[38] Slander
They sat around the campfire enjoying the beef jerky they made a few worlds back and talking. Eli was playing with the alien kino, trying to figure out everything that it did. So far they had learned that it could be a rolling camera, a tracking device, and something to annoy Rush with.
"So why did you drop out of M.I.T.?" Volker asked of the math whiz and the young man looked up a bit surprised at the question.
"Uh... M.I.T. just wasn't for me, I guess," he evaded.
"He was slandered by another student of cheatin' on a mathematics exam that would have gotten him a much needed scholarship," Rush answered nonchalantly from beside Chloe, his notebook on the Ancients in her lap. "Rather than stand his ground, he chose ta take the coward's way out an' dropped out."
"Hey, I did not take the coward's way out!" Eli protested a bit angrily.
"Then what do yew call it?"
"Uh..."