“I’d introduce myself.”
A howl went up from the class. Bullpen struggled for a moment; then he, too, exploded with laughter, only to assume a serious expression again.
“Cadet Pirx, you will report to me tomorrow with your navigation book. Cadet Boerst!”
Pirx sat down at his desk as if it were made of uncongealed glass. He wasn’t even sore at Smiga—that’s the kind of guy he was, always good for a gag. He didn’t catch a word of what Boerst was saying; Boerst was trying to plot a graph while Bullpen was up to his old trick of turning down the electronic computer, leaving the cadet to get bogged down in his computations. School regs permitted the use of a computer, but Bullpen was of a different mind. “A computer is only human,” he used to say. “It, too, can break down.” Pirx wasn’t sore at Bullpen, either. Fact is, he wasn’t sore at anyone. Hardly ever. Five minutes later he was standing in front of a shopwindow on Dyerhoff Street, his attention caught by a display of gas pistols, good for firing blanks or live ammo, a set consisting of one pistol and a hundred cartridges priced at six crowns. Needless to say, he only imagined he was window-browsing on Dyerhoff Street.
The bell rang and the class emptied, but without all that yelling and stampeding of lowerclassmen. No sir, these weren’t kids anymore! Half of the class meandered off in the direction of the cafeteria because, although no meals were being served at that time, there were other attractions to be had—a new waitress, for example (word had it she was a knockout). Pirx strolled leisurely past the glass cabinets where the stellar globes were stored, and with every step saw his hopes of finding a two-crown piece in the pocket of his civvies dwindle a little more. By the time he reached the bottom of the staircase, he realized the coin was just a figment of his imagination.