![]() I admit, I've been a little homesick, but that's not the same thing as not liking being here. Oh, I like Komarr just fine, she said quickly. Not that his school we saw this morning isn't very nice, of course, which I shall report back for her reassurance, I promise. She did think you would seize the opportunity to place Nikki in a Komarran school, for the, as she would say, cultural experience. So had her engineering boss, Radovas, the one she'd said she was going on the field project with. When I finally pinned him, he said, Farr swallowed, she'd resigned abruptly six weeks ago and left. So I went down there in person and asked around. In fact, I think he gave me a run-around. I finally called her department head, Administrator Soudha. Anyway, time went by, and time went by, and I didn't hear. Tien had been thirty when they'd married. Well, as she'd stretched into hers she'd been only twenty, after all. A young couple's early life was supposed to be unsettled, as they stretched into their new lives as adults. How could he ever garner the rewards of promotion and seniority, the status he hungered for, if he never stuck with one thing long enough to earn any? His first few postings, she'd had to agree with him, had been mediocre she'd had no problem understanding why he wanted to move on quickly. Maybe Tien would stay with this Komarran post. We met at the Winterfair reception for the Serifosa terraforming employees a few months ago, do you remember? Do you know her? I mean, has she ever talked with you?ĭimly. She's an engineering tech in the Waste Heat Management department. After a moment, he entered and approached their table. When she looked up, she noticed a good-looking young Komarran man who had stopped by the outer gate to the restaurant's patio and was staring at her. with this Vorzohn's Dystrophy thing hanging over them, Tien had good reason for impatience. If she just stuck it out long enough, it would get better, virtue would be rewarded. This was the best posting he'd ever achieved perhaps things were finally starting to break into good fortune, for a change. Maybe Tien had finally found his- what had Vorkosigan called it? His passion. But her hypersensitized ear had picked up no bad signs so far in this job, and they'd been here nearly a year already. And his enthusiasm would flame up again, and the cycle would begin anew. though it seemed to take longer and longer to find a new one, these days. That had become her secret danger signal, when Tien began offering sly sexual slander of his superiors it meant the job was about to end, again. Then the enthusiasm dwindled, and the complaints began, of too much work, too little reward, offered too slowly. He'd started every new job with a burst of enthusiasm, working hard, or at least, very long hours. ![]() She had usually been too conscious of herself as a representative of Tien, of the need to cordially meet and greet everyone, to get into any very intimate conversations. Ekaterin had met the young Komarran woman perhaps three times, at carefully choreographed Project events. ![]() Not that she had been able to muster the energy to pursue them as assiduously as Tien thought she ought. And people complaining about their spouses always looked and sounded so ugly. ![]() How was she to respond to that? Defend a choice she did not herself agree with? Admit she thought Tien wrong? If she once began complaining about Tien, she wasn't sure she could stop before her most fearful worries began to pour out. Who knew what profound dissatisfactions Farr had failed to detect in his lady? I'm sorry. The idea of running away from a relationship and leaving no forwarding address made perfect sense to Ekaterin, but it was hardly her place to say so. She scraped at the last of the apple syrup on her plate. oh? Ekaterin was not at all sure she wished to encourage this conversation. And then I had to leave most of the pots, when we came here. The last two relocations, I just didn't plant anything except in pots. Was this normal for a rising bureaucrat? Tien said it was a necessity, no bosses ever promoted from within or raised a former subordinate above them you had to go around to move up. ![]() won't pretend that hasn't been difficult. ![]()
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