Interstellar Academy by Kennedy Harkins (read books for money .TXT) 📕

The calculus room was a circle with all the desks lining the outside of the shape and Professor Iqbal in the middle. Seeing him when I still didn’t have an answer to his chemistry clue made me turn green.

How could a three foot tall alien intimidate me? I could stand up to Igor. Or even my father on occasion, who wasn’t as tall as Igor, but for every billion credits in his bank account added a few inches. He was like a skyscraper.

Professor Iqbal didn’t say anything as he handed out the test, but he gave each of us a snouty smile. My eyes widened when he dropped a large paper packet onto my desk. Looking around for guidance, most of the students seemed as confused as I was, but a few had picked up the pencil on the edge of their desks and started writing.

I reluctantly returned my holo to my pocket and followed their lead. The pencil didn’t feel strange--I used a similar instrument to take notes on my holo, but scratching against the dry paper did. I tried not to let it trip me up, reading the questions carefully and filling out the best answer I could think of.

I set the packet on Iqbal’s desk at the end of the period and walked out knowing I’d failed. I kicked a rock and thought about my schooling at home, working at my own pace--when it pleased me. With my paid tutors, I’d take an assessment when I decided I was ready--usually never.

I’d never failed anything before. Now I could no longer say that. It made the air feel thick, too heavy to draw into my lungs.

I had to fix this.

I slowed down so Kavi could catch up with me. “Have you figured out the chemistry assignment?”

He shook his head. “But I don’t think anyone has. Maybe it’s a challenge in creative thinking, a way to exercise our minds.”

We walked in silence to the the apartment to grab our things for Life Studies. I didn’t want Kavi to be right, because if he was, and there was no answer, there was no way to make up for my poor performance in math. I’d have another teacher who though I’d be better off on the shuttle back to Earth.

Also, beyond having less people on my side--something I’d never cared about before coming to this stupid school, I didn’t know what my academic probation entailed. Surely, they couldn’t kick me out over one bad test?

I didn’t know. But it wasn’t just the one test, was it? I started checking my faults off a list in my head, one I always kept in my mind’s eye. I’d almost crashed a billion dollar ship my first day of class. I had the lowest flying simulation scores in the class. I couldn’t take or throw a punch. I hadn’t even been here a day before falling behind in the homework. And I couldn’t figure out that damn clue.

I sank down onto my bunk, thinking I should just pack up my thing now. Save myself the trouble of trying to stick it out until I got called to Earhart’s office again. My parents would understand--expect it, even.

I shook my head and grabbed my pack. My roommates were already in the tube with the exception of Kavi, who was waiting for me at the door. I joined him and we followed mae and Dru all the way to the globe shaped building.

Professor Adal was waiting for us inside, and, once everyone was seated, he called us up to give him our homework. He used each of our names, motioning us forward one at a time so that he could check that all the work was adequately completed.

He didn’t appear to be doing it in alphabetical order. Or maybe he was--his alphabet. We didn’t start alien languages until next year, so I’d never find out.

“Astraea Alkaev.”

I trudge up and showed him the haphazard work on my holo. He stared at it for a long time, longer than he had the other kids. I started to fidget, picturing Igor’s face when he learned I’d been kicked out of a place that was likely being paid millions just to keep me. You had to be seriously hopeless for that.

He tapped a button on my holo, sending the work to his.  “This is fine, Astra, but work on longer, more in depth answers for next time. It’ll show me you understand and help you on tests.”

I sat back down in my seat, feeling a sigh of relief slide through my body. I stopped the motion short, however, wonding if “fine” was good enough it keep me here.

The staff and I expect the best from each and every student. And when they have given us that, we expect the best of someone better, of the person they aspire to be.

I walked out a classroom with my shoulders hunched for the second time that day. I thought through the clue again, coming up just as blank as last night. Unlike last night, I couldn’t comfort myself with thoughts of blaming Dru or sending him up to give Iqbal our answer of nothing. While that would have made me happier than a pig in the mud, it wouldn’t save me from academic expulsion. I needed something to get me out of the red.

I needed an answer to that chemistry question, or I was as good as gone.

I passed the Syreni upperclassman Kai, but I was too panicked to take any pleasure from the smile he shot me. I moved passed him after saying a distracted hello.

With a little less than a half an hour before Chemistry, I didn’t see how I was going to come up with an answer. I’d plowed through all the books; there was nothing there. And it wasn’t like there was anyone around that I could coax the answer out of, because no one in my class had figured it out.

Nobody in my class....

I spun on my heel and took off at a dead sprint toward the center of campus. I prayed--not something I’d usually condone-- that I was on the right track and that he hadn’t disappeared into some obscure building from where he wouldn’t emerge for hours.

I almost ran right into him. His back was turned, but I could see the vibrant blue scales on his neck, and the golden hair was a dead giveaway. “Kai!”

He had lightning reflexes which almost got me punched in the nose. “Astra,” he said, surprised. “Sorry, I thought--well they’re big on sneak attacks here. Always have to be ready.” He laughed. “You’ll find out.”

Not if I didn’t survive this week, I wouldn’t. “You’re a junior, right?”

He tilted his head. “Right.”

“So you went to the Academy as a freshman,” I said a little breathlessly.

Kai nodded. “Yes. There are very few transfers; it’s a harder admissions process.”

I took a deep breath, barely allowing myself to hope. “What runs and has no feet, roars but has no mouth?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Professor Iqbal still uses that one?”

I nodded vigorously-- so hard I felt my brain shake. “Yes, he does!”

“And you want my help with the answer, huh? You know that almost no one gets it, right? That’s why he keeps using it; people are so focused on a possible literal meaning that they don’t really think about it.” He adjusted the pack on his back. “One girl in my year sent home for a chunk of a rare, gas creature--a being made entirely from non solid material! Professor Iqbal was not pleased.”

Just as he wouldn’t be with me if I couldn’t weasle the answer out of Kai. “So, it’s not literal.”

He shook his head, a slight tugging at the corner of his lip. “It’s like...a puzzle that you solve with your mind. It’s not particularly tricky, but that’s what makes it hard to solve.” Kai shrugged. “But don’t worry about it. You won’t lose any points with Iqbal for not figuring it out.”

But I wouldn’t gain any points either! Before I could explain that to him, however, he had gone on his merry way. It was enough to make me want to pull my hair out--which was ten pounds of crazy; my hair is a priceless asset.

I sat down, right there in the middle of the sidewalk, and thought about what Kai had said. A couple students gave me dirty looks, but mere underlings didn’t warrant my attention. He’d said it was a puzzle for my mind. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense in itself.

“Agh!” An upperclassmen Syreni almost tripped over me. “You Flhubber, get off the road.”

I frowned, not recognizing the word, but you know when you’re being insulted in any language. I gave him a one fingered salute and sent him on his way. Watching him hurry down the path, I absently scratched my forearm, where they’d applied the patch when I was aboard the shuttle, giving me the Universal Translator. Shouldn’t that have translated that boy’s insult into my language?

I brushed the dirt off my suit. “There’s probably not an exact word for it in English.”

I stopped my cleaning, springing to my feet with a sudden revelation. Maybe a mind puzzle was the closest translation of the word in my language that Kai had. Maybe he’d given me the key to unraveling the clue, but I just didn’t understand it.

Mind...puzzle.

A puzzle for your mind.

Eyes widening, I ran all the way back to apartment five on unsteady legs. Kavi and Mr. and Mrs. Happy were already gone, because I was on the cusp of being late. I grabbed my stuff from under the bed and booked it to the science building on the west side of campus. I had to plow down a few people in my way, but managed to rush into the room just as the clock struck the hour mark.

Professor Iqbal looked up from his papers. He was wearing the same thin pants of yesterday, but had donned a jacket covered in a hundreds of patches and buttons. “Nice of you to join us, Miss Alkaev. Take your seat.”

Breathing heavily, I dropped my stuff at the foot of my stool next to Dru, who gave me a look that was three parts hubris and two part suspicion. He was holding the bottle--which was empty unless he’d sent off for a glassful of a gas creature.

I snatched it from his hands. For someone so athletic, you’d think he’d be better at the simple game of keepaway. Maybe it was an Tundrian thing. My lips twitched when I thought of asking if all of his people gave up so easily.

Professor Iqbal instructed us to bring our bottle to him one group at a time. An eager human girl surged to her feet, her partner following reluctantly after. I couldn’t get a good look at the contents of her bottle until she slammed it down triumphantly on Iqbal’s desk.

It was a tentacle, a moving tentacle. The thing was a deep purple color with a million different suction cups all over. It writhed in it’s confines, trying to escape.

Iqbal looked down his snout at it. “Oh, dear....”

Suffice to say that chopping off one of a creature’s limbs--no matter how many they have--is rarely the answer to an educational question. Iqbal kept the tentacle, though he kept glancing at it with abject horror as more students came up to give him empty bottles.

A few kids brought