Touchdown, Touchdown, Rah, Rah, Rah!

A pair of students sat in the dorm’s lobby as they worked over a portable computer. One of them was Grace; the other was a young, overly-handsome man who sat next to her as though he was her boyfriend. “Jack’s been helping me with my research,” Grace said. “The kya have a dozen major schools of economic thought, but none of them use the same terms or measurements. Our translation program has been having fits.”

“It’s running now,” Jack said. “And the data-reduction puts everything on the standard curves. There’s even an analog to the Kondratieff cycle. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”

“What’s the difference?” Ray asked.

“Well, it’s bad because I was hoping to find something alien to put into my doctoral dissertation on comparative economics,” Grace said. “On the other hand, finding out that kya and human economies appear to obey identical laws suggests that there are universal constants in economics.”

“So economics isn’t as much of a dismal science as everyone claims,” Ray said. The computer displayed a set of curves that looked like a plate of schizophrenic spaghetti, and some equally tangled equations, a sight which gave him an idea. “Speaking of dismal, would you be interested in tutoring Faber in math?”

“No,” Grace said. “I’m an economist. What makes you think I’m a mathematician?”

“Just a feeling,” Ray said, looking at the display again.

“Liz already asked about that,” Jack said. “We’ll get someone to tutor Reek Hard-on one condition.”

“Name it,” Ray said. “You want him to stop pestering the women? Bathe every day? Learn English?”

“Just make him pay attention,” Jack said. “We’ll look after the louse, but not if it’s going to be a waste of time.”

“And not if he’s going to make us look bad by being a lazy goof,” Grace added. “Make him work.”

Ray smiled as he thought about his conversation with Faber’s uncle. “Consider it done.”

* * *

Ray returned to Vrekle a few days later to check on Faber. “Talking with Shevield, I’m told Vapor’s studying harder,” Dean Zelk said. “Several human students are tutoring him now. But, with a new problem arising, we may still lose out. Is it true that Vapor pushed you the other day?”

“Well, yes,” Ray said. “He lost his temper, but nothing came of it.” Nothing aside from an impressive bruise on the center of his chest, he thought idly.

Zelk exhaled in dismay. “Doing that, his behavior was unbecoming a Vrekle student. Having received some complaints from the student body, I may be forced to remove him from the team.”

Damn Faber, Ray thought. He still didn’t understand that the kya didn’t regard athletes as demigods. “Maybe you can explain what happened as alien behavior,” Ray suggested.

“Some humans act like that when they get bad news, and I’d just told Vapor—uh, Faber, that he was in academic trouble. You could call it a ritual display of aggression.”

“I scent.” Zelk closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. “Maybe that will work. I’ll toss it on the wind and see who inhales. Meanwhile, it would help if you were seen publicly with Vapor, to show there are no hard feelings.”

“Is that important?” Ray asked. “I can’t say that I like him.”

“Aliens,” Zelk said in resignation. “I don’t know about your people, but to us, it really stinks when members of a herd are at odds. I already have enough trouble with protesters who say that humans are corrupting Vrekle. The team is going out for a trot today; you might tag along.”

The things I do for my commission, Ray thought. He left the office and headed toward the human dormitory. It was fairly early in the morning, and when he entered the dorm most of the human students were getting breakfast or preparing for their classes. Ray found Faber in the kitchen, where he was packing a lunch. “Uh, hi,” Faber said.

“Hello,” Ray said. Faber looked and sounded subdued, which struck Ray as an improvement. “I thought I’d tag along on the team’s run and see how you’re doing.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Faber said. “It’s only like five or six miles, or maybe kilometers, I think. We’ll be back in time for class. We re leaving in a little while.”

“Fine. I’ll meet you outside.”

Ray left the kitchen and went into the dorm’s lobby. Elizabeth was on the phone, quietly gronking away in Wideplain. She nodded to Ray, then hung up. “That was Dean Zelk,” she said. “She asked me to keep an eye on you today.”

“Thanks,” Ray said. Zelk obviously didn’t trust Faber’s temper, which struck Ray as proof of her high intelligence. “Maybe I can repay the favor. How about dinner tonight?”

“I’d love it,” Elizabeth said. She glanced at the kitchen entrance. “What happened to Faber? He went to the embassy the other day and talked to Earth. I don’t know what was said, but it put the fear of God into him.”

“It’s more like the fear of celibacy,” Ray said, and described his conversation with McIlvaine. “He’s really studying?” he added.

“Not only that, he got a perfect score on the dummy quiz Alexei gave him last night,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll make a student out of him yet. Give me a minute to change.” She went upstairs.