_Jen?_ he thought. Oh, yes, a very light stimulant--the local variety of tea. He walked over to the low table and sat down, fighting the impulse to enter into conversation with her. He watched her as she poured the hot liquid into wide cups of polished gourd, her hair radiant about her shoulders. A stab of longing shot through him. The long years of training in the Institute paraded through his mind, the years of strict routine, hard work, ascetic, bare rooms, with women considered playthings that took too much time from needed study; the only beauty was the dream of power among the glittering stars. Well, he wasn't going to give up and forget the dream, he told himself--and he wasn't going to be led astray by any pretty girls, particularly a maid. Hell, he thought suddenly, maybe Ross is testing me. Maybe he picked the worst planet in the whole damn galaxy to find out if I could do something with it. It's obvious if I can get this place on the trademaps, I can handle anything. He looked speculatively at the girl as she pushed the cup toward him. He wondered how she came by her job. Did they hold beauty contests here for the honor of being cleaning woman in the PA's household? He realized he was feeling more cheerful. The _jen_ and the soothing quietness of the girl's presence were doing him good. He felt a resurgence of his old energy and ambition that the interview with Ross had quelled for so long. "Did you work for Jerwyn, too?" he asked. Yes, his voice was just right, courteous, but not too friendly, he thought. "No, but I knew him." She looked at him with an odd smile. "He became one of our best dancers." "Dancers!" Kirk stared at her in amazement. He started to open his mouth, then stopped. He'd better not ask any more questions till he'd had a chance to talk to some Terrans. Apparently, Jerwyn had gone native. Maybe it was his way of rebelling against being sent here in the first place--and he'd let himself go so far that he'd skipped his chance of reassignment at the end of the first five years, afraid of the problems of a new post after being a beachcomber for so long. That would account for the curious lack of deference he'd found in all these people. They were friendly enough, but they lacked proper respect for his position. You weren't supposed to be friendly to a PA; you were supposed to be humbly polite. He recalled the respect and awe he'd received on the ship. As he finished his cup, he realized he was very hungry. He looked around instinctively for food. He had enough synthetics in his bags to do him for awhile, but he might as well make the plunge and start eating the native foods right away. No use coddling himself.