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groundcar
     to ourselves and put nav and autopilot in control.
    Then we got chatty. I told her my thoughts on the mission, that it was essentially
     a waste of time, but at least I was getting paid to travel the world for a year, and
     the Sadiri would have the satisfaction of knowing they’d investigated every possibility.
     She told me she was tired of academia and taking a sabbatical to write a book seemed
     a bit tame, so this way she’d be out for a year and
still
have the sabbatical year to write, thus staying away from the university for two
     years instead of just one.
    The wine went down rather smoothly. I discovered that she did, in fact, have a fair
     bit of taSadiri in her background. She found out that I had just enough Ntshune in
     me to start people off on a giggle loop. You’ve heard of someone’s laughter being
     infectious? Well, many Cygnians of Ntshune stock have the knack of giving people the
     giggles in a serious way, probably some unintentional emotion-feedback thing.
    We spent the next inspection choking back snickers while the Sadiri gave us puzzled
     looks.
    The next journey was for more sober talk. She said she’d been engaged, but there’d
     been a mutual decision not to marry after her academic career took off, leaving her
     tied to the city and her fiancé still wanting the life of a homesteader. I said I’d
     been engaged too and also broke it off by mutual agreement, though my career was nowhere
     as illustrious as hers.
    “You still have time,” she said generously.
    At first I thought she was talking about my career, and I was flattered, but then
     I realized she meant time to have a family, and I felt a little less flattered.
    “Well, what about you? Have you considered early retirement and going back to be a
     housewife on a homestead?”
    She looked embarrassed. “I suppose I could register my name with the Ministry of Family
     Planning, but I keep falling for the wrong men and getting distracted.”
    The words were general, but there was something in the guilt that crossed her face
     that made me gasp and blurt out, “Lanuri?”
    For the first time, I heard bitterness in her laugh. “I hope I’m not that obvious!”
    “No! No, you’re not. It’s just … well, you do seem to get along quite well together,
     and … hmm … how do the Sadiri show they care, anyway?”
    She pushed back the rough bangs of her hacked-off hair and scowled. “Well, I’m sure
     they don’t do it by constantly mentioning how beautiful and intelligent and completely
     irreplaceable their late wives are!”
    “Oh,” I said sadly.
    “Yeah, I’m a sad, sick person, jealous of a woman who died in the greatest genocidal
     attack since … well, since Cygnus Beta was founded. And if you so much as breathe
     a
word,”
she concluded sharply, and it was time to change the subject.
    We got back a little earlier than the other two, and rather than sit and wait outside,
     we persuaded Joral to let us move the farewell party into Dllenahkh’s office. The
     rest of the place was empty—inspection tours often took us past the usual work hours—so
     we left the door open, put our feet up on his desk in a kind of rebellion against
     all Sadiri sensibilities, and set to finishing off the wine.
    After a short half hour had passed, we heard Joral’s hushed voice through the open
     doorway. “Dr. Mar and Second Assistant Delarua seem to be engaged in some kind of
     female bonding ritual.”
    “In my office?” came Dllenahkh’s bemused reply. I thinkboth of us were picturing the expression on his face, because we went off into another
     giggle loop that put paid to any lingering illusion of professionalism.
    Fortunately, that wasn’t the final farewell. We had a nice, sober proper seeing-off
     a week later at the main train station in the city. Gilda was there, and Dr. Lanuri
     and Freyda. I hugged Gilda hard, making a mental note to send many souvenir trinkets
     to her kids, and got cheek