Bodwyn Wook asked briskly: "Well, then: which is it to be?"
"It is obviously in my best interests to make a career with Bure B."
"That is not the point, and you have not answered my question."
"I choose Bureau B. I have no choice."
"And what of the 'principles'?"
Kirdy's round blue eyes were limpid with hurt and resentment. suppose that I must compromise them."
"Very well." Bodwyn Wook jerked his thumb toward the dw "That is all."
Kirdy made a final bitter complaint: "I still do not consider t demotion justified!"
"That sort of reaction is not unusual," said Bodwyn Wook. "0 with you, before I stop laughing and start thinking."
Kirdy swung about and departed.
Winter ran its course and spring came to Araminta Station.
Grud ingly the obsessions which gripped Glawen's mind yielded to the ven influences. He had done his utmost; he could do no more--at lea;
not for the moment. Sessily Veder receded to a melancholy ache in memory.
Glawen turned his pent energies into schoolwork and gained 1 usual high levels of achievement. Aries, compelled by the most urge pressures, performed well enough to avert the imminence ofexpulsic The year went its course, and another year followed. Glawen arriv at his nineteenth birthday with anSI, or Status Index, of 23: so mewl too high for comfort, and Glawen began to feel cold fingers ofapprehe sion, although Scharde assured him that there was definitely no cau for panic.
"At least not yet," said Scharde.
In the three years since his sixteenth birthday Glawen had chang little. He had grown as tall as Scharde, and from some source h gained an indefinable air of competence and decision, which was alm< precocious. Like Scharde he was now spare and slender, with squa shoulders and narrow hips.
Again like Scharde, he carried himself wi an understated economy of motion, almost elegant in its simplicity. His face, while less gaunt, bony and predacious than that of Scharde, was further softened by luminous dark hazel eyes, a cap of short thick black hair and a long generous mouth with a pensive droop at the corners: a face somewhat irregular and by no means classically handsome but one which romantic maidens found fascinating to consider.
Glawen nowadays seldom thought of Sessily Veder except sometimes when he walked alone in the country or stood on the shore looking out to sea, when he might whisper:
"Sessily, Sessily, where have you gone? Is it lonesome out there?"
Across the years the facts of the case, as known to Bureau B, had seeped into the public awareness, and Aries' guilt had become accepted as fact, provable or not. The situation titillated some and repelled others, while Spanchetta could hardly speak for mortification. Only the Bold Lions provided refuge for Aries--not so much from either loyalty or tolerance, but because it was felt that Aries' membership lent a special rakehelly devil-take-all panache to the group.
As the months and years passed, folk of the station became inured to his presence. Aries gradually regained something of his former standing, and in due course swaggered about affairs with near his old aplomb, although now his wit had a truculent overtone which seemed to imply: "So you take me for a deviate and a murderer? Very well, if that's what you think, don't be surprised by what you get, and be damned to all of you!"
With the coming of summer Aries went off-world with the Mummers, where he functioned as Floreste's aide, and the atmosphere at Araminta Station seemed easier and lighter for his absence.
Glawen'sSI dramatically improved, by reason of a death and a retirement, which brought his number down to an encouraging 21, an almost sure guarantee of Agency status, and a great weight was lifted from his soul.
Another noteworthy event marked the end of summer: the return of Milo and Wayness Tamm from a long sojourn on Earth.
They took up residence at Riverview House, and enrolled for the fall term at the lyceum.
Their presence gave rise to a flutter of discussion.
According to the stereotypes of Araminta Station, Naturalists tended to be odd, crotchety and unconventional, with puritanical tendencies. Milo and Wayness, however, confounded the popular expectation. Both were conspicuously clean, intelligent and well-favored; both wore their simple Earth-style clothes with flair; both conducted themselves with a total lack of either self-consciousness or affectation: all of which
aroused not a few pangs of envy and sniffs of deprecation among thos who regarded themselves as the arbiters of taste.
Glawen found the two much as before. Milo, tall and auster el handsome, still seemed wry, clever and saturnine: an intellectu. aristocrat. Despite his careful good manners, Milo made few friend' Uther Offaw, the most intelligent of the Bold Lions, discovered i Milo a kindred soul, but Uther Offaw himself was considered bizan and rather untidy, if not actually unstable; why else would he rem ai among the vulgar Bold Lions?
Seixander Laverty, arbiter of another group known as the Intolerabi Ineffables, felt Milo to be "an elitist: caustic and insufferably vain' an opinion which Milo found gratifying. Ottillie Veder, of the Mysti Fragrances, wondered if Milo hoped "merely to show his face to brin girls cringing up to clasp his knees."
Milo, in response to the report, said no, this was not what he hopec Another Fragrance, Quhannis Diffin, found Milo "--shall we sa a bit hoity-toity. Of course the same would apply to Wayness, through unquestionably she's stunning to look at."
In Glawen's opinion, three years had worked few changes on Waj ness. She had grown taller by an inch, but her figure remained i before: the next thing to boyish, and her glossy dark hair, dar luminous eyes and dark eyebrows still made a striking contrast wit her beautiful pale olive skin. How, Glawen marveled, could he eve have thought her plain?
Wayness was discussed no less carefully than Milo. The statuesqu Hillegance Wook, also a Mystic Fragrance, discerned in Waynes no figure whatever.
"I've seen wet weasels with more shape," sai Hillegance. This opinion was definitely not endorsed by Seixand( Laverty of the Ineffables ("She's round where it counts, with nothin left over for slop and that's how it should be"), nor by any of the Bol Lions, who studied her with fascinated interest.
Wayness showed litt) tendency to flirt, which experts among the Bold Lions diagnosed as case of sexual frigidity, but they could not agree as to the best met ho for curing the unfortunate girl of her affliction.
The term began. Milo and Wayness entered classes and adapte themselves to the new routines. Glawen undertook to be of assistant and explained the traditions and special customs of the school as be! he could. Milo and Wayness accepted their generally cool recept io by the other students with equanimity. Milo told Glawen: "You would find it even more difficult at Stroma, where the cliques are, in effec little secret societies."
"Still--"
Milo held up his hand.
"Truly, it's quite inconsequential. I definitely don't care to join any groups, nor, I'm certain, does Wayness. Your concern is wasted."
"Just as you say."
