off when students picked them. Tilly, looking down the list, couldn’t see anything that was right. Everything seemed so obvious. Surely, from eighty-two worlds, she could find something fresh. Something striking and original. She had been taught years ago that the best way to learn how to do a project was to look at prior examples, so she tracked down the best five projects from previous years and studied the holo-recordings and reports in depth. Her instincts were borne out: these students had all gone slightly further afield than usual. After that, Tilly surveyed every project from the last five years to determine which species had already been covered, and to see if there were any gaps. All this background research took her the best part of a fortnight. The presentation was at the end of week five. The half term was moving on rapidly.

  Risera’s project was already under way. She had gone with Ktaris, because she had so much information from her father, and because she had visited during her holidays a couple of times while he was out there. She admitted that it was an obvious choice for her, but she was hoping that her depth of knowledge would outweigh those considerations. And, of course, she was more than competent in the language.

  “So,” she said to Tilly one evening. “Are you going to let us in on the big secret? What’s your choice?”

  Tilly shrugged.

  Risera frowned. “Haven’t you chosen yet?”

  Tilly shook her head. She wanted to get this exactly right. She wouldn’t talk about it, either. She wasn’t going to get panicked into making a bad choice.

  By the start of week three, Tilly knew the names of more minor member species than anyone else in the school. She might well have been able to challenge her mother in a quickfire quiz. But she’d also made her choice: a fascinating but little-known member species called the Elisurians. Nobody had done their project on them before. There was a very good reason for that. What had attracted Tilly to the Elisurians was their unique method of communication: they spoke to each other via melodic quadratic equations. Tilly hugged herself in delight when she discovered this. They’re talking my language! she thought. It was a huge relief to have found something so perfect, and she was glad she had held out and not settled for something else. Now that her choice was made, she put all her effort and energy into making it the best presentation that she possibly could.

  At the back of her mind was the gnawing (and growing) worry that she might have been too picky, taken too long. But Tilly was more her mother’s daughter than she realized. Faced with a challenge, she didn’t give up. She dug in, and she worked out what needed to be done, and she made concrete plans to achieve it. First, she would get all the research done this week. Then, she would produce the costume next week. At the start of week five she would write the presentation, and by the end of the week she would be ready to rehearse it. Students were allowed to use a prompt or a script if they preferred, but Tilly intended to be word—or equation—perfect.

  But excellence, as her mother had often told her, comes at a cost, and Tilly was about to discover, once again, that her mother was right. All this preparation for the summit had to happen alongside her usual classes. In order to keep up with the tight schedule she had set herself—as well as keep on top of classroom work and row with the team—Tilly spent every waking hour in her room, hunched over her desk. She knew she was missing her friends from engineering club—her one evening a week of daft, fun, and geeky conversations—and at the back of her mind she had a sad and guilty feeling that they were hurt that Tilly had so unceremoniously dropped them in preference for rowing with Risera and Xoha. If Tilly was honest, the boat crew was no substitute for her geeky friends; and, besides, as all her deadlines drew closer, Tilly became a tyrant in the boat: pushing the team to exert themselves more and more, blunt about ways that they could improve, and sparing with praise. Poor Risera bore the brunt of all this: not only did she get regular tongue-lashings in the boat with the rest of the crew, but she also found herself in trouble back in their room. Tilly, who had never shared a room before in her life, was starting to discover exactly how annoying someone else could be, all the time—clattering cups, sighing, snoring, and, for goodness’ sake, do you really have to breathe so loud?!

  Outside, the weather was turning from late autumn to early winter. The grounds around the school—had Tilly noticed them—were full of the most beautiful leaves, gently drifting to the ground, and the air was clean and crisp and fresh. But all Tilly saw was her desk, her notes, her schedule. One afternoon, she just couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t get comfortable . . . She was trying to memorize part of her speech, and a series of notes that explained how the Elisurians organized their careful, structured society. But she couldn’t get the numbers to work . . . She just couldn’t concentrate. She tried to force her attention on her work. She didn’t have time for this; there was hardly enough time in the day as it was. And then she realized her throat felt funny, her chest felt tight, she just couldn’t breathe . . .

  It was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. Tilly found herself gasping for breath. She fell back in her chair and gulped in air. She remembered what she had read somewhere, that you needed to slow down your breathing, regularize it . . . She pictured herself in the boat, drumming slowly, watching the oars clip up and down at a steady pace. Her breathing started to slow down, but it was a good few minutes before she felt anywhere near okay.

  “What just happened?” Tilly whispered to herself. She put her hand to her chest. Her heart was still beating away like crazy. “Am I okay ?” She leaned back in her chair. Her notes were still there. This was awful. She wanted to crawl into bed, but she couldn’t lose the time, she couldn’t afford to lose the time. She felt her chest tighten . . . Not again! Oh, no, please, not again!

  Tilly jumped up from her chair and looked frantically around. She hissed in frustration. The room was an absolute dump. Cups everywhere, plates . . . Okay, so everyone was working hard right now, there were all these wretched tests coming, not to mention these presentations, but, for heaven’s sake, was Tilly the only one who ever did any washing up around here? And the books, and clothes, all over everywhere.

  “So selfish,” muttered Tilly. “She knows I have allergies. She knows this isn’t good for me.”

  She stood in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips, glaring around. This couldn’t carry on. But she was damned if she was going to tidy up Risera’s mess! She’d done enough of that over the last couple of months, picking up cups and plates, washing them, putting them away neatly—and not just Risera, the others too! Sure, some of her own stuff was lying around right now, but nowhere near as much, and not everywhere, and not every single day . . . “The problem with some people,” muttered Tilly as she whirled around the room, “is that they don’t respect other people’s space . . .”

  The room quickly began to look completely different. Tilly sorted out everything that belonged to her from everything that belonged to Risera. She shook out her own clothes, sorting out the clean ones, which she put away in her closet, and getting the rest bagged up for the laundry. She took the books that were hers and organized them on her shelves (first by topic and then by author surname). She sorted out which cups and plates were the ones that she had used, and which were Risera’s—many more were Risera’s, she noted with a nod of her head, as if this confirmed something she had already guessed—and, ugh, was there something growing in that cup? “That,” she said to herself, holding the offending cup at arm’s length by the handle, “is disgusting. No wonder my allergies are back. No wonder I feel awful!” It had been the same during the divorce. Things had gotten so disorganized as both her parents had struggled to adjust to the new living arrangements and keep on top of their work, all the while caring for a bewildered little girl. Tilly’s allergies had gotten appalling.

  She gathered up her own dishes and went to the little kitchen to wash up. It felt good, filling the bowl with steaming hot water, scrubbing away at them until she was sure they were clean. When she got back to the room, she put her dishes away, and then nodded with satisfaction to see how tidy her own things were. But Tilly wasn’t done yet. Now she had the rest of the tidying to tackle.

  First she gathered up all of Risera’s books and clothes, and she dumped them on the (unmade) bed. She heaped Risera’s dirty dishes onto an armchair, pushed that up against Risera’s bed, and stuck a note on it: PLEASE! WASH! UP! Then she stood by the door, folded her arms, and surveyed her work.

  Tilly sighed with relief. Her side was fine now—better than fine. Tidy. Orderly. Clean. As for the other side . . . She shuddered. But it was okay. If she imagined a line down the room, she could pretend none of it was there. She stood in the middle of the room, where the line would be, looked over to her side, and took a deep breath. It came easily. “There,” she said. “That’s much better.” She sat down at her desk and opened her notes again. Suddenly the notes and equations all made sense, and the problem that she had been worrying over disappeared. She smiled to herself. There. Much better. All she’d needed to do was make it possible to work in this space again . . . She soon lost herself in her studies.

  She barely registered the door opening, and Risera coming back in.

  “Er, Tilly,” said Risera after a moment, her voice confused. “What’s going on?”

  Tilly looked up. “What do you mean?” Risera was standing by the door, looking around uncertainly.

  “Have you . . .” Suddenly Risera rushed over to her desk. “You’ve not touched my notes, have you? They were all in order—”

  Tilly looked at her in horror. “I wouldn’t mess with anyone’s notes!”

  “But you’ve messed with everything else!”

  “I’ve not ‘messed.’ ” Tilly did the air quotes. “I’ve tidied—and, boy, let me tell you, it needed doing—”

  “Tidied? Tilly, all my stuff . . . my bed . . . Was this really you? Did you dump all my stuff on my bed?”

  “Look,” said Tilly, “it was everywhere, okay? It was completely out of hand—”

  “So you picked everything up and then you just . . . ? I don’t believe this.” Risera, helplessly, started sorting through her belongings. “I can’t believe you’ve done this. This skirt . . . I love this skirt, and look at it—it’s really creased!”

  “You can’t have loved it that much,” said Tilly, with some acid. “It was hanging on the back of a chair.”

  “It was flat! Now it’s all screwed up! Tilly!”

  “A chair,” said Tilly pointedly, “is not a closet.”

  “These books . . . I had them in reading order . . .”

  “Coulda fooled me! Big stack of them falling all over the place—”

  Risera turned to face her. “Tilly, we share this room—”

  Tilly folded her arms. “Actually, yes, I know that, and I’ve been meaning to say something for ages now. I have allergies, you know! All this stuff—there’s dust, ugh, and have you seen the inside of that mug there? It’s horrible! And those plates—vile! This is such a mess, Sera! I can’t live with it! You really need to think more about other people!”

  There was a pause. “Okay, Tilly,” said Risera. Her voice was very calm and quiet. “I get it.”

  Tilly turned away to get back to her work (I have a schedule, for goodness’ sake!), but it was hard to concentrate at first. Risera went around her side of the room, putting away her clothes, organizing her books, and moving her dirty dishes. When Risera pushed the armchair back toward the other side, Tilly tutted. Risera moved the armchair back again. She took her dishes out, and five minutes later brought them back clean. She put them away (Tilly bore the clattering with only a small sigh). When that was done, Risera picked up a couple of books and a pile of notes, and she went out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her, and without saying goodbye.

  Tilly heaved a sigh of relief. At last, she thought, peace and quiet. She put her head down and worked steadily through the rest of the evening, even getting slightly ahead on the next day’s work. The first bell went, but Risera didn’t come back. She crept in after the second bell, when Tilly was already in bed with the light off, and she didn’t whisper “good night.”

  * * *

  There was no mention of it the next day on the lake, or indeed any time afterward. In fact, there really wasn’t much of a chance to talk about anything, given how tight Tilly’s schedule was. She rowed, she attended classes, she scurried through homework, and then she worked on her presentation until just before first bell. In fact, Tilly was so wrapped up in her work that she failed to notice how little she saw of Risera after that evening. Yes, they still saw each other every morning at rowing practice, but, under Tilly’s leadership, everyone was so focused on practicing for the race that there wasn’t time for chat. The rest of the time, Tilly was working, working, working.

  “Is there something up between you and Risera?” said Erisel one morning at breakfast.

  Tilly looked at her in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

  Erisel glanced down the table. Risera was sitting at the other end of the group. “Nothing,” she said. “She just seems to be in our room studying a lot these days.”

  Tilly looked at Risera. She was chatting away to Semett and looked perfectly happy. Tilly shrugged her shoulders. “She looks fine to me.”

  “Hmm,” said Erisel.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Tilly blithely. “You know how it is. People need to find the right space to work in, don’t they? If your workspace isn’t right, you don’t really get anything done. I had to really tidy up the other day—I wasn’t getting anything done. Once everything was tidy, I felt much better. Maybe Risera just needs a change of scene.”

  “Maybe,” said Erisel, and she didn’t push the issue any further.

  But after that, Tilly did notice that Risera wasn’t around much. She had to admit that it was something of a weight off her shoulders. Everything about the room was so peaceful now; she really felt like she was able to work, and, even more, to practice her speech, which was complex and needed careful work. But she did feel a little lonely. Sometimes, after both bells, when Tilly was right on the edge of sleep, she would hear the door to the room softly click open, and see, through the darkness, Risera tiptoeing over to her bed. She wondered what would happen if she sat up and tried to chat, ask how Risera was doing, how her project was coming along . . . But she squashed the idea firmly. No, there was no time to gossip late into the night. She needed her sleep to be able to work, you had to be very sure about that or else you got into bad sleep habits, and that would be a disaster this close to the end of term. The tests, the presentations, the whole term would be over soon. Then they could have the fun that they’d earned! Tilly made a mental note to remind Granna that they were hoping to see Risera’s parents over the holiday.