Enigma Read Online Free

past schools, knickknacks bought on trips with Andra.
    Andra. How are you going to take this? he asked his mother in absentia. How hard are you going to make it? Thackery did not dwell on the questions; because he knew the answers lay just a few hours away.
    He was nearly finished packing when he was interrupted by the paging tone from the apartment’s front door. He opened it to find, not entirely unexpectedly, Director Stowell, a somber man whose face and dignity were flawed by a bulbous nose seemingly designed to keep eyeglasses from slipping off. Since Stowell wore contacts, the consensus was that he was afraid of corrective surgery. A minority held that he was a closet naturalist.
    “Good morning, Mr. Thackery.” Stowell’s glance took in the disarray behind Thackery. “I’m glad I turned down a second helping at breakfast. I might not have found you.”
    “Won’t you come in. Director Stowell?”
    Stowell threaded his way to the center of the room before answering. “It’s not uncommon for second-tier students to withdraw. We expect it. In some cases we welcome it. Occasionally we even request it. But we both know that you are in absolutely no academic difficulty. On the contrary, your work has been uniformly excellent. When you filed your notice of withdrawal with the registrar, you elected not to give your reasons. Would you do me the courtesy of sharing them with me privately?”
    Thackery’s face wrinkled with discomfort. “I don’t think I could properly express why,” he said finally.
    “Ah.” Stowell frowned. “I don’t mean to pry, Mr. Thackery. It’s only that I would regret to see the Council lose the services of someone with your potential due to some”—he paused to search for the right word—“irrelevancy. I would like to help you, if you’ll allow me.”
    Thackery folded his arms across his chest in a subconscious gesture of resistance. “I’ve just decided not to continue in GS.”
    Stowell nodded. “You wouldn’t object if I chose to list you as on hiatus rather than withdrawn?”
    Guarding his thoughts because he did not trust himself to guard his words, Thackery shook his head. “I don’t see any point to it.”
    “The point is that your reasons for withdrawal may be temporary.”
    How can I tell you that everything you care about seems shallow to me now? How can I explain about Jupiter? “I plan to enroll in TSI-Tsiolkovsky.”
    Stowell nodded gravely. “I know.”
    “I received word yesterday that they would accept me.”
    “As did I.” Stowell settled on the arm of a chair as though he meant to stay a while. “I’m hardly surprised they accepted you. The Technical Service needs people with your qualities even more than we do. But you should be thinking about your needs, not theirs. Speaking frankly, I don’t see you being happy in an essentially subservient posture. No matter how skilled a TS graduate is, everything they do is subordinate to decisions from GS—”
    Not everything , Thackery thought. The Council doesn’t rule everywhere .
    “—and I’ve always seen you on the decision-making side of that relationship,” Stowell concluded.
    “I understand that, sir.”
    “There is something else to consider. You know that you can be successful here. Your success elsewhere is less certain. Your competition at Tsiolkovsky has been specializing for years, just as you have. You will be a long time catching up—if you ever do. Raw ability is not everything.”
    “I’ve considered that, Director,” said Thackery, though he had not.
    “You’ve considered that,” the director echoed without conviction, chewing at his lower lip. “You should also think of your individual development. The TS institutes offer far greater freedom to set your own pace than we do. Do you understand why? They’re only teaching cold science, not providing a total acculturation as we do. There is a dynamism in Government Service that you will not find there, because it is a