The Space Station - Chapter 1 - Page 7

Yet, Functionary's early high potential had ultimately delivered relatively little. For sure, there had been progression within the Service hierarchy as Functionary was given experience in a series of increasingly demanding jobs. With speedy promotion had come enhanced status and rewards and, looking back, Functionary thought that his partner had suspiciously materialised at what now appeared to be the period when he had shown the most potential and his career the most promise. Reflecting on that point in his life, as an individual who did not make friends easily, it now struck him that he had had an unusually largely number of friends. But the good times were not sustained and his career went into a slow and, at first, imperceptible decline. In so far as a Service functionary's life is insuperably entangled with his or her work, so his social life appeared to have similarly fallen into a trough along with his career. Thinking ahead, he fancied the number of friends he would have in his new life, in his forthcoming posting, would be much diminished from that he had grown accustomed to in the life he was now leaving far behind in the blackness of space.