Free Mosaic by Jeri Taylor Page A

was going to be
    back tonight. She desperately wanted to show him she could
    derive the distance formula, and watch his face light up as
    he realized what she'd been able to do.
    Finding the numerical value of the distance between two
    points was simple, of course: just plug the Cartesian
    coordinates of the two points into the padd and it would
    give you the distance.
    The hard part was to find the formula that would apply to
    any pair of coordinates. That was the kind of thinking
    Daddy expected of her. But in spite of hours of working the
    problem, coming at it from every angle she could think of,
    the solution remained elusive. And then she looked up and
    realized how late it was.
    She burst onto the patio of her house, right by a startled

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    Mom and Phoebe, and past Bramble, who rose immediately to
    run after her, through the door and into the breakfast
    room, down the hall to her room. She slammed the door open
    and began stripping off her clothes, reaching at the same
    time for the uniform on her bed. Haste made her hands
    clumsy, and she stamped her feet in frustration; under her
    breath she said one of the words that weren't supposed to
    be said except at times of great distress. Pants were on,
    then shirt and jacket, shoes. She glanced in the mirror and
    saw that she looked frazzled and unkempt. There was no time
    to do anything with her hair, so she ran her fingers
    through the fine, reddish brown locks and watched them lie
    limp on her head, damp from perspiration.
    Habit made her reach for the cylinder of sun protector; she
    tapped the lever that opened the dispenser at the top of
    the cylinder-comand screamed as something leapt out of the
    cylinder, something long and serpentine, springing up and
    at her in an explosion of energy.
    Her heart raced in shock and her stomach knotted as she
    stumbled backward, tumbling back and catching herself
    awkwardly on one wrist. And then she heard Phoebe giggling.
    She looked and saw her eight-year-old sister standing in
    the doorway, hands cupped over her mouth, unable to choke
    back the giggles that erupted from her.
    Kathryn stared at her, then looked over to see the thing
    that had erupted from the cylinder. It was a long coil of
    polymer that had been jammed down into the container of sun
    protector-the one thing Phoebe knew she would never leave
    for a game without using. She stared at her sister, trying
    to understand this cruel betrayal.
    "It isn't funny!" she yelled. But that only made Phoebe
    laugh harder. Kathryn turned and grabbed her bag, brushed
    past her sister at the door, and ran outside toward her
    hovercycle. She had only minutes to get to the school
    transport site; she was frantic, unprepared, and furious.
    And in that state she would have to function as captain of
    her tennis team.
    Kathryn and her team materialized on the transport pad of
    the Academy Institute's athletic department. Like all the
    Institute's facilities, the transporter site was sleek and
    pristine, a cool, blue-gray room, spare and unadorned. An
    Institute cadet manned the console, and like all the
    others, she was (it seemed to Kathryn) faintly
    condescending. Kathryn had wanted to attend the Institute.
    Each state had such a school geared for a pre-Starfleet
    Academy curriculum, and created to channel the best and the
    brightest right to San Francisco.
    Kathryn could easily have qualified, but her parents had
    instead chosen The Meadows for her and Phoebe. They
    believed the Institute provided too narrow a curriculum for
    young people, and preferred the more liberal, wide-ranging
    philosophy of The Meadows, which emphasized creative
    experiences and physical conditioning along with academics.
    Its goal was to produced well-rounded young people, rather
    than superstars of select disciplines. Kathryn would have
    been much happier at the Institute. She wouldn't have had
    to take such pointless, traditional studies as piano,
    ballet, and cooking. Cooking, for heaven's sake! Who