wondering if it was possible to spend a year with someone who didnât like Hitchhikerâs Guide .
âForgive me,â she said, holding out her arm with her hand hanging limp like it had been detached. âIâm Nayana.â
âIâm Zeke,â I said, waggling the loose hand, âand of course I know who you are. Youâre totally famous.â
âOh, please,â she said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. âYouâve never heard of me. Or do you follow chess?â
âNot religiously or anything,â I said. âI donât, like, watch the Chess Network or whatever, but everyone knows about how you beat Magnus Carlsen last year.â I figured I had it, I might as well use it. âThat was pretty sweet.â
âIt is fine when people admire me for my skill at the game,â she assured me. And what a relief it was to learn she was okay with my admiration. âThat doesnât 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 wouldnât have cared, but they were all agog to stare at the beautiful chess genius.â She shook her head sadly. âItâs nothing but foolishness.â
âYeah, foolishness,â I agreed. âFor fools. And morons.â
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.
âWould you be a dear and fetch me a sparkling water?â Shegestured toward a sideboard, about fifteen feet away, where drinks and snacks had been set up. âIâm terribly thirsty.â
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 didnât particularly want to be her personal butler, but I also didnât 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 didnât 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. âNo lime?â
âI didnât see any.â
She pressed her lips together and cocked her head. âMight I trouble you to ask for some?â
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. âRight there is fine,â 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¢
We sat in a couple of chairs outside the meeting room. Ms. Price folded her hands and looked at me the way Iâd once seen my mom look at a mouse sheâd discovered in our kitchen, when she couldnât 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.
âI want to talk to you about certain problems you may face once you leave Earth.â
â If I leave Earth,â I said. âMy mother hasnât agreed to anything.â
âSheâll agree,â Ms. Price
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