"Goodbye," says Martin. "Thank you for rescuing me from probable death by starvation."

"You are very much welcome for that."

He smiles. It is adequately non-horrifying.

He gets on the shuttle.

The shuttle has safety restraints. They are far too large for him so he can pad himself with these cushions.

This is a very unusual launch. It has two girls on it. One of them appears to be trying very hard not to attract attention; the other is practically bouncing.

He would also like to avoid attracting attention. He takes his cushions and sits somewhere underpopulated.

The quiet girl picked a spot in the best avoiding-notice area; right next to her is probably the best place to avoid being noticed by anyone else.

He hesitates to do that because she is so obviously trying that it seems like she can't possibly succeed; but somehow she does appear to be succeeding, at least moderately.

Things that are obvious to him are not necessarily obvious to anyone else. Also the other girl is sort of attracting a lot of attention.

Yes. It's bizarre. What does she want.

Anytime it looks like someone's paying attention to the other girl in particular she makes a point of talking to them, is that a clue?

...yes. That does explain it.

It still leaves the question of why, but... sometimes people just do helpful things because they can afford to.

The girl does not look even a little bit malnourished, if that's any indicator.

Most people haven't, since he left Rotterdam. And starvation isn't a concern in Battle School. But it does imply she might be in the habit of thinking she can afford to do things not directly concerned with her own survival.

The other girl looks much less malnourished than a starving street urchin but not none. That combined with the wary way she assesses everything around her, not with skill but with a lurking paranoia, suggests that she might have more experience with survival as an immediate priority than most of the kids on the shuttle.

That is interesting.

She would be so glad he thought so, if she knew, and weren't avoiding attention like poison ivy.

There are plenty of other people to pay attention to.

Like the second-shortest kid on the shuttle? The not-malnourished girl is paying attention to him now. "Hi, I'm Lacey, what's your name?"

"Sindri. Nice to meet you," he says cheerfully.

"Nice to meet you! Can you believe we're going to space? Space is so cool."

Sindri giggles. "And here I thought we were going to Canada," he jokes.

"Canada," she says authoritatively, "is less cool than space."

"How do you know? Have you been to space before? For that matter have you been to Canada?"

"I'm from Canada."

"Then I guess after you've been to space you can say which one is cooler."