"Good work everybody," John said as he handed the newsletter back to Michi. "After you distribute, there won't be any more meetings. This is it."
A few people applauded, then sheepishly stopped when nobody else joined in.
They split into groups and started snapping clips over the transfer tabs on each newsletter so they didn't fall apart.
Finally, they were all done and everybody took their stack off to the dropoff points. Sherry and Michi were last to leave, and waved at John as he locked up behind them.
Down the hall, around the corner, then they started jogging. Cathy was waiting for them already, with a pile of paper, and locked the door behind Sherry and Michi when they were in.
"That's an awful lot of newsletters to do," she said.
"It goes faster than you'd think," Michi said.
She started showing Cathy the easy way of popping the clips off and putting them back on again, while Sherry started adding the last page.
They worked in silence, the only sound the rustle of paper. As Michi had promised, it wasn't long before they had attached her article to all the newsletters they had.
"I made too many," Cathy said. "What are we going to do with the extras?"
"Get more newsletters," Sherry said. "We should really mix these with the regular ones anyway. That'll make it less obvious to John who put them out, for one, and make it a bit more of a mystery for people to talk about."
"Stay here, Cathy, we'll run and get more." Michi poked her head out the door, looked up and down the hall, then grabbed a stack of newsletters and left.
Sherry, heart pounding, took her newsletters the other way, and mixed them in with the piles the others had put out already. She kept looking over her shoulder, worried that John would walk past. Any other teacher, any crew member, wasn't a problem. She was just delivering newsletters. John would know she was running really, suspiciously, late.
When she got back, Michi and Cathy were already working on the next batch. She dumped her pile on the table, locked the door behind her, and started clipping.
"Excellent," Michi said when they ran out of extra pages. "Now to deliver our stacks."
They mixed up regular and modified newsletters, then Sherry said, "Go back to our room, Cathy. I'll see you there."
"I have a better idea. This is study time, why don't we stay here and study. It would give a good reason for us using the room. The ship tracks who uses rooms, remember?"
"Right." Sherry smacked her head. "Another blonde moment. See you back here, then."
She jogged, then at the last corner slowed to a walk and ambled up to her drop point. She casually shook her pile together and dropped it on the floor by the door before turning back. It was done.
For some reason her heart sped up again as she walked back to study with Michi and Cathy. It had all gone well, what was she so nervous about?
#
Sherry filled up her plate at lunch, trying to eavesdrop on everybody at once. A lot of them were talking about exams, which had started that day. Some were talking about people she didn't know. And a few, she was glad to hear, were talking about Michi's article.
She had picked up a newsletter that morning, hoping to read it, but had gotten one without the extra page by accident. And couldn't go looking for it, if people were supposed to believe she didn't do it. A girl in her class had handed her a copy, though, and she had been careful to act puzzled, then surprised, while reading it.
A few people were making fun of it, but more seemed to be taking it seriously.
She put her plate down at her usual table, and saw Jess and Cathy talking, with the newsletter open in front of them.
"Hey Sherry, did you write this article?" Jess asked.
"No, I didn't. I read it for the first time this morning, when somebody handed it to me." It was nice to be able to tell the truth and still fool the teachers walking around the room.
"Oh, I thought you might have, you were talking about it earlier."
"No, somebody deleted all my notes the day before yesterday."
"What? Who did it?"
"I don't know." She saw Kara in the food lineup and waved. "Whoever it was got into our room at night and did it, because the notes were there at night and gone in the morning."
"That's awful!"
"Yeah. Tell me about it. It'll take at least two weeks to re-do it." Sherry started to wave at Kara, but hesitated when she saw the expression on her face.
Kara walked right past them, and around the wall.
The table was silent for a few seconds, as everybody stared after her.
Cathy cleared her throat. "She still doesn't want to admit they might be smart, it seems. Even with proof."
"Well, forget the proof for now, in history class we'll have to answer with what the teacher's been saying, not with the right answer. And I have that class next." Sherry rolled her eyes. "The stupid thing is, I've probably learned ten times as much about Velfard and the lerkkal as was taught in class, but I have nothing to show for it."
Cathy looked at her plate and smiled a little before she caught it. "And you can't use it in class, either. Well, maybe in the schools down on the colony you could."
"Kara!" Sherry hurried down the hall after her as all the volleyball players hurried toward the showers.
"I thought you'd given up on that article," Kara said, and sped up.
"I didn't write it!"
"No, you gave all your notes to Michi, didn't you? What a great way to push your opinion and still try to avoid the consequences."
"I--"
"Who else did you give your notes to, eh? Losing them didn't slow you two down at all."
"Why does it matter so much?"
"Oh come on. They may be as smart as a chimp or something, but trying to give them all the responsibilities of a citizen will just hurt everybody in the long run. And you've totally bought into the seperatist propaganda, too. That'll only work against you when they lose, and--well, you were my friend. I didn't want to see you end up on the wrong end of things."
"Well, I guess we don't agree on which side will win in the end."
Kara sped up again, and this time Sherry didn't try to keep up. Losing her notes didn't slow her down? She hadn't told anybody but Cathy--Jess had sure been surprised to hear it at lunch. And she was pretty sure Michi hadn't told Kara either.
She drifted along the lineup, through the shower, and back into her room, still thinking, trying to work Kara's behaviour into her theories.
The message light on the wall was blinking when she walked into her room, and the transfer cord was dangling from its alcove.
"Letter for you," Cathy said, looking up from her bookreader. "Our new families have all written."
Sherry looked at the top two bunks. Ellen and Kara were both also reading something on their bookreaders.
She put her ID card in the slot, and the wall said, "Hello Sherry Tenna. You have one new message. Please connect your book reader to the transfer cord and prepare to accept the message."
A few seconds later, her book reader beeped, the message light went out, and the wall spat her card back at her. She popped the transfer cord off and put it away, then sat on her bed to read the message.
It was pretty neutral, but then they didn't know who she was. They had gotten some information about her though--they referred to her interest in news and journalism, and in painting. And--heaven!--they were a husband and wife team who ran one of the colony's news and general publishing houses.
"Wow," Sherry said.
"You too?" Cathy grinned. "I was placed with a xenobiologist and his family."
"They finally got something right." Sherry shook her head. "Somebody pinch me."
"No way. I like this dream. I've never been placed with a family that really works with science of any type. What did you get?"
"A couple who run a publishing house."
"Crazy. This has to be a dream."