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that for some of the offworlders standing at attention in half-gravity must be agony, and someone finally buckled, leaning forward with a low moan. Justin shot a quick glance down the corridor as Brian closed in on the offender. It was Alice McKay, a cadet from one of the orbital colonies, and Seay launched into her so that she was in tears. Justin looked past her and finally saw the girl who had caused him so much troubled thought, Tanya Leonov . She was standing next to Alice, her eyes straight ahead.
    "And if you can't take it, plebe, ship out now!" Seay shouted, and Alice finally straightened back up. "That'll be double watch tonight, four hours straight, midnight to four, do you read me?"
    "Yes, sir!" and Justin felt a wave of pity. She'd get less than two hours sleep tonight before having to fall out for the first day of classes. A bad first day could set her up for the whole semester.
    "All right, you ship's rats. One hour till chow.
    Make sure your rooms are shipshape or Weak Knees here will have company on watch. Fall out!"
    Brian swept down the corridor; everyone was silent until he finally turned the corner and disappeared.
    "Boy, he's even worse than this summer," Matt groaned, leaning forward and letting his knees bend. "And I thought he was gonna be OK."
    "Never trust an upper."
    Justin turned and looked at his new roommate and nodded in half-agreement.
    "Well, lets get squared away," Matt suggested as he opened the door and led the way into their room. Justin stepped in and looked around. It was slightly bigger than the room he had shared with Matt and Pradeep during the summer, with two double bunks lining one wall, four desks and the holo field on a second, and the closets occupying the third. Justin and Matt had already flipped for who got top or lower Matt won, a decided plus for him since lower bunks tended to get sat upon by visitors.
    "Hey, Uncle, what's been happening?" Matt asked as he headed for his bunk and started to unfold his linens to make his bed. The holo computer field on the opposite wall lit up.
    "Cadet Everett, good to see you back," Uncle replied. "And I see Cadets Singh, Bell, and Colson as well."
    Justin looked over at his new roommate as the computer announced who he was. Colson nodded. There was something familiar about the name but he couldn't quite place it.
    "Now as to your question, Matt, about what is happening? If you are referring to the overall state of the universe, there have been two supernovas sighted in Andromeda. Within our own Milky Way, a most curious change of pulse rate in a quasar was reported yesterday. Within our solar system"
    "Relax, Uncle," Matt chortled, "I mean, just with you. You know, the old human greeting, 'what's new'? "
    "Ah, with me. It's been decidedly boring with nearly everyone gone until this morning. My human support team installed ten thousand tril new holo cubes into my deep-core memory while you were away. Wonderful feeling, sort of like stretching and finding more room. I also received an upload of 19th-century photographs, several hundred thousand of them. Fascinating, you humans back in your primitive days. I even uploaded a new archive of early movies from your 1930s and 40s I love Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. That's about all. I take it you enjoyed your trip to Earth?"
    Matt launched into a description of his experiences and Justin, smiling, half-listened to the embellishments surrounding their canoe trip down Sugar Creek, the visit to the Purdue Campus, and walks through Indiana cornfields.
    "Sounds like you really liked Earth," Colson suddenly interrupted.
    "Yeah, never been there before," Matt replied. "Kind of strange to have a steady gravity, and a bit of a closed-in feeling. But I loved the smells in the air, especially when we had a barbecue, and the sound of the birds singing the hour before dawn. And dawn I never imagined such colors, the oranges and reds streaking the sky. The thun-derstorms and the rainbow afterwards, it was