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“Open up! My daughter’s in there!” He sounded like a madman, but someone inside heard him or saw him on the security monitor The articulated steel plates of the door shuddered and began to rise Prax dropped to the ground and scrah
He hadn’t met the new teacher, Miss Carrie,her up She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old and was Belter-tall and thin He didn’t reray
The schoolroo a song about an ant traveling through the solar system, with rhymes for all the major asteroid bodies There was no blood, no bullet holes, but the sh the vents He had to get Mei someplace safe He wasn’t sure where that would be He looked at the circle of children, trying to pick out her face, her hair
“Mei’s not here, sir,” Miss Carrie said, her voice tight and breathy at the sa?” Prax said, but hison Ganye frootten from Ceres to Ganymede in two days …
“Just after snack,” the teacher said
“You mean she was evacuated Someone ca the ice One of the children htened sound The teacher looked froain, her voice was lower
“Her mother came just after snack She took Mei with her She hasn’t been here all day”
Prax pulled up his hand terminal The connection was still dead, but his wallpaper was a picture froood Lifetihing and dangling the doughy, delighted bundle that had been Mei
“Her?” Prax said “She was here?”
The confusion in the teacher’s face answered him There’d been a —had co one
“She was on the computer,” the teacher said “She was in the systehts flickered The ser, and the air recyclers were huled to suck out the volatile particulates A boy whose name Prax should have knohimpered, and the teacher reflexively tried to turn toward him Prax took her elbow and wrenched her back
“No, you ive Mei to?”
“The system said it was her mother! She had identification It cleared her”
A stutter ofoutside, and then the kids started to shriek The teacher pulled her arainst the drop door
“She was about thirty Dark hair, dark eyes She had a doctor with her, she was in the system, and Mei didn’t make any kind of fuss about it”
“Did they take her medicine?” he asked “Did they take her medicine?”
“No I don’t know I don’t think so”
Withoutto, Prax shook the woman Only once, but hard If Mei didn’t have her htbefore her i down