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to be sick. The hell with you.
    Sten, puking to the side, had to fight to follow the instructions whispered at him.
    "This is a twenty-meter boat. It is used to procure fish commercially. You are the captain.
    "This boat has been returning to harbor, running just ahead of a storm.
    "The storm has caught your boat.
    "Somewhere ahead of you is the harbor. You must enter that harbor safely to complete the exercise.
    "Your radar will show you the harbor mouth. But it is a failure-prone installation.
    "You also know that the entrance to this harbor crosses what is called a bar—a shallowing of depth. During storm times, this bar can prevent any ship entering the harbor.
    "Good luck."
    Sten had become experienced enough with the testing to instantly look at his radar screen. Ah-hah. There… somewhat to the right… so I must direct this craft… and, just as implicitly promised, the radar set hazed green.
    Sten evaluated the situation—the illusion he was experiencing through the helmet. Unlike the Shavala-experience, in these tests any action Sten took would be "real." If, for instance, he steered the ship onto the rocks, he would experience a wreck and, probably, since Selection people were sadistic, slow drowning.
    Simple solution. Easy, Sten thought.
    All I have to do is hit the antigrav, and this boat will—
    Wrong. There were only three controls in front of Sten: a large, spoked steering wheel and two handles.
    This was a two-dimensional boat.
    There were gauges, which Sten ignored. They were probably intended to show engine performance, and Sten, having no idea what kind of power train he was using, figured they were, at least at the moment, irrelevant.
    Another wave came in, and the ship pitched sideways. Sten, looking at his choices, threw the right handle all the way forward, the left handle all the way back, and turned the wheel hard to the right.
    The pitching subsided.
    Sten equalized the two handles—I must have two engines, I guess—and held the wheel at midpoint.
    Ahead of him the storm cleared, and Sten could see high rocks with surf booming over them. There was a slight break to the left—the harbor entrance.
    Sten steered for it.
    The rocks grew closer, and crosscurrents tried to spin Sten's boat.
    Sten sawed at throttles and wheel.
    Very good. He was lined up.
    The rain stopped, and Sten saw, bare meters in front of him, the glisten of earth as a wave washed back. Clotting bastards—that's what a bar was!
    He reversed engines.
    A series of waves swept his boat over the stern. Sten ignored them.
    He got the idea.
    When a wave hits the bar, the water gets deep. All I need to do is wait for a big wave, checking through the rear bridge windows, and then go to full power. Use the wave's force to get into the harbor.
    It worked like a shot. The huge wave Sten chose heaved the boat clear, into the harbor mouth.
    Sten, triumphant, forgot to allow for side currents, and his boat smashed into the causeway rocks.
    Just as anticipated, not only did his boat sink, Sten had the personal experience of drowning.
    Slowly.
    GRADE: PASSING.

    By now, Sten had learned the names of his fellow candidates.
    The hard sergeant, who Sten had figured would be thrown out immediately, had managed to survive. Survive, hell—so far he and Victoria had interchanged positions as Number One and Number Two in the class standings. A specialist in ancient history would not have been surprised, knowing the man's name—William Bishop the Forty-third.
    Sten, not knowing, was astonished, as were the other candidates, who had dubbed the sergeant "Grunt," a nickname he accepted cheerfully.
    The furry would-be beer aficionado, whose name was Lotor, was a valued asset. He was the class clown.
    Since normal military relief valves such as drunkenness, passes, and such were forbidden, the candidates tended to get very crazy in the barracks. Lotor had started the water-sack war.
    Sten had been the first victim.
    There had been an innocent knock on his