"I wonder what's wrong with them?" Sherry re-read her letter, trying to pick out details they hadn't written. They probably wouldn't be complete psychos, the government did do some screening.
"Well, in my case, a five-year-old boy." Cathy shook her head. "I get to be an unpaid after school babysitter, oh joy."
"Sucks to be you. Mine don't say anything about kids one way or the other."
"Hm. Could be good or bad."
Sherry frowned. "This isn't normal. They never match us with families, they just put us with whoever will take us."
"That's because they don't usually have a lot to choose from, duh." Ellen flipped her bookreader closed. "You have one kid, you place her wherever she fits. You have three hundred kids at once, and three hundred families, you actually can match them up. Or didn't you think of that, brainiac."
Cathy started turning red.
"Let's go up to dinner," Sherry said. "I want to find out where Michi and Jess ended up."
"Right." Cathy closed her bookreader and followed Sherry out the door.
"So are you in the main city?"
"No, but the xeno goes in regularly, he said. they live in a town near one of the lerkkal cities, so he can study them."
"Nice. Sounds like your kind of place."
They got in line for the elevator, and Sherry saw a few people giving them funny looks, as if they thought they were too lazy to walk. Like Cathy's ankle brace didn't scream 'I shouldn't walk too much.'
"How about you?"
"In the city. They didn't say anything about travelling. They didn't really say a lot, actually."
"Not very typical for somebody who works with words."
"Hmm." Sherry shrugged. "I guess I'll find out soon enough.
Conversation stopped in the elevator. as everybody tried to avoid being overheard.
On their way to the dinner lineup, John grabbed Sherry's arm, then let go as soon as she stopped.
"What the hell were you thinking? I know it's just a joke to you, but I have to see what's going into the newsletter!"
"What are--"
"I don't miss everything you kids do, you know. I know you wrote that article about the aliens, and snuck it into the newsletter."
"I didn't write it!"
"Don't lie to me, miss Tenna. I'm not stupid. You were working on that article."
"Well if you're so 'not stupid,' you'd know that somebody broke into my room and erased all my research. I was working on an article like that, but I didn't write the one in the newsletter. I had never read it before this morning, when somebody showed it to me in class."
"Then who did you give your research to? I checked both library terminals, and you were the only one to sign out all the material used in the article."
"Michi, whose bookreader was also erased. And I've been wondering who could possibly get into several different bedrooms--well, only the teachers should be able to, right? And who has been trying to convince everybody of a lie?"
"Look, I did not go into your room and tamper with your bookreader. The only time teachers go into the bedrooms is in groups, when everybody is awake so they can explain why they're in there."
Sherry frowned. "Uh huh. So my bookreader and Michi's just happened to delete all my notes and only those notes on the same night."
"If you're accusing me of breaking into your room, I suggest you take it up with the ship's crew."
"Excellent idea. I may do that, right after dinner. Now if you'll excuse me." Sherry turned on her heel and marched toward the food lineup, much longer now than it had been when John stopped them.
Cathy glanced around and lowered her voice. "How do you--"
"Ssh. Later."
They filled up their dinner plates in silence, slowly shuffling along the food tables.
Jess was already at their table, but Michi wasn't yet.
"So? What did the teacher want?" Jess put her fork down and leaned forward. "I saw you talking when I go tin line, and he looked pissed."
"He thought I wrote that alien article. I explained somebody had deleted all my notes, and I couldn't have. I am so going to the crew. They have to have a record of who came into my room that night."
Cathy grinned. "He looked a little worried when you threatened to do that. I wonder what he's hiding."
"He did? Hmm."
Michi thumped her plate down on the table. "Ugh. Did John corner you too?"
"Yup. What line did he give you?"
"I had to have arranged the article insertion because it was typeset just like the rest of the newsletter. Like the format is so hard to copy. And that you told him you gave me your notes. Did you?"
"At the same time as I told him our bookreaders had both been messed with. But get this." Sherry leaned forward and lowered her voice. "He didn't ask to see my bookreader. I'm sure he already knew my notes had been wiped."
"Do you think he did it?" Jess asked.
"We'll find out soon. I'm going to ask the crew for the door records tor that night. But here's something else. Michi, Cathy, did either of you tell anybody that my notes had been erased?"
They both shook their heads. "Just Jess, today at lunch. Why?" Michi said.
"Kara knew they'd been wiped too. And that I'd given them to Michi so she could write the article. She said so, today. And that I'd bought into the propaganda, whatever that meant."
"You don't think she erased them, do you?" Cathy said.
Sherry shook her head. "She can't get into Michi's room. It had to be somebody who could get into both."
Michi glanced to the side. "What did your letter say, Jess?"
They all glanced over. A teacher was walking toward them, on general patrol.
"One's an elementary school teacher, the other is, well, I forget the title, I think he's just another office guy." She shrugged. "They like hiking and camping though, so I can't complain."
There was always a teacher too close for comfort, so the dinner conversation stayed on the topic of the letters they'd gotten and speculations about what wasn't in the letters.
#
"Hold on, this can't be right." Sherry looked at the date at the top of the report.
"It's for the right date alright." Michi frowned. "But according to this, nobody went into my room at all between eleven-thirty and seven. Nobody."
"And here, just Kara leaving, then coming back. I remember her going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. She woke me up."
"Well damn. I can't think of anybody in my room who would want to do something like that."
Sherry put her bookreader down. "Even if Kara did do it, she can't have done yours."
"Unless somebody changed the records," Cathy said.
"I don't know." Michi chewed her lip. "Kara did know about the notes being deleted, so maybe she did do Sherry's. But who did mine? And we still haven't figured out why."
"To stop us from writing that article. And the only people who would even want to do something like that are the ones pushing the idea that the lerkkal are just animals. Kara may believe it for whatever reason, but she wasn't trying to push it. It was the teachers who were pushing it. Kara is just another student, like us." Sherry rested her head on her hands. "This is nuts. At least in two days we'll be off the ship."
"And scattered all over the place," Cathy said. "It'll be a lot harder for us to talk about it and figure out what happened. This is bugging me. Why? What possible advantage does this give whoever did it?"
Sherry shook her head without lifting it. "Exams, anyone? There's one more, still."
"Nah, not one worth worrying about."
"You're in a different class, Cathy. We have math still. Not horrible, but I know I should still study a bit." Michi tapped on her bookreader's screen a few times. "Sherry?"
Cathy stood up. "I'm going to see what's new on Velfard. Catch you later."
#
"I really wish you could see it, Sherry. the planet is just gorgeous." Cathy took a bite of her sandwich and continued raving after she swallowed it. "You can't see the cities, the farms, all that, you can't see it from space the way you can on Earth. They just aren't big enough to see. And at night, the city is just the faintest speck of light, I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been told where to look."
"I'm sure it's great." Sherry sighed. "But I can't wait to land on it. And get out of here. I swear the temperature of our room drops every time we're in there when Kara is."
"I should ask her if she erased your notes," Jess said. "What? at least she doesn't look like she wants to spit on me every time I see her."
"I think she did, now. She was acting really weird that day. Nervous or something." Sherry shrugged and took another bite of her sandwich. "If you really want to ask, ask why."
"Maybe I will. But we have some real free time today, not the piddly little half-hour that was always taken up by waiting in line for the showers. I want to really explore the ship."
"Yeah, but we have to pack up our rooms. You think they'd really give us free run of the ship? If we're really fast at packing we might get an hour to ourselves."
"Always the pessimist, aren't you Michi?"
"Realist."
"Whatever." Jess pushed her plate away. "Wanna bet I can get more them an hour to myself? I'm a fast packer."
"No bet, but let's meet at the convenience store with fifty minutes of free time left."
"But what if I'm not done? Where will I find you?"
"Oh fine. I'll come hang out in your room when I'm done packing, and annoy you until you're done too." Jess grinned at Sherry and Cathy. "Will you come harass Cathy too, Michi? And if you're not there by the time Cathy's done packing, we'll all go to your room to watch you pack."
Michi shook her head. "Yeah, ok. Not that I can stop you, right?"
"Exactly." Jess gave a half-bow from her seat. "Now, since we all seem to be finished lunch, shall we start packing? The earlier we start, the earlier we get to start exploring."
#
The door beeped, and they all looked up from their packing.
Cathy opened it.
"Hello! Are ya done yet?" Jess ambled into the room.
"No way. No way you're packed already." Sherry put another shirt into her bag. "I haven't even half finished folding and packing my clothes."
Jess sat on Cathy's bunk. "Now see, that's your problem. You're actually folding your clothes. I just stuff 'em in. Well, my two fragile things I wrap in a couple of shirts each, and make sure they end up in the middle of the bag."
"And they end up all wrinkled." Sherry folded another shirt.
"Sure, but who cares? Hey Cathy, want a hand?"
Cathy nodded, and pointed Jess at her cupboard. They finished well before Sherry, and sat on Cathy's bunk chatting while Sherry, Kara, and Ellen kept packing.
Michi showed up just as Sherry was finishing, and they all left for the upper decks, leaving Kara and Ellen to their packing.