The Space Station - Chapter 1 - Page 5

Functionary reflected with a mixture of sadness and intense bitterness on the woman he had left behind. As someone with whom he had shared a living space for over two years, it would have been possible to arrange free travel for her to accompany him to his new post. Yet when he had explained about his being moved on by the administration, described the new posting and, broached the issue of her accompanying him, she had said "no". Little apparent thought had been required and the answer had come without pause or a moment’s reflection. No effort had been wasted to disguise the speed and ease with which she had been able to come to her conclusion. Brutally referring to how his career had failed to make satisfactory progress, she had baldly stated: "I am not travelling millions of miles for the prospect to spending the rest of my life in cramped living quarters on some desolate planet, the wife or partner of some non-entity." With such comments she had made it clear, if there had ever been any doubt, that her love and loyalty was conditional on his career status as a functionary singled out for potential fast promotion to the most senior ranks of the service. So as his vocational potential had diminished so had his former partner’s love fallen away, if ever her attachment could be so labelled as “love”. Clearly, the speed with which she had been able to make her decision not to follow him partially reflected the fact that for a long while, it had been increasingly evident that his prospects within the service were diminishing. Once the end of the possibility of fast promotion and the occupancy of senior ranks was formally signalled by the communication of his forthcoming appointment, so her love was decisively and speedily terminated. She was gone from the apartment before he had left the moon. Resentfully, he remembered her doing the rounds of clubs and bars frequented by service personal, a little too obviously looking for someone else who might take her off that moon towards better things.