Stephanie was glad that concentrating on piloting gave her an excuse to pause before answering. She knew she tended to “push.” Only lately had she tried to figure out why. It wasn’t as if her parents didn’t love her or expected her to win their approval. If anything, Richard and Margery Harrington were almost too approving, too fair, too balanced.

They’d let Stephanie know-gently and in small increments-that she had advantages most people did not. For one, although they’d tried to hide this from her lest she get either lazy or smug, Stephanie knew her IQ scored nearly off the charts. Karl’s statement that she always got perfect scores on everything was only a slight exaggeration.

For another, Stephanie was a “genie,”-her genetic mutations making her stronger and tougher than average. She paid for these advantages with a higher than usual metabolism, but given that Mom and Dad always made certain there was ample interesting stuff to eat-they shared her metabolism, after all-she never suffered for this. What she did suffer from was the flashes of hot temper that came with the package. She simply didn’t get along easily with most people-especially people her own age. They seemed dumb, fascinated with things she wasn’t in the least interested in.

Karl Zivonik-who was over a T-year and a half older than her-was the closest Stephanie had to a friend her own age, the first she had made since her family emigrated to Sphinx from Meyerdahl a bit over four T-years ago. Even Karl was more like a big brother than a friend, watching over her, scolding her, teasing her, practicing target shooting with her, and, well, letting her fly his car, even though it was against the rules.