I'll bet you are, Kirk thought: your gain, my loss. "Greetings from Terra," he replied, somewhat stiffly. "Cyril Kirk." He tried to keep his vague disapproval of Jerwyn's breezy informality out of his voice. It was hard to realize this man was also a Planetary Administrator. He seemed to have lost completely the look of authority that was the lifelong mark of the PA graduate.
After the various introductions and a short period of conversation, Kirk found himself seated beside Jerwyn in the small ground vehicle which was to take him to his headquarters. Jerwyn immediately resumed the standard Galactic-Terran language, which he had dropped during the introductions. "As soon as I show you around a bit, I'll be off on the landing ship you came in. I wonder how Terra will seem after all this time."
"Five years is a long time," Kirk ventured.
"Ten."
Kirk stared at him in astonishment. "You took the optional five years! Why in heaven would anyone—" He broke off suddenly. The question might be one Jerwyn would not care to answer. He threw him a speculative glance, wondering why he had been sent here and whether he, too, was bitter. Maybe a poor record, or something in his past he didn't care to go back to...? That didn't fit in his own case—but then there was no knowing what did fit in his own case. Jerwyn had an alert, perceptive look that indicated considerable intelligence, but still he somehow looked inadequate. Some quality an Administrator should have was lacking ... dignity? drive?
Jerwyn's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
The groundcar had left the plain and was entering a heavily wooded section. For the first time, Kirk took a good look at his surroundings. Some of the trees and plants were very like those he had seen in parks at home. Still, there was a definitely alien feel to it all. The trees were low and wide and had peculiar contours, different from those of trees on Terra, and their flowering foliage came in odd sizes and colors. The sky wasn't quite the blue he was used to, and the shapes of the clouds were different. He noticed for the first time a heady, pungent perfume carried on the breeze, that was both pleasant and stimulating. It came, perhaps, from the wide-petaled flowers in oddly shimmering colors that clustered thickly everywhere.
"Yes, it's beautiful," he agreed, "but—" The feeling of despair and frustration welled up in him again. The warmth he sensed in Jerwyn made him suddenly long to blurt out the whole story. He controlled himself with difficulty, as he turned toward him. "It's pretty enough. It might make a good vacation resort if it weren't on the edge of nowhere." His pent-up emotion exploded as he spoke. "But five years in this hole! I'd feel a hell of a lot better if I were looking at some rocky, barren landscape with some mines on it—with something of value on it—with a name somebody'd heard of, where you could hope to get somewhere. I don't want to waste five years here!" He paused for breath, staring angrily at the lush landscape. "And for that matter, life on one of those planets where you live under domes, with a sealed-in atmosphere, is probably a lot more civilized and convenient than in this primitive jungle."
Jerwyn nodded slowly, an unspoken compassion in his face. "I know how you're feeling." He paused. "And it does seem pretty primitive here at first—no automatic precipitrons for cleaning your clothes, natural foods instead of synthetics, no aircars, no automatic dispensers for food or drinks or clothes; none of a hundred things you take for granted till you don't have them. But you get used to it. There are things to make up—" He broke off as the car began to descend into a valley. "Look!" His voice held an odd tone of affection. "There's your new home."