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StratoCast drifted down the hallway, a strange kind of music for any adult in the archaeology department to play.
    It seemed to be coming from one of the faculty offices, specifically Dr. Holcombe's office.
    Julia found the Regents professor staring at a 2D screen, which depicted a forested landscape. But this was not an Earth forest. The trees were much, much taller, and the sky was a brilliant, luxurious green, filled with floating chlorophyll clouds. The music was synthetic, minimalistic, and energetic-not at all the kind of music a man of Holcombe's years normally listened to.
    Dr. Holcombe turned in his chair, lowering the audio. "Hello, jailbird. I see they didn't keep you long. So how did it go?"
    "Fine, I guess," she said. "They decided that we didn't look like saboteurs so they let us go."
    "You kids should really give them something to worry about. Stage a student riot. Take over the administration building. Have a panty raid. They deserve to have their gray feathers ruffled."
    Julia could hardly believe what she was hearing. Was this the way the man grieved? He seemed more angry than sad.
    "Is that a StratoCast you're watching?" Julia asked.
    Holcombe nodded. "It's one my clone-son had made about three years ago."
    "What group was he in? Anybody famous?"
    Holcombe leaned back in his chair. "Well, I don't know how famous he was, but he sure made a hell of a lot of money. More money than I'll ever see working on this boat. He was a BronzeAngel. I guess they were one of the best."
    Julia had heard of the BronzeAngels. They were a "sky-runner" group who recorded their feelings while skimming treetops and racing down small canyons on antigravity shoes. The technostrobic music that accompanied their emotional highs was implanted on data tiles and the tiles sold in the millions, as did the technology that came with them. StratoCast tiaras amplified the theta waves underneath the music, which, in turn, magnified the feelings the StratoCaster imprinted onto the tile. StratoCasts were particularly popular for people on lonely outposts or on faraway planets for whom a bit of escapism was essential.
    Julia was impressed that Professor Holcombe had a StratoCaster in his family.
    "This was done on Lehi," Holcombe said, indicating the 2D screen. "Lehi's the southernmost continent on Tau Ceti 4. I camped in that very forest with my father and my brothers."
    He said nothing for a moment. He then switched off the 2D. "So what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out on a hot date or what?"
    "My bear died," she said in a low voice. "I put him in one of our storage chambers until I can give him a decent burial."
    Professor Holcombe sat forward. "Your bear died? How?"
    "I don't know," Julia said. "A student found him lying before his door in Babbitt Hall."
    "I'm so sorry to hear this, Julia."
    "Actually, Ben said that one of the Avatkas found him."
    "Ben? Who's Ben?"
    Julia brightened. "Ben Bennett. He's a lecturer in the physics department. He teaches two courses in Van Flandern physics. I just met him."
    "Ah," said the professor, and ran a hand through his shock of white hair. "Well, this month will probably go down in the record books. All sorts of people dying. And bears."
    "What are we going to do about the hole in the lecture hall's floor?" Julia then asked.
    "I've been thinking about that. The only people using that hall this semester are Chad Rutledge and Raymonda Moore. We'll shuffle them around to other rooms until we can repair the damage. We're lucky this happened on a Friday. We've got the whole weekend to make repairs."
    "You're not going to cancel classes?"
    "I don't think so," he said. "They might down in physics, where the damage was, but-"
     
    A sudden fist of nausea bit Julia in the stomach and Professor Holcombe suddenly lurched forward in his chair.
    "Oh!" she said, gasping in pain. It was as if a hand had bunched her intestines and suddenly twisted them. Hard.
    It seemed as if something had struck the ship like a