Or we both did. Pick your choose!’ he added airily, grinning.
Somehow he could usually make her smile back at him. It was a tired and tentative effort on her part, but it was a smile.
He gave his head a shake to clear the tension of a long day’s concentration and exhaled sharply. He really didn’t think he’d done too badly so there was no way she had. Certainly not on the spatial equations and the jojunctions. They’d been snaps. He’d seen Commander Metrios work them often enough while on the Genessee – – He pushed himself back from the workstation, compressing his lips. He hadn’t thought of Gil or Kat all day – even at the lunchbreak when they’d all been exchanging complaints about the severity of the testing.
That is as well, Rojer, for you must move on now, he heard Jeran say softly, and not because there was anyone who would listen but because Jeran wanted to convey more than sympathy and approval.
`Softly’ expressed such multiples better.
`You’re dismissed now, candidates,’ Jeran said out loud. `The results will be tabulated and sent to your personal terminals later this evening. You’ve been diligent and I am certain that all who should qualify will.’ `He says that every year, murmured one of the boys Rojer did not know.
`Rojer,’ Jeran went on, though he surely had heard the cynical remark, `Rami asked if you’d care to stop by before you leave the City.
Rojer grinned at the implied invitation to dinner.
Jeran’s wife was an extremely good cook and tonight would be one when he’d appreciate having a meal he didn’t have to prepare. He could even put up with the proximity of his cousin Barry’s `Dinis.
Jeran also caught that and nodded once again, his eyes, so like the Rowan’s, brighter with approval.
`Not the fatted calf but that casserole you’re so fond of’ Jeran said, after the others had departed. He was closing down the station, switching the messaging system to his house unit.
`Can I help?’ Rojer asked.
`This doesn’t take long. Get a breath of fresh air, lad,’ Jeran said and gestured for his nephew to leave.
Just as Rojer reached the bottom of the stairs, he was astonished to hear the generators turn on.
Find yourself a carrier, Rojer, a voice told him. You have five minutes to gather up any things you need from the cottage.
Mother’ll send on the leftovers under your bed.
Granddad?
Speaking as such, let me congratulate you on the high{h scores you achieved on your exams. Honours, even. There was a chuckle. Speaking as Earth Prime, you’re to get your lazy butt to the Mars Moon Base.
The refugee ship has just now assumed its assigned geosynchronous orbit and the technicians are thronging to get inside it. High Council has insisted that I assign Primes to assist in this venture into alien territory.
Father, Jeran interjected, Roger’s had an exhausting day.
And you know farely well that we Primes can’t bear proximity to Hiver metals. The reaction on a tired mind will be all the most intense . – Jeran, you fuss more than your grandmother over the boy.
And it’s Rojer’s choice. Care to come?
Suddenly mental fatigue vanished as the adrenalin of challenge swept through Rojer. Even the Moon Base had food dispensers. And sleep? At this moment?
I got honours, granddad? If he had, then Asia had.
High enough to make Xexo impossible, according to your mother, and certainly Earth Prime wants one of his own there to keep an eye on things. You won’t be required to go `in’ the vessel: just manoeuvre lights and rescue those who step into Hiver tubes.
Rojer wasn’t certain if it was making Xexo proud or the challenge of investigating, even at a remote distance, the undamaged Hive sphere, that was causing his elation.
Hell, granddad, I could even manage going inside it – if I didn’t have to stay too long, Rojer replied.
Then move it, lad, or the post’ll have to go to someone else.
granddad, did Asia Eagles pass?
Asia Eagles? There was a pause. Yes. But don’t waste time.
Rojer did not consider it a waste of time to try to give Asia that reassuring news but when he tried to reach her mind with the good news, she’d closed up tight as a pod in a misery of anxiety. Just like her, the silly clunch! She’d know soon enough and he’d tease her – gently about her lack of confidence. Then he focused his mind on his room in Isthia’s cottage and started `porting tapes, disks, oddments, belatedly remembering to snatch a carisak into which he dumped these belongings.