Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(73)

“They might guess where we’d gone.”

“They’ll send men, not children,” said Monkey. “And I’m not the only Ink or Belter who can move quickly through claustrophobic spaces, even if the gravity is switched off.”

“If we could do that,” said Dabeet, “then the children of Fleet School would have a huge advantage over dirtsiders.”

“Except you, of course,” said Monkey cheerfully.

“I don’t think I’ll be much use in any kind of battle,” said Dabeet. Admitting it out loud was painful but it could not be denied. “Unless it comes down to making new walls and structures in a battleroom, and Zhang He is now the master of that.”

“Not really,” said Monkey. “Everyone knows that you were best at it, the one who could envision new structures and their uses in battle. But Zhang He won their hearts as well as their respect. If only you were likable.”

If only. But Dabeet answered, “We don’t know how the battle will work out, if there’s a battle at all. But your plan is a good one, if opportunity presents itself, so everyone should know about it, in case you aren’t where it’s needed.”

For about the fifteenth time, Monkey stopped moving farther along the corridor and turned around to face Dabeet, looking around him and over him as if she were wishing for someone more interesting to talk to.

“Why do you keep doing that?” asked Dabeet. “Can’t you concentrate on exploring this place?”

“That’s what I’m doing,” said Monkey.

“I mean that dancing around and facing every which way,” said Dabeet.

She shook her head. “Turn around and look back,” she said.

She moved past him and pointed back the way they had come. Because of the curve of the station, the floor rose up like a hill, so that only the first two alcoves were visible. “Do you know how far we’ve come?”

“Well, a lot farther than I can see,” he said.

“This is the fourteenth doorway, just behind us.”

“You’ve been counting?”

“Counting is unreliable,” she said. “Too easy to lose concentration. All numbers sound right and familiar, by the time you’re our age. We’ve counted them all so many times. Look at the bottom shelf.”

Dabeet looked. “What am I supposed to see?”

“Who cares what you’re supposed to see,” said Monkey. “This isn’t a test made up by some teacher. What do you see?”

“Plastic bottles on all the shelves.”

Monkey looked at his face. Waiting.

“I still see plastic bottles. And again, plastic bottles. Nothing’s changing, Cynthia Munk. What am I missing?”

She just smiled benignly.

“You say you’re not a teacher, but you’re acting like one.”

“I didn’t say that I wasn’t teaching you, only that I hadn’t made up a test for you. I marked our path and kept the count. It’s plainly visible. I’ve given you the answer now, so look and see.”

Dabeet saw that on the bottom shelf in the nearest alcove, the second bottle on the outside edge of the shelf was a little bit pushed in, away from the edge. No more than a centimeter’s difference. Then he looked at the farther alcove, and it was the front bottle that had been pushed in. “Your dancing involved pushing in the bottles. Did you just alternate the front and back ones?”

“And the second shelf up, the third shelf up. That gives me six places to mark. Every sixth place, when I push in the second bottle on the third shelf, I also push in a lower bottle. You can’t see those because the sixth and twelfth alcoves aren’t visible from here, but no matter which one I come to, I can see which group of six I’m at, and which member of that group of six, counting from our starting point.”

Dabeet knew then that her dancing around had never been pointless or exuberant. Except it had been exuberant, which made him wonder if she had been mocking him, marking their trail like this without telling him, while making herself look silly and flighty in order to conceal what she was doing.

“So all the dancing was to keep me from noticing?”

“You kept you from noticing,” she said. “My movements were all visible. But you thought you knew that they were meaningless, so you got annoyed instead of catching on.”

“So you weren’t testing me. You were making sure I failed the test.”

“Was I?” she asked. “What an ugly world you live in, filled with enemies.” She waved back at the marked alcoves. “Why do you think I pushed them in so slightly. I was trying for about a centimeter.”

“So that if some custodian comes along here, he won’t feel obliged to straighten the shelves.”

“Custodians might straighten them anyway—you can’t expect these to last forever—but yes, that’s right. See? I’m not trying to make you fail, I’m trying to help you see how you keep track of a long series of identical locations. So we’re coming up on the next one. You code it.”

Dabeet started moving farther along the corridor. “The next one will be second shelf, front bottle, in a centimeter.”

“Maybe,” said Monkey.

“Come on,” said Dabeet, growing impatient and embarrassed. “Why can’t you just answer me?”