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"You know, for a school that doesn't list standings anymore, everybody sure keeps track." "I keep track of *you*."
"Nikolai, I wish you were coming with me."
"What's happening, Bean? Is this it? Are the Buggers here?"
"I don't know."
"Come on, you figure these things out."
"If the Buggers were really coming, would they leave all you guys here in the station? Or send you back to Earth? Or evacuate you to some obscure asteroid? I don't know. Some things point to the end being really close. Other things seem like nothing important's going to happen anywhere around here."
"So maybe they're about to launch this huge fleet against the Bugger world and you guys are supposed to grow up on the voyage."
"Maybe," said Bean. "But the time to launch *that* fleet was right after the Second Invasion."
"Well, what if they didn't find out where the Bugger home world *was* until now?"
That stopped Bean cold. "Never crossed my mind," said Bean. "I mean, they must have been sending signals home. All we had to do was track that direction. Follow the light, you know. That's what it says in the manuals."
"What if they don't communicate by light?"
"Light may take a year to go a light-year, but it's still faster than anything else."
"Anything else that we know about," said Nikolai. Bean just looked at him.
"Oh, I know, that's stupid. The laws of physics and all that. I just -- you know, I keep thinking, that's all. I don't like to rule things out just because they're impossible."
Bean laughed. "Merda, Nikolai, I should have let you talk more and me talk less back when we slept across from each other."
"Bean, you know I'm not a genius." "All geniuses here, Nikolai."
"I was scraping by."