Sacrifice

Chapter 4 - The Threat

Adir stared at the pad in front of him.

He was halfway through the six-month backlog, which had accumulated because all of his fellow captains claimed that paperwork gave them rashes and categorically refused to do it; unless, of course, they were claiming expenses for themselves. Shaking his head, Adir picked the stylus up and started signing the list of requisitions in front of him.

There was a knock.

Adir looked up and frowned when he saw Kalli at the door.

"Why are you here? Nobody told me you were coming, and we didn't arrange anything last night."

Kalli crossed the vacant office to his desk at the back.

"I was down at the university to talk to Dr. Iridan and wanted to see you. I figured since it was 14h00 and you probably hadn't eaten yet I could save you from yourself."

Adir checked the top of his datapad and groaned. She was right. Disgusted, he threw the pad on the desk and leaned back.

"How'd it go?"

Kalli bit her lip; Adir really looked at her for the first time since she had arrived. She wasn't smiling.

"Do you have time for a walk?" she asked, "I don't want to get in the way of anything urgent." She motioned to the pads covering his desk.

"Important yes. Urgent no. Not so long as I get them in tonight. Let's go to the top of the city wall and pretend to be sightseers."

Adir kept glancing at Kalli as they climbed the steps of the wall. She usually had a lot to say, and after meeting her idol, he had expected sheer giddiness not sombre silence.

They were halfway up before Kalli broke the silence. "I'm going to have to find another science teacher."

"So she said no?"

Kalli hesitated "Not exactly," she pulled a data crystal out of her pocket. "She said she'd only take me if I wrote a really good paper, better than the students in her class."

Adir watched Kalli toy with the crystal as they reached the top of the wall. "I don't see the problem, she hasn't actually said no."

"It's not the paper," Kalli said, ignoring the spectacular view of the mountains. "It was her tone, her manners. She, she wasn't respectful in the least. She even left me standing the whole time and dismissed me at the end. And she didn't even use my title."

Adir waited for a moment to make sure the tirade was done. "I don't use your title."

"That's different," Kalli said. "We're friends. She's not."

"No, she's your teacher." Adir stopped walking and turned to face Kalli. "You want her as a teacher because she's older and more knowledgeable than you, right? Shouldn't respect be going from you to her?"

"That doesn't mean I should tolerate disrespect - "

"Of course not," Adir shoved his hands in his pockets and settled against the outer wall, "But what you're describing doesn't sound like disrespect; it sounds like the way she probably treats all of her students."

"You don't understand," said Kalli.

"I think maybe I do," answered Adir. "It sounds to me like you're afraid of failing. That you won't pass Dr. Iridan's test."

Kalli's dropped to a nearby bench. "Maybe."

Adir went to join her. "Maybe?"

"Well, what if I can't? What if my writing, my analysis isn't good enough?" she asked, overwhelmed by the possibility.