The student problem 3

 Sorry about that, guys, I slept like the dead when I finally got up and caught up on the last few bad nights. 

Chapter 3

 

At the appointed time I unlocked the door to my study and said via the intercom, "You may enter." to the five pupils I had seen in the door-cam feed. The girls were almost dressed as clones of each other, and they all sported that ridiculous monoringlet hair style, though with colours even more of an offence to the eye than yesterday. They had been grumbling among themselves and their body language varied between worried through bored to angry. Miss Bronteen was sneering, Miss Faruu had a neutral expression, Miss Aadniraa seemed to be smelling something unpleasant, while Miss Ondarool looked at the others hoping for support and expecting ridicule. The expression on the boy, Mr. Dretanaar reminded me unpleasantly of an army officer I'd once come across; a vicious martinet and incompetent into the bargain. He was killed early in the operation; shot in the head. Ours or theirs? With a laser bolt it's a little hard to tell.

 On entering, they all automatically looked around for chairs. They were all doomed to disappointment; I had the service bot remove them.

"I would prefer that you remain standing." I informed them, "In fact, I insist that you remain standing. You are not here for a cosy chat about how well you are doing, quite the reverse. You are here to explain the … documents … that you each handed in. It is clear that you worked as a group. That is not a criticism, as I gave you explicit permission to do so. I wish to know, why you collectively thought, after having listened to my exposition, that the facts the imperium wished to know, were purely those that impacted your comfort and prestige? Miss Bronteen, as I happened to mark your work first, you may give your reasons first."

Her mouth fell to half-mast in sincere mourning for the demise of her final brain-cell.

"But I don't understand," she wailed. "You told us to look out for signs that things were wrong. And those were the things I thought of that might be wrong."

I silently counted to ten … in several languages. Straining to keep my voice level, I replied, "Miss Bronteen, in what way would it avail the imperium to know the details pertaining only to the quality of care for your personal adornment?" She goggled at me.

"But I'm important," she whined, petulantly.

"Did it not occur to you that the condition and mood of the populace would be of more interest to the imperium than the creature comforts of a shimmerwing like you?" I said, referencing a pretty, but very short lived flying creature native to Wiłu.

"They're just peasants," she sneered, "who cares about them?"

"It may surprise you to know that the imperium cares very much for those you decry as mere peasants. The ship aboard which you travelled here; designed, built and maintained by ordinary subjects and citizens. The domed cities on airless worlds whose life support relies on such people. The goods that are traded between the worlds of the imperium and beyond, which provide the wealth you squander on fripperies, are made and transported by those you obviously despise. To say nothing of their tax payments, which provide for your protection via the military. Congratulations, you have just joined the ranks of the parasitic nobles that so disgusted Yin G’warz."

"Well, providing they are carrying out their function, why should I interest myself in them?" She seemed genuinely puzzled.

"It must be obvious that if the people aren't treated well, they will be less productive, which means less wealth and taxes for the imperium, and less income for you." I wondered if pointing out her self-interest might get her thinking. I had to try to impart some knowledge into the stupid girl.

"Well, if they don't work enough, punish them until they do." said Miss Bronteen, as though such a course was self-evident.

"Becoming a tyrannical ruler, deposed and executed for the capital crime of seriously annoying the imperium. You obviously didn't listen to a word I said." I countered.

Mr. Dretanaar, who hadn't ceased, since he arrived, chewing on a breath-u-like tab, exhaled in my face, with an odour of vagina-caramelle (tm) and an expression of total disinterest. He was moving his cud to his cheek, prior to speaking, when he was interrupted by Miss Faruu.

"I'm very sorry sir, but we thought we'd haze a new professor and took something Lisilli, uh Miss Bronteen said and just ran with it. I know it was childish, but we are children, really." Miss Faruu finished with an attempt at a winsome smile, which reached no further than her cheeks. Her gaze was intense and calculating. I found her about as winsome as a laser cannon.

“Well, Miss Faruu, perhaps you will explain to Miss Bronteen just what happened to Yin G’warz and also the consequence to his parents’ overlord,” I said.

“I... uh, well, he was pretty stupid, and tried to get the peasants to rise against the Imperium instead of choosing followers of our own class and showing them why the Imperium... of the time, of course,” she added, too hastily, I thought, “Needed overthrowing.  Naturally he failed, and died in prison for insurrection. Uh... I don’t know what happened to his parents or their overlord.”

“Close enough, I suppose,” I sighed. “His mistake was not so much in his choice of tool, but in his failure to realise that ‘his kind’ had other options, because of his belief that his parents were undertaking makework. He could have made reforms within the system, and a lot of lives would have been saved.  As to his parents, their patents of nobility were stripped from them; they had not joined his rebellion so were not, as such, placed under punitive measures. Their overlord, however, was found not to have correctly briefed any of his subordinate nobles, preferring not to have to deal with problems. He was not only stripped of his patents of nobility, but was held, under an ancient earth law called the Nishimura Precedent, where a general or noble who could have prevented war crimes or terrorism and who fails to do so by inaction, indolence or incompetence, is held to be responsible for the crimes of his underlings. He was sent to a penal battalion for life, with advanced healing techniques and anasenescent drugs to prolong his life to drive the message home.”

Miss Faruu gulped.                    

"Very well, you will all redo this assignment," I said, "and how well you complete it will determine if your new mark goes in your records or the present 'U' mark stands. Dismiss."

They all filed out, Miss Ondarool deferring to the others, letting them precede her. Poor child, she was rather chubby, with the puppy fat she hadn't yet lost and desperately seeking the validation of people who despised her. I wondered if she might give me insights into a group of young people who, frankly, I found rather disturbing.     

 

 

I went to see the Principal.

“I’m worried about Miss Brontine,” I said, bluntly. “I don’t think the girl is suited for higher education. She appears to have the intellect of the average fungus, and I’d need a laser mining drill to dig for original ideas.”

Mr. Shagaanuu steepled his fingers.

“I know she is not very capable,” he said, carefully. “It’s why she is doing a fashion course, and is being marked largely on her design, not any academic conclusions about what drives fashion. Your Citizenship course is compulsory, and one might expect a brighter student to use it to undertake analyses of fashion trends, but... I have to ask you to just give her an overall passing grade, and live with it.”

“Give her a passing grade and live with it?” I exploded. “And what about the other students, whose hard work – apart from Mr. Ashanshiigaa whose work is lazy, sloppy, and careless – is devalued by having people like Miss Brontine given artificially enhanced marks?”

“Well, are any of your hard-working young people likely to fall to one mark over E?”

“Well, no, but....”

“But there are certain families, like Miss Brontine’s mother, and her aunt, Lady Faruu, and Mr. Ashanshiigaa’s father who... give grants. We would not have the orbital facility without such generosity....”

“In short, you are permitting them to bribe you to give their children degrees?”

“If you wish to put it that way, yes. And it’s not as if either Miss Brontine or Mr. Ashanshiigaa are likely to end up in important positions on the strength of their degree. For the sake of... well, for your own sake too. I... do not want to speak out of turn, but I cannot prove that your predecessor’s fatal accident was accidental.”

“And you cannot prove that it was not?”

“Everything points to an unfortunate combination of circumstances. But....”

“Well, if I have an unfortunate accident, the coincidence becomes rather larger, doesn’t it?” I said. Homicidal parents! That was the outside of enough, though another semester trying to teach the likes of Miss Brontine might bring being killed as a little light relief. I have never met anyone as stupid as that poor child; they got weeded out in the selection process before they ever came to me as recruits needing training. I felt out of my depth.

“If anything happened to you, I would feel justified in calling in sector investigators, which was not considered justified for Mr. Asaki,” said the Principal.

“Another Solcentric name; had you noticed the quite horrible level of racism on campus?” I asked.

“Yes, I have,” he said. “But I’m an engineer; I know nothing of psychology or how to handle such things.  Er... do you happen to know a Mr. Beecher?”

“I might,” I said. “What does he mean to you?”

“I wrote to him with my gut feeling that something is wrong here,” he said, bluntly.

That explained a lot.

“I’m his solution,” I said.

“That makes me easier in my mind,” he replied.

“But it doesn’t help me with Miss Brontine,” I said, plaintively. “I have always before taught students who have gone through an ability selection process. And I thought there was one here,” I added, accusingly.

“There is,” he said. “I... conclude that payment of one kind or another was made to another student to take Miss Brontine’s test for her. The dumpy child who runs around in that rather nasty clique, perhaps...”

He might be an engineer, but he didn’t miss a lot, I had to give him credit for that.

“She needs help, too,” I said.

“Well, you appear to have persuaded Miss Kerofin to think for herself, set her winning the girl over,” he suggested. “As to Miss Brontine... short of giving her a classroom assistant to do her thinking for her, who would soon be chased out by Miss Faruu, I have nothing to suggest. Treat her kindly but don’t expect much.”

And with that, I had to be content. But at least I knew one thing; the Principal was not a fool, and nor did he condone such attitudes, even if he was ineffectual against well-heeled nastiness.

 

 

Miss Ondarool had made a creditable job of re-doing the assignment and pulled herself up to a B. Miss Faruu had managed to cover the points I had made in class, and I gave her C+. Mr. Dretanaar had managed to turn in a piece of insolence sufficiently subtle in its contempt for the Imperium that I could not call him on it. Essentially,  he was saying that there was bound to be trouble, as the current administration mismanaged everything by permitting too much local autonomy. I smiled grimly, and wrote,

“Certainly local autonomy gives opportunities for the mismanagement of local authorities, but perhaps you should consider that, as the speed of communication is the speed of travel, the Imperium would have to shrink considerably in size for any administration bar one in which many decisions must be made locally to be feasible. Enforcing a monolithic law on the many differing conditions in the Imperium also is not practicable or desirable. Wasting air in a domed colony on an airless, or toxic world is a serious matter, but hardly so on a ‘garden’ world. On worlds which are short of liquid water, erecting the fountain in the college foyer would be seen as a criminal act, opening the precious liquid to evaporation – unless capture devices were also installed. You need to broaden your thought, and consider a larger picture. You are on the verge of adulthood, and need to start the process of critical thought which an adult needs. I cannot give you more than a D for this effort, as it is frankly puerile.”

That would make him madder than being taken to task for rebelling; but then, there is something inherently puerile in the discontent at the system of privileged young people.

The other girl appeared to have copied from Miss Faruu; and I gave her a C++ just to spite Faruu, which was childish of me, but I was sick of the brats.

Miss Brontine... well, poor girl, she had tried, adding that the necessities of life like beauty parlours needed to be provided, in a hidden sort of way, for the peasantry so they would work harder in order to afford the trappings of civilisation. Not that she knew the words ‘trappings of civilisation’; she put ‘so they can live decent lives and ape those of us who deserve decent lives.’

I gave her ‘E’ for effort.

 

oOoOo

 

I handed back the assignments to the class, and watched their faces as they took in the grades and notes. And as Mr. Ashanshiigaa had failed to do better, his angry look betrayed his expectation that using slightly different words to say exactly the same thing would be enough to fool the poor, stupid professor.

Miss Brontine’s group passed their papers round to compare notes, except Mr. Dretanaar who flushed dull red, and hid his, scowling. Miss Ondarool received a poisonous look from Miss Faruu; the poor kid was going to be made to suffer, and that meant perhaps I might get her to speak up.

It had ranked a B anyway; I had not marked it to make her be picked on.

On her side of the lecture hall, Miss Kerofin’s face was a study. The surprised pleasure which spread over her face was almost hurtful; had she expected me to trash her thoughts because I had spoken to her sharply once in class? Evidently. Well, she beamed at me, so perhaps she was less convinced that I was there to devour her and spit out her bones. She was wearing the marine pullover again, tied with a scarf woven in patterns of gold and blue, which stood out against marine mud-brown. Her waist was very slender. She had blue leggings this time, though, not those fancy and enticing boots. Just as well, they could not constitute suitable wear for a classroom situation, and did far too much to draw the eye up the legs. She was wearing marine-style boots instead, which were practical at least.

Not that it mattered what she thought, or what she wore, so long as it was not inappropriate. It was unimportant what a student thought about me.

“Well, now you have seen your marks, I would like to pick a few insightful comments which were made,” I said.  “You might wish to inscribe them on your returned assignments for future reference; both for the exam, and that big exam called ‘life’ which marks failing grades with more dire consequences than mere poor marks, Miss Brontine, am I going too fast for you?”

“Yes, Professor, I don’t understand. How can life give marks?”

“Well, Miss Brontine, you learned vacc suit drill before being permitted on the geostationary satellite wing of the college, correct?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said, unsure where this was going.

“And if you fail to remember that, and there is an emergency, you could die,” I said. “That would be a failing grade from life.”

“Oh!” she said.

Had she got it? I had no idea. But I had to try.

I went on, reading out the comments I had liked. Miss Kerofin looked pleased that I had picked some of her thoughts, and underlined those I had chosen; she also made a note of the thoughts of others.

Miss Brontine was plainly so far off the same page as everyone else that she was in a different library on a different planet. But I could not waste the time of the others for one child who should never have been sent to college in the first place.

 

“Pushing on, and having had to waste too much time over what should have been a simple exercise,” I said, “Let us consider the Imperium as a whole, and discuss why it can never be considered as a whole. An oxymoron, you say? Yes, and no.”

“I’m going to tell my father you called me an oxomoron,” said Miss Brontine.

“Miss Brontine, an oxymoron is not an epithet and one cannot call a person such,” I said. “It means a contradiction in terms. And it is a contradiction in terms, because although the Imperium has jurisdiction over its many worlds, it cannot, for reasons of local conditions, have full jurisdiction within those worlds.”

I repeated much of what I had said on Mr. Dretanaar’s study in contumely, and went on.

“Take Tallis, Condrat and Rovap. Worlds within a jump of each other, but so very different that their problems, and hence their laws, are wildly different. Condrat is a high-population manufacturing centre, with somewhat toxic atmosphere, leading to a domed and underground living situation, largely owing to its resources, which dictated its use for manufacture in the first place.  With space a premium, crimes against living space, and the usage of courtesy to others are a primary matter. Tallis, almost a garden world, but for a slight lack of water, is a contrast. The human settlers welcomed Babari to their world, to help herd the bisofflos which are their primary export in terms of hide; many of you have sat on seats upholstered in bisofflohide,” I added. “The population is sparse, and the main law is ‘keep away from the yearly migrations or you will be trampled.’ The human population admired the noble warrior culture of the Babari, and have accepted many of their customs, including the code duello to settle minor – and some major – disputes. Obviously, one could not sanction the fighting of duels on Condrat, there are too many people in too small a space. But if duel is called, and it is agreed to settle a matter on Tallis, the authorities are not called on to do anything but register the duel and its outcome. On Rovap, which is airless, low-gravity, and harsh, a mining world, or rather, a mining community on the part of the world with the heaviest concentration of resources, there is a good-neighbour law. That means that it is illegal to ignore someone in trouble, it is required to do as much as is possible to aid them. This is not the case on Condrat, which also mines; and the Condracian attitude to people dying of accidents is to shrug, and blame them for stupidity. Their life is harsh, but not as harsh as on Rovap. Miss Kerafin?”

“So essentially, not only can the Imperium not legislate universally, it is not desirable that it should do so, because of taking local conditions and customs into account?” she asked.

“Yes, exactly,” I said. “Naturally, there are some things which are never acceptable – slaving, piracy, smuggling; and the Imperium limits its interest in murder to murder of officials in the execution of their duty, because it cannot cover every murder. Or, indeed, dictate what constitutes a murder. Killing someone in a duel on Tallis is not murder, if it was an accident or if there was a death duel.  Some worlds practice what they call ‘mercy killings’ of those with particular infirmities. As an Imperial noble, you are not permitted to comment on your own thoughts of the morality or immorality of the local law in this respect. I have, myself, had to keep my mouth shut on a world where premarital carnal knowledge was considered immoral, but if an unmarried woman was raped, and conceived, to prevent her being shamed, she was made to marry her rapist. I cannot consider, personally, a worse thing to happen, but it was not my business to say or do anything.”

I did not mention that the rapist involved suffered a very traumatic accident in which he fell feet first into a rather damaging piece of equipment. And that I was able to undo the rope by which I lowered him before it was dragged in with his upper body.

“You have time to take down this week’s assignment,” I said. “Pick three worlds, different in physical conditions, and note the major difficulties they suffer. Make a guess at what you think would be some primary laws to cover those conditions, and then look up the legislation, and write out how your guess and the actual legislation compare. If you can, write conclusions based on both any similarities and differences of your guess and the actual laws. And I see a few faces looking lost; consider perhaps attitudes to resource use or abuse, murder, and theft. Class dismissed.”

Once again I was seconds ahead of the bell. This time, at least, they went out chattering eagerly amongst themselves, save for the Festering Five. Miss Kerofin seemed to be chatting to a few others, rather tentatively, picking those outside her normal social circle.

At least one of the others seemed to be trying to copy the girl’s style, though not having a natural aureole of golden curls appeared to have had her own tresses curled and treated with an anti-static treatment to give her hair the appearance of being in freefall. She also wore a belted tunic over a jumpsuit. Her waist was less slender than Miss Kerofin’s too. They say imitation is a sincere form of flattery, though I doubt Miss Kerofin was looking for slavish devotion.

Oh, well, there were less harmless girls to copy than Miss Kerofin.

 

 The Nishimura precedent is real and somewhat controversial, but we discussed this and think that the Imperium would be harder on those in charge who fail, even if only by inaction, than on underlings