Free Rainbows End by Vinge Vernor Page A

Fred waved back, but his shirt was still too gooey for comm. Jerry was looking upward at the UP/Ex shipment falling toward his outstretched hands. Just in time, for sure. The twins were popping the mailer open even as they walked into the shop tent.
    Unfortunately, Juan’s first class was at the end of the far wing. He ran across the lawn, keeping his vision tied to unimproved reality: The buildings were mostly three stories today. Their gray walls were like playing cards stacked in a rickety array.
    Inside, the choice of view was not entirely his own. Mornings, the school administration required that the Fairmont News show all over the interior walls. Three kids at Hoover High had won IBM career fellowships. Applause, applause, even if Hoover was Fairmont’s unfairly advantaged rival, a charter school run by the Math Ed Department at SDSU. The three young geniuses would have their college education paid for, right through grad school, even if they never worked a day at IBM. Big deal , Juan thought, trying to comfort himself. Someday those kids might be very rich, but a percentage of their professional fortunes would always go back to IBM.
    He followed the little green nav arrows with half his attention… and abruptly realized he had climbed two flights of stairs. School admin had re-arranged everything since yesterday. Of course, they had updated his nav arrows, too. It was a good thing he hadn’t been paying attention. He slipped into his classroom and sat down.
Ms. Chumlig had already started.
    Search and Analysis was Chumlig’s main thing. She used to teach a fast-track version of this at Hoover High, but well-documented rumor held that she just couldn’t keep up. So the Department of Education had moved her to the same-named course here at Fairmont. Actually, Juan kind of liked her. She was a failure, too.
    “There are many different skills,” she was saying. “Sometimes it’s best to coordinate with lots of other people who together can make the answers.” The students nodded. Be a coordinator. That’s where the biggest and most famous money was. But they also knew where Chumlig was going with this. She looked around the classroom, nodding that she knew they knew. “Alas, you all intend to be top agents, don’t you?”
    “It’s what some of us will be.” That was one of the Adult Ed students. Winston Blount was old enough to be Juan’s great-grandfather. When Blount had a bad day he liked to liven things up by harassing Ms. Chumlig.
The Search and Analysis instructor smiled back. “It’s about as likely as being a major league baseball star. The pure ‘coordinating agent’ is a rare type, Dean Blount.”
     
“Some of us must be the administrators.”
     
“Oh.” Chumlig looked kind of sad for a moment, like she was figuring out how to pass on bad news. “Administration has changed a lot, Dean Blount.”
     
Winston Blount sat back in his chair. “Okay. So we have to learn some new tricks.”
    “Yes.” Ms. Chumlig looked out over the class. “That’s an important point. This class is about search and analysis, the heart of the economy. We obviously need search and analysis as consumers. In almost all modern jobs, search and analysis are how we make our living. But, in the end, we must also know something about something.”
“Meaning those courses we got C’s in, right?” That was a voice from the peanut gallery, probably someone who was physically truant.
     
Chumlig sighed. “Yes. Don’t let those skills die. You’ve been exposed to them. Use them. Improve on them. You can do it with a special form of preanalysis that I call ‘study.’”
    One of the students actually held up a hand. She was that old. “Yes, Dr. Xiang?”
    “I know you are correct. But — ” The woman glanced around the room. She looked about Chumlig’s age, not nearly as old as Winston Blount. But there was kind of a frightened look in her eyes. “But some people are better than others. I’m not as sharp