Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(36)

But Graff had set Dabeet to several tests, and now Dabeet was beginning to understand. Graff’s tests were really teaching assignments. “What qualities would make a good leader of an expedition, or a colony, or a scouting or reconnaissance mission?”

More telling had been the second part of that assignment: “Which of those qualities do you lack, making it meaningless to bring you into Fleet School?”

Long before arriving at Fleet School, Dabeet had understood that leading other people under dangerous conditions—facing unknown dangers, or building a colony in a hostile environment—required that the team members trust their leaders, that they trust each other to do the jobs they were assigned to do. This meant helping each other, doing good work for each other—Dabeet could figure these things out as a thought experiment, and his readings only made the answer clearer: I can’t work exclusively by myself and be of any use to the Ministry of Colonization or the IF’s program of exploration.

But knowing that he must be cooperative and actually finding ways to do it were two very different projects. He had years of habitual introversion and surliness to overcome. He had to become patient with abuse and not flare up at provocations.

And he quickly learned that even when he offered to help, his offers were often rebuffed. He had tried to figure it out: Everybody by now understands that in academic subjects, I’m better than anybody in my age group. (Age groups are absurd anyway, but no complaining.) Why, when I offer to help students who are hopelessly struggling, or who look puzzled, or who shake their heads in frustration after a teacher’s inept explanation, do they shrug me off, walk away, or stare me down until I stop offering?

Was it some conspiracy among them? Had they all agreed never to accept help from me?

Or is it something about me? Some manner I have that makes them take my offer wrong?

Now that Zhang He was letting Dabeet sit with him at lunch—no, to be exact, now that Zhang He was going to Dabeet’s formerly solitary lunch-table seat—Dabeet could actually ask the question that mattered most.

“I know they bring fresh ingredients up here,” said Zhang He. “But I think they freeze them all by storing them in bags in cold space, like the rubbish stashes.”

Dabeet chuckled—he could tell that Zhang He was joking and, just to make things easier, the image struck Dabeet as genuinely amusing. “I hope they never get confused about which bags are which.”

“I think what’s on our trays is proof that they already have,” said Zhang He.

Chuckle. Take a bite—no. Don’t take a bite. Ask the question instead. “Zhang, can I ask you something kind of personal?”

“Can’t promise to answer.”

“Not about you. About me.”

“I don’t know anything personal about you. Just your school bio,” said Zhang He.

“When I offer to help people. In their schoolwork, after class or in the library or even right there in the classroom. Nobody wants my help.”

“Oh, they want it, all right,” said Zhang He.

“They make it clear that they don’t,” said Dabeet, and then he did a pantomime of the normal response—the turning of the body, the raising of the shoulder nearest to Zhang.

“It’s not always easy to accept help,” said Zhang He.

“I know that better than anyone,” said Dabeet. “But I repel anyone who might offer to help me because I’m an arrogant oomay. These guys are all normal and they have, you know, friends.”

“But you aren’t one of their friends,” said Zhang He.

Dabeet could see that Zhang He was being evasive. “I can’t get better if you don’t tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

“I’m here to help you on your wall extrusions,” said Zhang He. “I’m not here to fix you.”

“I intend to fix myself. But I can’t even start till I know what parts are broken.”

“Nothing’s broken,” said Zhang He. “You really are smarter than everybody. We’ve all seen you in class. You don’t just read ahead, it’s like you see the whole picture and understand the subject better than the teacher. You’re doing great.”

“Wrong answer,” said Dabeet. “What is it you’re not saying?”

Zhang He closed his eyes. “Look, it’s the way you say things.”

“Yes, please, what’s wrong with it?”

“Like when you said ‘wrong answer’ just now,” said Zhang. “We’re friends, right? You don’t hate me. Yet you said ‘wrong answer’ as if you had just found me like pus coming out of a sore.”

Dabeet made another try. “Wrong answer,” he said, much more mildly. And then, almost affectionately, “Wrong answer.”

“Dabeet,” said Zhang, trying not to laugh, it seemed. “The problem is that there’s no way to use the words ‘wrong answer’ and not make them sound like ‘you dull bob.’”

“I was asking you to help me communicate better, to find out why nobody accepts my offers of help. And you went off on how smart I was, like I was some moose who needed to be placated.”

“Oh, I know that’s what happened,” said Zhang He. “And then you said, ‘wrong answer’ and proved exactly why I was right to try to placate you.”