Terra Incognita

by Connie Willis

  “Forward three frames and hold,” I say, and she flashes me a delighted, an infinitely promising, smile.

  “Forward realtime,” I say, and there is Alis, as she should be, dancing in the movies.

  THE END

  ROLL CREDITS

  I was at school, studying for my UCLA entrance exam and talking to Kimkim, when my phone rang.

  One of Ms. Sionov’s many obnoxious rules is absolute silence in the media center. “Theodora,” she said, glaring at me. “You know the rules. No phones. Hand it over.”

  “I turned my phone off and put it in my compack when I came in,” I told Ms. Sionov as I looked in another compartment.

  “Then why is it ringing? You had your phone on and were messaging Kimkim, weren’t you?”

  “No,” I said, which was technically true. I wasn’t messaging her, I was talking to her. And the phone I was talking to her on wasn’t the phone that was ringing. It’s ridiculous not to let us message each other in the media center, and Kimkim’s a computer genius, so she rigged up a subliminal-sound flatphone that goes on my wrist so I can talk to her and have it look like all I’m doing is leaning on my hand, thinking about something. “Honestly, it isn’t on,” I said.

  “I’ll bet,” Ms. Sionov said, holding out her hand for the phone. “Where is your partner in crime today?”

  “Interview at CU,” I said, still searching. “It must be a school-wide override.”

  “Then why isn’t everyone else’s phone ringing?”

  Which was a good point. I dug some more and finally found the phone. “See,” I said, showing her the dark screen. “I told you it was off.” I hit “display,” and the words “Assembly 1 P.M. Mandatory Attendance” came up.

  “I told you it was an override,” I said.

  Ms. Sionov grabbed the phone away from me to look, and right then Fletcher Davis’s phone began to ring and then Ahmed Fitzwilliam’s. And Ms. Sionov’s.

  She handed me my phone and ran to turn hers off. While she was gone, I forwarded Kimkim the message. “What’s up?” I added, gathering up my stuff and starting for the auditorium.

  “No idea,” she messaged back. “Mine just rang, too. Do you think the snowboard team finally won a match?”

  “That wouldn’t be Mandatory Attendance.” Our principal, Mr. Fuyijama, loves calling assemblies, to announce fire drill evacuation routes or the revised lunch schedule or the junior varsity sudoku team’s taking second place at State—but those are all Optional Attendance. Assemblies to announce university acceptances and scholarships are Mandatory Attendance, but it couldn’t be that. We were still in the middle of entrance-exam-and-interview season. Which was why Kimkim wasn’t here.

  “Can you make it back by one?” I messaged her.

  “Just barely,” she answered. “Save me a seat.”

  I maneuvered my way down the crowded hall, where everybody was asking everybody else if they knew what the assembly was about. Nobody seemed to know. “I hope it isn’t the ‘responsible behavior’ talk,” I heard Sharlanne say.

  “Oh, frick,” I messaged Kimkim. “Please don’t let it be one of Mr. Fuyijama’s speeches.”

  “I’ll find out if it is,” Kimkim messaged back. As I said, Kimkim’s a computer genius. She can hack into anything, including the Euro-American Union Department of Defense. And Mr. Fuyijama’s daily planner.

  “Thanks,” I said, starting toward the girls’ bathroom so I could hide out in one of the stalls if it turned out to be one of his very long speeches, but before I could cross the hall, Coriander Abrams came careening down the hall, clutching her phone and squealing, “Ohmigod! Ohmigod! A Mandatory Attendance Assembly! Theodora, do you know what that means?” She grabbed my arm and dragged me into the auditorium, squealing all the way. “This could be it! Do you think I have a chance? Tell me, honestly, do you? Isn’t this absolutely incred?”

  When she finally let go of me (her friend Chelsea had come up and was hugging her and shrieking, “I know it’s you! Ohmigod, a cadet! You are so lucky!” and she had to let go of me so the two of them could dance around), I messaged Kimkim, “Never mind. I know what it is.”

  * * *

  —

  I should have guessed. I mean, the Academy’s all anyone’s talked about since the IASA recruiter was here last September to give her little pep talk. As if anybody at Winfrey High needed a pep talk. Three fourths of them had already applied, and the other fourth would have if they’d thought they could pass the entrance exams. I don’t know why they even bother sending a recruiter.

  It was one of the many annoying aspects of having to go to school. I had wanted to do remote learning like everybody else, but my mom was a nostalgia freak, and she had somehow talked my dad into it.

  “I thought you said you wanted me to be independent and not go along with the crowd,” I’d said to him.

  “I do. And what better place to do that than in a crowd?” he’d said, and told me a long and pointless story about the time he’d set off a stink bomb in the lunchroom.

  So for the last three years, I’ve had to put up with Ms. Sionov’s ridiculous phone rules, locker combinations, school lunches, Mandatory Attendance assemblies, and everybody drooling to get into the Academy.

  It’s almost impossible to do—they only take three hundred candidates a year, and less than half of them are from the Euro-American Union, so there’s fierce competition. Candidates have got to score astronomically high (how appropriate!) on the Academy’s entrance exams, have to have taken tons of math and science classes, be in perfect physical condition, and pass four separate levels of psychological tests and interviews.

  But even that’s not enough. With over fifty thousand eager applicants to choose from, IASA uses all sorts of strange algorithms and extra criteria to make its picks, and nobody knows exactly what they are. The recruiter who’d come to our school had said meaningless things like “Cadets must demonstrate dedication, determination, and devotion” and “We’re looking not for excellence, but for the exceptional,” and when Coriander asked her, “What can I do to improve my chances of being chosen?” she’d replied, “The Academy wants not only the crème de la crème, but the cream of the crème de la crème.”

  “I’d suggest you learn to milk a cow,” I’d told Coriander.

  “Oh, shut up,” she’d said. “You’re just jealous because I’ve passed the first three levels of the application process.”

  Some years it seems the Academy selects mostly kids who’ve taken astrophysics and exobiology (even though we haven’t found any life anywhere out there that’s bigger than a virus), and other years ethics. Or Renaissance history. Five years ago, there’d been a study that seemed to indicate students in schools had a statistical edge over home- and remote-schooled kids, which meant everyone going to Winfrey High except me was there because they thought it would increase their chances of getting an appointment.

  And, apparently, for one person, it had.

  My bet was that it was Coriander. She’d taken Renaissance history and ethics and exobiology and everything else she could think of, had gone out for sports, forensics, and community service with a vengeance, and had so completely monopolized the questioning of the recruiter that I’d finally raised my hand just to shut her up for a minute.

  “Yes, you have a question, Ms.—?” the recruiter asked me, smiling. She was one of those perky PR types IASA sends out.

  “Baumgarten,” I said. “Theodora Baumgarten. Can you explain to me why anybody in their right mind would want to go to the Academy? I mean, I know it’s so you can become an astronaut and go into space, but why would anybody want to? There’s no air, you’re squashed into a ship the size of a juice can, and it takes years to get anywhere interesting. If you get there and aren’t killed first by a meteor or a solar flare or a systems malfunction.”

  The entire student body had t
urned and was staring uncomprehendingly at me as if I was speaking ancient Sumerian or something. The recruiter gave me a cold, measuring glance, and then turned and said something to Mr. Fuyijama.

  “You’re gonna get detention,” Fletcher said.

  “Any other questions?” the recruiter said, pointedly avoiding looking in my direction.

  “Yes,” Coriander said. “How many space engineering classes do I need to take?”

  “I hope you weren’t planning to apply to the Academy,” Kimkim said as we left the auditorium, “because I think you just blew whatever chance you had.”

  “Good,” I said. “I have no desire to leave terra firma.”

  “Really? You have no desire to go to the Academy at all?”

  “No,” I said. “Do you?”

  “Of course,” Kimkim said. “I mean, Mars and the rings of Saturn and all that. And getting to be a cadet. I’d love to go, but I don’t have the math grades.”

  At that point, Coriander had stormed up and snarled, “You’d better not have ruined my chances with that little stunt,” and apparently I hadn’t. As we went into the auditorium now, Mr. Fuyijama beamed at her proudly from the stage.

  Whoever was announcing the appointment apparently wasn’t there yet. I looked for a seat way in the back in case it was the recruiter, waiting to see where Coriander and her cadre of screeching friends sat before I sat down as far away from them as possible. I stuck my compack next to me to save the seat for Kimkim, who still wasn’t here. She’d messaged confirmation that the assembly was indeed to announce the appointment of a cadet. “At least we won’t have to listen to a speech,” she said.

  I wasn’t so sure of that. Mr. Fuyijama was on the stage at the podium, messing with the holopoint controls and saying, “Is this on?” into the microphone. Chelsea Goodrum sat down one row in front of me, squealing into her phone.

  “You know it’s going to be you, Coriander! Where are you sitting?” she demanded. Apparently Coriander told her because she began to wave wildly. “Come over here!” she said. “No, there are plenty of seats!”

  Oh, frick, I thought, and stood up, but the auditorium was almost full, I couldn’t see two other seats together anywhere except next to Chelsea, and it was too late. Mr. Fuyijama was saying, “Take your seats, students!”

  I sat down, hoping Coriander hadn’t had time to move either, but no, here she came with four of her shrieking friends. “This is the most incred thing ever!” Chelsea screamed, hugging her. “You’re going to be a cadet!”

  “Take your seats,” Mr. Fuyijama said again, “and please turn your phones off,” a totally unnecessary order since all wireless bands were automatically jammed at the beginning of every assembly.

  “It’s starting,” I messaged Kimkim. “Where are you?”

  “Denver. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Today we’re here to celebrate a tremendous honor,” Mr. Fuyijama said, “the appointment of a student to the International Space Academy. Winfrey High is extremely proud to have had one of its students chosen for this honor, one of many honors we have had over the years,” and proceeded to name every single one of them. It should have sent everyone to sleep, but the whole auditorium listened intently, except for Coriander’s friends, who were squeezing her arms and whispering excitedly.

  “Did I miss anything?” Kimkim messaged me seven hundred and twenty-two honors later.

  “No,” I sent back. “Did you know Winfrey High has won the Regional Koi-Growing Contest six years running? Where are you?”

  “Over by the west door. I can’t get to you.”

  “It’s just as well,” I sent, and told her about Coriander, who was now emitting little whimpers. “At least if you’re by the door, you might be able to escape.”

  Unlike the rest of us. Mr. Fuyijama droned on for several more geological ages and then said, “But none of those honors come close to the one we’re here to bestow today. I’d like to welcome Admiral H. V. Washington, deputy chief of staff of the Space Administration.”

  There was thunderous applause. “Ohmigod, they sent an admiral!” Coriander squealed.

  The admiral came over to the podium. “Every year IASA appoints candidates from all over the American-European Union to the Academy. These students have had to undergo a rigorous four-tiered application-and-interview process and have had to demonstrate the qualities of—”

  Oh, no, not you, too, I thought. “Why don’t they just give it to Coriander and put the rest of us out of our misery?” I messaged Kimkim. “Everyone knows it’s her.”

  “Not everyone,” she messaged back. “Nearly half the money’s on Matt Sung.”

  “What do you mean, nearly half the money? Is there a pool?”

  “ ‘Betting pools are strictly forbidden at Winfrey High School,’ ” she quoted. “Of course there’s a pool. Do you want to place a last-minute bet?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Who else is in the running besides Coriander and Matt? Tomas Rivera?”

  “No, he didn’t pass the second-level interview.”

  “You’re kidding.” I’d thought Tomas was a shoo-in. He had great grades, great SATs. He’d taken nationals in gymnastics.

  “Our cadets, in other words,” the admiral was saying, “are not just the best of the best, but the very best of the best of the best.”

  “Some of the sophomores are voting for Renny Nickson,” Kimkim messaged.

  “Renny? I thought he wanted a Rhodes.”

  “Not if he can get an Academy appointment instead. Nobody would turn down a chance to be a cadet. That’s why the Academy announces its picks before the universities do.”

  “And today’s appointment exemplifies that excellence,” the admiral said.

  It sounded like he was winding up. If I wanted in the pool, I’d better do it now. “Put me down for Matt,” I said, and then glanced at Coriander. She was squeezing the hands of her friends on either side of her and biting her lip. And if sheer wanting to be a cadet was part of the criteria, she’d win it hands down. She’d been trying to get in ever since first grade. And hadn’t that recruiter said something about determination and devotion? “Wait,” I said. “Change my pick to Coriander.”

  “It gives me great pleasure to announce—”

  Coriander’s eyes were shut tight and she was murmuring, “Please, please, please…” and squeezing the color out of her friends’ hands.

  “—an appointment to the International Space Academy for—” He paused and looked straight at Coriander.

  “I told you it was Coriander,” I typed. “Actually, this is a good thing. It means we won’t have to put up with her any—”

  “Theodora Baumgarten,” the admiral said.

  * * *

  —

  There was stunned silence, during which I had time to think, I must have heard that wrong, and then, Very funny, and to look around to see who was behind this particular stink bomb.

  Coriander shouted, “Theodora Baumgarten?” and I knew he’d really said it.

  “Wait,” I said, and the auditorium erupted in excited applause.

  Fletcher grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down. “Wow!” he shouted over the clapping. “Congratulations!”

  “But—” I tried to look at my phone.

  “Oh, creez! Congratulations!” Kimkim’s message read. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d applied?”

  “I didn’t,” I murmured, and tried to pull my hand free so I could message her, but Chelsea grabbed it, squeezed it, and then pushed me to the end of the row. “Go on! Get down there! What are you waiting for?”

  I looked down at the stage. The admiral was smiling up at me from the stage and applauding, and Mr. Fuyijama was beaming and beckoning to me.

  “There’s been some mistake,” I said, but no one was listening. They were patting and h
ugging me and shoving me down the steps toward the stage. “Can I touch you?” Marla Chang said in an awestruck voice, and Ms. Sionov grabbed me and kissed me. “You’ve always been my favorite student!” she cried.

  “No, Ms. Sionov, you don’t understand,” I said, and then I was on the stage and Mr. Fuyijama was pumping my hand.

  “Mr. Fuyijama, there’s been a mistake—”

  “I can’t tell you how proud Winfrey High is of you!” he beamed, and pushed me at the admiral, who saluted and handed me a certificate.

  I read it, hoping he’d just read the name wrong, but there it was in official-looking print, “Theodora Jane Baumgarten.” This can’t be happening to me, I thought. “This isn’t mine,” I said and tried to hand the appointment back to him.

  “You’re supposed to salute back and say, ‘Cadet Baumgarten reporting for duty,’ ” Mr. Fuyijama whispered.

  “But I’m not—” I said. “Admiral, I didn’t apply for the Academy—” and everybody must have thought I was saying, “Cadet Baumgarten reporting for duty,” because they started to applaud again. The admiral shook my hand and gave me an envelope.

  “There’s been a mistake. This isn’t my—” I said, but Mr. Fuyijama was shaking my hand again and a swarm of students took the opportunity to close in around the admiral and begin bombarding him with questions.

  “Mr. Fuyijama, I have to talk to you,” I said. “This is all a mistake—”

  “It certainly is,” Coriander said, storming up. “Theodora can’t have gotten an appointment. She didn’t even take deep-field astronomy.”

  Mr. Fuyijama was looking at her like she was a bug, which would have been enjoyable if I hadn’t been in so much trouble. “The Academy chooses for all sorts of skills,” he said.

  “But she can’t have gotten the appointment over me,” Coriander said. “She’s not cadet material.”