Someone found it in a book and the more childish element in College learned it up for signaling during compulsory lectures. Interest waning abruptly when the lecturers started to learn it, too.
I never paid much attention not expecting to be in Solitary confinement much; this just shows you; next moment Ram opens a door and pushes me through it, the door clicks behind me and Solitary confinement is what I am in.
I remember this code is really called Remorse which is what I feel for not learning when I had the chance.
However I do not have long for it, a speaker in the wall requests everyone to lie down as acceleration is about to begin. I strap down on the couch which fills half the compartment, countdown begins and at zero the floor is suddenly _down_ once more.
I wait till my stomach settles, then rise to explore.
I am in an oblong room about eight by twelve, it looks as though it had been hastily partitioned off from a larger space. The walls are prefab plastic sheet, the rest is standard fittings slung in and bolted down with the fastenings showing.
How many of my classmates are on this ship? _Remorse_ again as tapping starts on either side of me.
Discarding such Hypotheses as that Ram and Peter are going to hold us to ransom--which might work for me, since my Dad somehow got to be a millionaire, but not for B because her parents think money is vulgar--or that we are being carried off to found an ideal Colony somewhere--any first-year student can tell you why that won't work--only one idea seems plausible.
This is that Finals were not final and we are in for a Test of some sort.
After ten minutes I get some evidence; a Reading Machine is trundled in, the door immediately slamming shut so I do not see who trundles it.
I prowl round it looking for tricks but it seems standard; I take a seat in it, put on the headset and turn the switch.
There is a reel in place and it contains background information on a problem in Cultural Engineering all set out the way we are taught to do it in Class. The Problem concerns developments on a planet got settled by two groups during the Exodus and been isolated ever since.
Well while a Reading Machine is running there is no time to think, it crams in data at full speed and evaluation has to wait. However my subconscious goes into action and when the reel stops it produces a Suspicion full grown.