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.Mortimer.”“On behalf of my entire flight sir,” Alexander informed him.“I was selected to speak to her about him by my flight.”“What was the nature of the complaint?”Alexander fidgeted, but he couldn’t avoid the truth.“Professor Nussbaum doesn’t like Terra; at least he’s not very patriotic.As cadets, we simply don’t understand what he’s trying to teach us; it doesn’t make any sense to teach future officers to hate their country or their Homeworld.”“That’s a very good way of putting it,” the centurion nodded.“So you followed channels and reported to Lt.Mortimer.Did that solve the problem?”“No sir,” Alexander admitted, “but it did affect my grades.”“Are you accusing Professor Nussbaum of altering your grades because of some personal dislike—that’s a serious charge, I warn you.” The centurion’s eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared.“I haven’t accused anyone of anything sir,” Alexander said quickly, becoming somewhat flustered.“It is the truth.Since I confronted him in class my grades have fallen from a B to a C-minus.” Fjallheim nodded, touching something on his screen.Alexander was beginning to get frustrated and confused.“I don’t know what this has to do with finding the bodies in the crater.”“It’s not your job to know,” the centurion snapped, and then he glanced back at his screen.“You have a busy history of trouble at the Academy thus far, Cadet Wolfe—very busy.Yet this isn’t the only Professor you’ve had problems with, is it?“I don’t know what you mean sir,” he replied, the fear of being expelled growing in his breast.“Don’t you; what about Professor Strauss?”“Professor Strauss!” Alexander couldn’t help the surprise in his voice.Did the centurion know about his encounter with Strauss; should he say something?Fjallheim leaned back in his seat, looking at the ceiling as if in deep and troubled thought.He sighed, and said, “As a cadet you no doubt think the Academy is a well honed machine and long ago discovered the very best manner possible in training our future officers—not so! Unfortunately, wherever you have people you have ambition, and wherever you have ambition you have politics.” He stopped and looked at Alexander, his eyes steely serious.“Professors Strauss and Nussbaum have dubious political histories at best, but they are in favor with the current political Administration.They are not fans of the military.They are not fans of our empire, our history or our traditions.” The centurion hesitated and finally nodded.“You were right to bring it up to your advisor, but unfortunately your advisor is, I believe, sympathetic to their views.At the very least, Lt.Mortimer has done extensive work for Professor Strauss on the professor’s current study project.”Could he mean the Methuselan Circuit? Certainly the centurion could mean nothing else, but why was he telling Alexander this.What did this have to do with the bodies? The centurion answered him by tossing a yellow memory card onto the table.It was the same one he gave to Professor Strauss at the request of Commandant Augesburcke.“Do you recognize this?” Fjallheim’s voice was matter-of-fact.He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table.“Before you answer Cadet Wolfe, be advised that your fingerprints, the fingerprints of Professor Strauss and the Commandant’s fingerprints were found on the card.”Alexander swallowed hard, but said, “Of course they were sir, that is, if that’s the memory card Commandant Augesburcke ordered me to give to the professor.I followed orders and gave him the card.”The answer seemed to surprise Centurion Fjallheim.“Where did this happen?”Alexander answered the question exactly, but he didn’t volunteer the information that the Professor was not alone; he wondered if the centurion would ask.He did not.Instead, he asked if Alexander had seen what was on the memory card.Alexander answered truthfully that he had never seen what was on the memory card.“Good,” the centurion said sharply.“If you did I imagine Professor Strauss would flunk you out of the Academy—or worse.That brings us back to our three friends,” he brought up a hologram of the bodies Alexander and Khandar discovered.The three dimensional image floated on the table between them.The centurion looked up at him and pointed to a holographic picture of the bodies.“These are the bodies you and Cadet Khandar found are they not?”“Yes sir.”Instead of asking the obvious question; that is, whether Alexander knew them, Fjallheim used his laser pointer to study the damage to the bodies.“You will notice that each body has multiple blaster shots in the thorax,” he said, pointing out the fist sized holes in the dried up corpses.“We have determined that the shots were fired from a range of two to three meters.What does the placement of the shots tell you?”Alexander was momentarily confused, “I don’t really know, sir,” he stammered, knowing at once that was not an acceptable answer—even for a first year cadet.The glowering expression of the centurion forced him to examine the hologram again, but as he did, Alexander sensed something deeper, something behind the obvious in the centurion’s question.He mentally shook his head; that didn’t matter.The centurion was waiting; what was he going to say?The centurion stood up, breaking Alexander’s concentration.Alexander shot up out of his chair—you didn’t sit when a centurion stood! The centurion seemed not to notice, and instead he went over to the small open space next to the desk.“Computer, put the hologram here,” he said, pointing to the floor.A very realistic life sized hologram of the three corpses appeared on the floor.Glancing down at Alexander, the centurion said, “Visualize yourself as the shooter.How do the blaster shots explain the situation?”Alexander cleared his mind, as his father taught him.That reminded Alexander of similar quizzes from his father.If you don’t see the answer, break it down into bite sized chunks; start with the obvious [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]