"A sorting out into categories that might not otherwise exist. Nevertheless, I accept the compliment implied by your action. But seven pages about Bean - really, did you actually learn that much from a response that was primarily silent compliance?"
"That is just my point, sir. It was not compliance at all. It was - I was performing the experiment, but it felt as though his were the big eye looking down the microscope, and I were the specimen on the slide."
"So he unnerved you."
"He would unnerve anyone. He's cold, sir. And yet"
"And yet hot. Yes, I read your report. Every scintillating page of it."
"Yes sir."
"I think you know that it is considered good advice for us not to get crushes on our students."
"Sir?"
"In this case, however, I am delighted that you are so interested in Bean. Because, you see, I am not. I already have the boy I think gives us our best chance. Yet there is considerable pressure, because of Bean's damnable faked-up test scores, to give him special attention. Very well, he shall have it. And you shall give it to him."
"But sir ..."
"Perhaps you are unable to distinguish an order from an invitation."
"I'm only concerned that ... I think he already has a low opinion of me."
"Good. Then he'll underestimate you. Unless you think his low opinion might be correct."
"Compared to him, sir, we might all be a little dim."
"Close attention is your assignment. Try not to worship him."
***
All that Bean had on his mind was survival, that first day in Battle School. No one would help him - that had been made clear by Dimak's little charade in the shuttle. They were setting him up to be surrounded by ... what? Rivals at best, enemies at worst. So it was the street again. Well, that was fine. Bean had survived on the street. And would have kept on surviving, even if Sister Carlotta hadn't found him. Even Pablo - Bean might have made it even without Pablo the janitor finding him in the toilet of the clean place.
So he watched. He listened. Everything the others learned, he had to learn just as well, maybe better. And on top of that, he had to learn what the others were oblivious to - the workings of the group, the systems of the Battle School. How teachers got on with each other. Where the power was. Who was afraid of whom. Every group had its bosses, its suckups, its rebels, its sheep. Every group had its strong bonds and its weak ones, friendships and hypocrisies. Lies within lies within lies. And Bean had to find them all, as quickly as possible, in order to learn the spaces in which he could survive.
They were taken to their barracks, given beds, lockers, little portable desks that were much more sophisticated than the one he had used when studying with Sister Carlotta. Some of the kids immediately began to play with them, trying to program them or exploring the games built into them, but Bean had no interest in that. The computer system of Battle School was not a person; mastering it might be helpful in the long run, but for today it was irrelevant. What Bean needed to find out was all outside the launchy barracks.
Which is where, soon enough, they went. They arrived in the "morning" according to space time - which, to the annoyance of many in Europe and Asia, meant Florida time, since the earliest stations had been controlled from there. For the kids, having launched from Europe, it was late afternoon, and that meant they would have a serious time-lag problem. Dimak explained that the cure for this was to get vigorous physical exercise and then take a short nap - no more than three hours - in the early afternoon, following which they would again have plenty of physical exercise so they could fall asleep that night at the regular bedtime for students.
They piled out to form a line in the corridor. "Green Brown Green," said Dimak, and showed them how those lines on the corridor walls would always lead them back to their barracks. Bean found himself jostled out of line several times, and ended up right at the back. He didn't care - mere jostling drew no blood and left no bruise, and last in line was the best place from which to