Touchdown, Touchdown, Rah, Rah, Rah!

Ray went to the stage, where Elizabeth was discussing her lecture with a group of students. “I don’t understand it, either,” she told them. “Killing millions of people in a war makes no sense, not when the purpose of war is supposed to be taking control of the enemy. Sometimes it seems like a ritual display of aggression—‘I can kill more people than you can, so I’m the better leader.’ We’ll discuss that in the next lecture.”

The talk broke up and Elizabeth extracted a cartridge from the projector. “Interesting talk,” Ray said.

“Thanks.” She grinned at him. “Are you thinking of enrolling?”

“No, I’m scared of taking tests,” Ray said. “I just came here to ask you how Faber is doing.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Well, it’s the start of a new semester. He’ll settle down soon enough.”

“Is he a problem?” Ray asked.

“Do I have a comer on the pipestem market?” Elizabeth rubbed her bony chin. “He’s not stupid, but— well, maybe you should talk to him. Let’s go to the dorm.”

They walked out of the lecture hall and crossed the campus. The grounds reminded Ray of some of Earth’s better colleges, with clusters of buildings placed amid expansive lawns and gardens. The main difference, he thought as he looked at one group of students, was that typical human students did not graze on the shrubbery.

Elizabeth noticed his gaze. “It cuts down on the gardening bills,” she said.

“I’ll bet it does,” Ray said. “Speaking of food, how long does it take the embassy to deliver those enzyme pills?”

“No time at all,” Elizabeth said. “Are you having trouble with them?” Ray nodded. “They tell me that there’s a two-week processing period, followed by a six-week shipping period. And it’s a hundred IMUs a week.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows went up. “Boy, they must really hate you. Whenever I need some pills, I go to the embassy and they give me a month’s supply for ten IMUs.”

“I see.” Ray thought black thoughts about Nyquist as they walked to the dormitory complex. The ambassador couldn’t run him off the planet, not officially, but he could do his best to inconvenience him.

The dorms were a collection of small buildings placed on a hillside at the edge of the campus. Despite their size Ray knew that each building housed a score of kya students, who lived, dined, studied and slept in a single common room. Given the human need for privacy and spacious rooms, the human dorm stood out by its size. It had been erected a few years ago, and it looked like an apartment building, complete with a swimming pool and an enclosed patio.

“We’re also downwind of the other buildings,” Elizabeth told Ray as they entered the lobby. It was cleaner than he had expected, and he reminded himself that the people here were carefully picked graduate students. They would have outgrown the slovenliness he recalled from his own freshman days. “Most kya don’t mind our scent, but our cooking drives them up the wall.”

“You mean the smell of cooking meat,” Ray said. The kya were strictly herbivorous, and while they had exterminated most of their world’s larger predators they still regarded meat-eating with unease. “I know. I’m renting a house in town. I had to turn vegetarian because the neighbors complained whenever I ate meat.”

Elizabeth nodded. “We had trouble last term when we had a barbecue. The wind shifted and blew the smoke across campus, and five thousand kya were ready to stampede through here.” She looked around the lobby and spotted a young man, who lay sprawled on a couch as he read a kya medical textbook. “Toshio, have you seen Faber anywhere?”

“Yeah.” The student waved a hand toward the stairs. “Reek Hard is hitting up on Grace,” he said.

“ ‘Reek Hard’?” Ray asked quietly, as he followed Elizabeth up the stairs. He’d heard the kya mispronounce Faber’s name that way. It didn’t sound good if humans had picked up that variation.

“Faber likes that nickname,” Elizabeth said. “He thinks athletes need a mean-sounding name.”

“Oh.”

Ray saw Faber as they reached the top of the stairs. He was leaning against a doorjamb as he spoke to a short, dainty-looking black woman with an unruly Mohican haircut. She looked far from happy with Faber’s attention, although he seemed blissfully unaware of that. “Richard,” Elizabeth said, “Ray wants to see you.”

“Can it wait?” Faber asked. “Me and Grace are planning what we’re doin’ tonight.”

“I’m studying,” Grace said firmly. “Don’t let me keep you from your visitor.” She scurried away from Faber with the speed and agility of an Olympic gymnast.

Faber looked irked as she vanished. “These poindexters are weird,” he said. “All they do is study. Hey, I wanted to ask you about that. Studying, I mean. They told me I have to take a bunch of classes?”

“That’s right,” Ray said.

“What for?” he asked. “C’mere.” He led Ray and Elizabeth into his room. The walls were decorated with football posters and pin-ups; Ray decided that Faber had two interests in life.-“Look it this crap,” Faber said, picking up a textbook. “They got me studying algebra. What moron saddled me with that?”