Creative Commons – The Plainsrunner – Chapter Thirty-One

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Tallgrass and Seagrass take on the challenges.

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Chapter Thirty-One – Polo

Talking to Professor Trueway kept them going for a long time. Sleep banished, they had something to eat in one of the terminal’s restaurants, and listened to the Professor’s stories about the Academy.

“It hasn’t officially started yet,” he told them. “We’ve spent the last year preparing for the arrival of the first cohort.” He smiled at them. “I guess that would be you, wouldn’t it?”

“So there haven’t been any classes taught at all yet?” said Tallgrass. He contemplated taking another bite from his dry, tasteless biscuit, then put it down.

“Some,” said Trueway. “Some of the staff received instruction to bring them to the required levels. Some of us attended lectures out of interest or curiosity, or in some cases, to upgrade our qualifications. It was a great opportunity.”

“Is that what you did, Professor?” asked Tallgrass. “You said you had just become a professor.”

“Yes,” he said. “It was perfect timing for me. And I was giving lectures and tutorials at the same time, where I was qualified.”

“That must have been exciting,” said Seagrass. “To be in on the beginning of something like that, I mean.”

“It was,” said the Professor. His eyes unfocussed as his mind went elsewhere. Then he snapped back and said, “But now the real excitement begins. Preparing the first batch of students. That’s what all the preparation was for. Getting the bugs out. Streamlining procedures. Finding the kinks. It was so we could give the best possible education to the first class of space professionals.”

“Well,” said Tallgrass, “let’s hope we’re up to it.” He looked at his biscuit again, and pushed the plate away.

“Let’s hope so,” said the Professor, “because if not, we’ll just send you home and call up the next person on the list.” He smiled a wicked smile. “There are always plenty more waiting for someone to fail so they can get their chance.”

The youngsters looked at each other with big eyes.

Professor Trueway’s prophecy came true soon, and often. There were as many ways to fail as there were students who failed. Every time another one went down, Tallgrass remembered his rejected biscuit in the airport restaurant, and soon that became the idiom for it. The person who failed and was sent home was said to have “bitten the biscuit.”

Tallgrass and Seagrass never bit the biscuit, although they lived in constant fear of it. There was probably a connection there. The fear and self-doubt probably drove them to study hard. Between them they ensured that they both completely understood each new concept as they learned it. And because of Tallgrass’s lifelong habit of supplementing his learning at the library, they also had a good picture of where each new concept fit into everything else.

Tallgrass was driven by his need to succeed, but at least equally by his ferocious curiosity and love of learning. Seagrass was driven mainly by his need to keep up with Tallgrass. He didn’t want to be left behind by his friend, but there was more to it than that. Tallgrass liked to talk about things, especially the new things he’d just learned. He liked to hold them up and look at them from all angles. He liked to see where they fit in with everything else he knew. And he especially liked to speculate about the new ways they made him think about things.

Seagrass was always there for him to talk to. He knew he could rely on his friend to know what he was talking about. To see the implications of it, even if he couldn’t articulate them clearly. And once, years before, Seagrass had seen what happened if he let his friend down. When Tallgrass had no one to share his ideas with, he became frustrated and fretful, and Seagrass didn’t like that. Not only did he feel the duty of friendship, he also sensed that his friend was special somehow. He also felt a kind of duty to … what was it? The world? Knowledge? That kind of thinking made him feel uncomfortable, but he knew it was something. He knew that Tallgrass was important, and he felt honored to realize that he could play a role in it. All he had to do was try to keep up with him, at least enough that he would be worth talking to.

The Academy wasn’t all studying, though. It included field trips to places associated with the space industry. They toured the plants where they fabricated the parts for the rockets, and the one where they assembled them. They visited the labs where the electronics and computing gear were developed. Tallgrass was especially interested in the shops that designed and built the satellites. He thought once he was through the generalized education of his first couple of years, he might specialize in satellite technology and take it up as a career when he graduated.

Such was academic life at the Space Academy, but it wasn’t all dedicated to developing their young brains. Their educational philosophy included their bodies as well. All the students had to participate in at least one physical activity from the authorized list. They could choose sailing, where the only power available was muscle power. They organized back country expeditions, which interested Tallgrass very much. He liked the prospect of getting more familiar with the conditions his mother faced on her trek to the city. What he chose, though, was polo.

There were enough students interested that they could form two full teams of seven players each, with plenty of spares. What Tallgrass liked most about it was running flat out on a big grassy field, as he had done when he was little. The mallet and the ball and the goals were just the details that could justify a bunch of youngsters running around like that. Tallgrass wouldn’t mind just running on the grass, but the other students, and especially the school, seemed to feel that it needed some structure and purpose.

It was on the polo pitch that he encountered the bully again. He was not accompanied by accomplices this time, but he still carried the same attitude of aggrieved discontent that he could only seem to alleviate through aggression. It was more subtle, though, as he slowly approached maturity. He no longer accosted helpless people smaller than himself and stole their stuff. He’d learned that a lot of people didn’t approve of that and it could get him in trouble. He couldn’t understand why so many people were opposed to his right to take what he could. What about survival of the fittest? Whatever. He knew he couldn’t get away with that any more as long as the bleeding hearts were running things, so he adjusted his approach. His assaults were no longer so crude. Now he was refining his attacks on his victims feelings.

“Hey, Runny,” he said with his familiar fat-faced sneer.

“Oh,” said Tallgrass, startled and lost for words.

“What’s the matter, Runny? Nothing to say?”

“No,” said Tallgrass. “I mean yes. I mean, what are you doing here?”

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” asked the bully, whose name was Blunt. “Do you think I’m not good enough to be here?”

“No, of course not, Blunt. You just never struck me as the intellectual type.”

“Intellectual?” said Blunt. “You think you’re smarter than me, don’t you? I’ve seen your type before. You think you’re better than me.”

Tallgrass had also matured. Even though this encounter was bringing back all the feelings of the earlier bullying, he was able to keep them from overwhelming his mind. He said, “I think it’s more a case of you thinking that everyone is better than you, and I think that’s the whole problem.”

Anger flared in Blunt’s eyes, and he said, “Oh yeah?” He pushed closer to Tallgrass and said, “Now you think you can tell me what I’m thinking, eh? You’re just as big a jerk as you always were.” He smirked. “I guess I’m going to have to straighten you out, and this time your mommy’s not here to save you.”

Tallgrass sighed as he saw his ideal of the academic life wash away. He was trying to think of a way he could salvage something out of it when the coach called the teams in for instructions.

He was saved from the immediate conflict, but it didn’t save him from Blunt’s attentions. In the confusion of play, far out in the middle of the elongated two hectare field, Blunt pretended to be striking at the ball when he hit Tallgrass square on the leg. It didn’t break a bone, but it hurt severely and Tallgrass fell to the pitch. Some of his teammates had seen what happened and they turned on Blunt, whose own teammates rallied to him. It looked like trouble, and the coach was running out onto the field to intervene when Tallgrass struggled to his feet and spoke.

“I’m all right,” he said, looking at Blunt’s triumphant smirk. “No harm done.” He limped forward and reached to shake Blunt’s hand. “It was a good polo play.”

Most of the other players on both teams knew the truth, and the rest guessed. By now the coach had twigged to what happened, too. He clapped Tallgrass on the shoulder and said, “Good man.” Then he looked at Blunt and said, “Shake hands so we can get back to it.”

Blunt reluctantly complied, his eyes burning with resentment, and they went and finished the game. From that day forward, the reputations of the two young men were firmly set in the minds of their peers.