Sherry covered her eyes. Great. Not only was she very short on sleep, the article she'd stayed up so late to write sucked. And she had to sit through another history class this morning.
She paged through her article again, trying to figure out how to salvage it.
Michi was sitting across from her, writing away on her bookreader's screen. Her interview with Cathy last night had been way too interesting; Kara and Sherry had listened instead of studying. Ellen had disappeared to study with some friends, muttering quite clearly that they were distracting her.
Sherry took another few halfhearted swipes at improving her article, then flipped the cover over her bookreader's screen and stood up.
"Time for class," she said, yawned, and started walking out of hall four.
"Right behind you," Michi called out, so Sherry slowed down to wait for her.
"How's the article coming?"
"Good," Michi said. "I should have it ready for proofing before sports. Yours?"
Sherry groaned. "Horrible. I was up till 3:30 writing the draft and it sucks."
"Good grief. You could write during class, you know."
Sherry covered her eyes. "I have gotten in trouble so many times for that I didn't even think of it."
They got the day's notes as they went into the classroom, and stopped talking.
The teacher picked up where he had left off in the previous class, with the UNS Amsterdam and the colonist selection.
Michi spread out the first few pages of her class notes and got out her bookreader.
Sherry tried to follow what the teacher was saying and read over her article again at the same time.
Michi kicked her under the table. "That's not what Cathy told us," she whispered.
Sherry looked up from her article. It took a few seconds for her to realise that the teacher was talking about the aliens near Velfard Colony, because he was referring to them as if they were merely clever animals.
She and Michi frowned at each other. Everybody else was copying out the annotations without question. But then, none of them had heard much more than the standard picture, location, date of discovery stuff Kara had skewered a few days earlier.
Sherry called up one of the articles she'd gotten from the library. It had turned out to be more about the aliens than the colony, so she had only skimmed it last night. She skimmed it again, looking for anything about the aliens' intelligence.
She raised her hand. "Excuse me sir," she started.
The teacher nodded. "Yes, Miss Tenna?"
"According to this article, studies have been done on the aliens and they're very smart, as smart as we are and maybe smarter in ways we don't know how to test for."
The teacher frowned. "Where did you find this?"
"The library." Sherry looked at the article's publishing information. "Um, Nature. 2271."
"Ah. That's an old article, and quite a lot of research has been done since then. The researchers were quite optimistic in their interpretation of the results."
Sherry looked down and nodded to her bookreader.
"At any rate," the teacher continued, "class is nearly over. Your reading assignments are included in your notes for today, so make sure you read them. Miss Tenna, could you stay for a moment? Class dismissed."
Chatter erupted around Sherry as everybody started packing away their notes. Quite a few sent curious looks, and in a few cases smirks, her way.
"I'll wait for you outside," Michi whispered as she stood up.
When the norm cleared, the teacher cleared his throat. "Miss Tenna, not all information in the library can be taken as absolute truth."
"I know. I thought that since it was in Nature it was fine."
He smiled. "Take a look at some articles from a couple of hundred years ago, it's both educational and amusing. Science moves forward, and old facts are often found to be completely misinterpreted years later. So if you find an old article, even in a perfectly respectable journal, check for something newer."
"Yes sir." Sherry stared at her hands. She was pretty sure Cathy woudn't have told them about 50-year-old, proven wrong information.
"Also, a lot of studies find what the people paying for them want to believe, even if the facts don't support it. Looking at the group that funded it will often tell you a lot about the results."
"Yes sir."
"Ok, dismissed."
Sherry headed for the door.