"She's studying to be an archeologist."She's studying to be an archeologist... she likes what her dad does for a living. She wants to follow in his footsteps. She's taking a lot of xenolinguistics this quarter..." "Sounds heavy." "Yeah," Nickolai agreed. He settled back into his chair, watching the landscape slide by under the airbus. Still several hours away from Entrane' in France, Nickolai let his mind drift several times over the more common feints and parries that he would require in the two days to come. A while later, he said, "Garth?" "Yeah?" "Tell me again how you convinced me to do this." "Easy, Kolya. You were a wretched wreck when you returned to school, and I turned you into a model citizen by forcing you to do something other than go to classes and moon over your girlfriend seven light years away." Nickolai laughed. "I'm not that bad." "No, but you were, Kolya, you were. Never mind that half the school is envious of you... forget that I'm envious of you. For a while there, you were off in never never land, sighing that you couldn't reach her and only got to talk to her once a month or so by mail. You're a lousy letter writer, you've said so yourself." Nickolai sighed. "I know. I can't help that I miss her." "I must say that your devotion to her is phenomenal, Nickolai. I've never seen you like this before. What happened to the casual Kolya?" "A lie," Nickolai admitted. "I was never 'casual,' Garth. Just good at hiding how badly I was shaking." "Well you did a good job hiding it from me," Garth admitted. "That's the point, isn't it?" Nickolai asked. "Gotta convince even my closest friends that I really am as cool as I appear to be. |