Randoms by David Liss

wondering if it was possible to spend a year with someone who didn’t like Hitchhiker’s Guide .
    â€œForgive me,” she said, holding out her arm with her hand hanging limp like it had been detached. “I’m Nayana.”
    â€œI’m Zeke,” I said, waggling the loose hand, “and of course I know who you are. You’re totally famous.”
    â€œOh, please,” she said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. “You’ve never heard of me. Or do you follow chess?”
    â€œNot religiously or anything,” I said. “I don’t, like, watch the Chess Network or whatever, but everyone knows about how you beat Magnus Carlsen last year.” I figured I had it, I might as well use it. “That was pretty sweet.”
    â€œIt is fine when people admire me for my skill at the game,” she assured me. And what a relief it was to learn she was okay with my admiration. “That doesn’t bother me in the least, but all the reporters and cameras and magazine spreads became a bit of a bore very quickly. I suppose if I were a plain Jane they wouldn’t have cared, but they were all agog to stare at the beautiful chess genius.” She shook her head sadly. “It’s nothing but foolishness.”
    â€œYeah, foolishness,” I agreed. “For fools. And morons.”
    She was now squinting. I was starting to think I might have made a better impression, but I was also starting to think that it was possible to be beautiful and a chess genius and kind of an unpleasant person.
    â€œWould you be a dear and fetch me a sparkling water?” Shegestured toward a sideboard, about fifteen feet away, where drinks and snacks had been set up. “I’m terribly thirsty.”
    I wanted to tell her that she should go fetch her own sparkling water, but I thought that there were only four of us, and antagonizing a third of my companions for the next year might be a bad move. She was almost certainly testing me, seeing if I would volunteer to be her servant when we left Earth. I didn’t particularly want to be her personal butler, but I also didn’t want to do anything to make her dislike me. My Spidey-sense told me she could put on a pretty fierce dislike.
    I fetched her the water, and Park Mi Sun scowled at me as I did it. She clearly didn’t think much of my butlering, so I guessed I had to make sure I won Nayana over. The idea of both of them hating me before we even left Earth was completely depressing.
    When I came over with the bottle and a glass, she let out a world-weary sigh. “No lime?”
    â€œI didn’t see any.”
    She pressed her lips together and cocked her head. “Might I trouble you to ask for some?”
    Like an idiot, I did ask, and Agent McTeague, a guy who under other circumstances was supposed to take a bullet for the president, ended up both fetching limes and thinking I was the lame-o who wanted them. When I finally had the drink prepared for Nayana, she gestured to a little table next to where she sat. “Right there is fine,” she said, and picked up her binder.
    I sat there in the room with the three of them reading their binders, and after five minutes I wanted to throw myself out the window. Then Ms. Price stepped into the room and told me she wanted a word.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    We sat in a couple of chairs outside the meeting room. Ms. Price folded her hands and looked at me the way I’d once seen my mom look at a mouse she’d discovered in our kitchen, when she couldn’t decide if she should chase it out of the house or crush it with a broom. Maybe that was a bad analogy, because Ms. Price seemed pretty solidly in the mouse-crushing camp.
    â€œI want to talk to you about certain problems you may face once you leave Earth.”
    â€œ If I leave Earth,” I said. “My mother hasn’t agreed to anything.”
    â€œShe’ll agree,” Ms. Price