[It's as good a question as any. From the man's broadly unflinching bearing, it may even be the question he has been more or less anticipating. If not from Cosima, then certainly from any number of the rest of the company.
(It is why he will suggest, either to her or to one of the other Division Heads, that they make no great announcement of his leaving on anything but ordinary fieldwork until the position has been filled with a substitute. Under the current circumstances, it might cause a kind of needless anxiety.)]
What I think, [he says.] Is that Riftwatch is as relevant as it ever has been, but that it is rapidly approaching the point that it will need to make difficult decisions with respect to which of its friends it best wishes to please. I'm choosing to believe it will fall on the side of those who would see the cast offs of the Imperium treated with some dignity rather than trampled under the foot of the March.
Which is why I'm going now. It will mean more to the people there to make the effort when they're at their most vulnerable, and Kirkwall at its weakest.
no subject
(It is why he will suggest, either to her or to one of the other Division Heads, that they make no great announcement of his leaving on anything but ordinary fieldwork until the position has been filled with a substitute. Under the current circumstances, it might cause a kind of needless anxiety.)]
What I think, [he says.] Is that Riftwatch is as relevant as it ever has been, but that it is rapidly approaching the point that it will need to make difficult decisions with respect to which of its friends it best wishes to please. I'm choosing to believe it will fall on the side of those who would see the cast offs of the Imperium treated with some dignity rather than trampled under the foot of the March.
Which is why I'm going now. It will mean more to the people there to make the effort when they're at their most vulnerable, and Kirkwall at its weakest.