Jonnie threw the book from him and pushed away his lunch untouched.
The guard at the door looked in through the glass, abruptly alert. Colonel Ivan whirled in an automatic response, combat ready: it had sounded like the thud of a grenade for a moment.
“It makes no sense,” said Jonnie to himself. “It just makes no sense!”
The others, seeing it was no emergency, relaxed. The sentry returned to his usual position and the colonel went on wiping down the white tile.
But Chrissie remained alarmed. It was almost unheard of for Jonnie to be irritable, and for days and days now, ever since he had started to do nothing but study books—Psychlo books they seemed to be, though she could not read—he had been getting worse and worse.
The untouched lunch worried her. It was venison stew with wild her
