adventures

questions that she couldn't answer. He'd even, according to the computer records that Bernice
had hacked into by chance one day, read some of her articles.
Goodness, this was an ugly boy. Ugly ugly ugly. Get-somebody-thrown-out-of-St-Oscar's-University
ugly.
Bernice forced her face into a frown, and made a humphing noise. She was pleased by the way
Doran jumped. 'Yes?' she queried testily, marching into the room. 'What do you want at this time
in the morning?' She plucked a book from the shelf, as if that was what she'd come in to do, and
found that it was her own. Bernice studied it anyway, and then, with the precision of a preemptive
nuclear strike, glanced up at the student over her glasses. 'Speak.'
'I . . . the Porter asked me here. It . . . I . . . I'm . . .'
'Oh!' Bernice cut in a moment into his blush. 'You're Michael Doran, aren't you?'
'Yes, Professor Summerfield.'
'Thought I recognized you. I wanted to lend you a book.'
'Couldn't you have done that at the tutorial?'
'What? Oh, no no no no no!' Bernice randomly plucked another book from the shelf, flapping
her arms to try to appear even more wilfully eccentric and hide her own fluster. 'Too many books
in the bag already, young man. I'd like you to study this in detail, and tell me what you think.'
She pressed the book into his hand.
He looked at the title page for a moment. 'Make Dangerous Love to Me – The Erotic Poetry of
Carla Tsampiras.'
Bernice bit her bottom lip. 'There are bits about archaeology.'
'Oh.' Doran nodded and smiled innocently. 'By the way, I think I saw your cat on the way over
here. He was up a tree, and –'
'Oh was he. I'd better go and rescue him see you at the tutorial.' The door slammed so loudly
behind her that it made Doran jump again.
Bernice whizzed down the red-brick incline that marked the edge of Goodyear College on her
bicycle, following the route that Doran must have taken to get to her rooms. The search for
Wolsey wasn't entirely motivated by a desire to get out of a nervy situation. Bernice and her
archaeology tutorial group left on an expedition to the planet Perfecton tomorrow, and if Wolsey
wasn't found by then, Bernice wondered if she could still go. The archaeological treasures of a
previously unexplored world were one thing – losing one's cat was another. But that fear was, as
yet, still at the back of her mind. The air tasted dark and spicy this morning, fresh with the smell
of wet leaves. It was good to feel the rain.
Jason had always loved this time of year.
He probably still did.
She scattered a group of students as the bicycle careered down into a courtyard. One Ootsoi
boy in a suit of red feathers dropped his books, and she stopped for a moment to help him pick
them up.
The campus was certainly crowded for the start of the new academic year. Professors who'd
been here longer than Bernice told her that, in the early years, there had been very few students.
It had taken the financial might of the corporate sponsors to lure academics to the place, to build
centres of excellence in half a dozen different disciplines. Again, that was down to the will of the
Sultan to protect his planet and its culture, inoculating his world with a small sample of the outside
to save it from the plague. Secure the mind, as Bernice's just-begun monograph about the
history of this place put it, and the rest will follow.
Nobody had seen a cat. They probably thought she was mad for using an antique vehicle, when
there were underground speed pavements, flyer pads, the carrier tunnels between the islands.
But Bernice's bicycle was old and sturdy, with a basket on the front, a big brass bell, and a little
gravitic motor to help with the hills. It got her out into the world, made her work her calves, made
her breathe a bit harder. She went on her way again.
The bad dream last night had been unusual. It wasn't one of the regular ones about missing
the last spaceship, dropping valuable vases over cliffs, not catching the elephant that had leapt
from the other trapeze. It was about being on stage. An audience was watching her, bored and
grumbling, as she tried to reach out to them with a dramatic piece. She knew that what she had