Part 70, Chapter 1044
Chapter One Thousand Forty-Four
25th January 1954
Jena
“You’ll be pleased to know that you perfectly healthy” Peter said reading the latest updates to Kat’s file, “No irregularities or anything you should be too worried about.”
“But what about my back” Kat replied, it had been a nagging backache that had caused her to go into the clinic.
“Age, Katherine” Peter replied, “You aren’t a teenager anymore and you push yourself to keep up with people half your age. The odds are high that you are going to eventually do serious injury to yourself if you continue.”
Kat’s reaction was one of anger that she did nothing to hide. It wasn’t Peter’s fault that this was happening, and it wasn’t something that anyone could do anything about. He could see that despite her generally youthful appearance there were signs of Kat’s age, she had to be aware of it too even if she was unwilling to admit it.
The week before she had been complaining about how she had basically been forced by competing circumstances to make choices she didn’t want to make. If it hadn’t left her so stressed Peter might have found it amusing, the indomitable Gräfin von Mischner delegating responsibility. Something that didn’t come naturally to her. She had received a sideways promotion within the 1st Foot to be the new Executive Officer and had to hire several people to oversee the Tempelhof Project for her. All of them were former members of the Pioneer Corps who she grudgingly felt she could trust with the task. She had also said that she was forced to deal with a Henning Kraus, one of her father’s former henchmen. He had shown up on Kat’s doorstep and demanded a slice of the pie. Kat hadn’t said how she had handled the situation, but Peter had a bad feeling that this Henning had probably not gotten what he expected. Attempting to extort Kat when she was in a mood was a good way to end up in traction.
“The General Practitioner didn’t know you personally” Peter said, “He included in his notes that he felt that you would do well to take a vacation.”
“You can’t be serious” Kat said, “There is no way that…”
“I know you have responsibilities” Peter said, “But workdays that are sixteen hours or more, seven days a week is something that you can’t keep doing because you are going to collapse.”
“What are you saying?” Kat asked.
“That the problems with your back should be a wake up call for you” Peter said, “Next time it might come in the form of a mental breakdown, heart arrhythmia or any number of other scary things.”
Peter realized partway through that he had raised his voice and that she was looking at him in surprise. In all the years that she had been seeing Peter, he had never done that.
“Start taking care of yourself or be ordered to” Peter said, “You aren’t being given a choice.”
Berlin
Anya was looking in awe up at the dinosaur skeleton in the Natural History Museum. Gia had promised her that this was real. It had been an enjoyable week with Gia living vicariously through Anya as she looked in wonder at everything around the city. A couple hours before Gia had introduced her to Vietnamese Pho soup and chopsticks. They had sat in the window of the restaurant watching people go by and Anya had talked excitedly about everything she was seeing. There had been people from all over the world walking past and Gia had almost burst out laughing when Anya saw a very dignified looking man of African extraction with skin so dark it was almost blue walk past. That was totally outside Anya’s experience. Gia figured that she must have had a similar reaction when she had first come from Tumbler Ridge.
So far, the fun had outweighed the difficulties. Both Gia and Anya were having to adjust. Having a room entirely to herself was a novel experience for Anya. Learning that she was responsible for keeping it clean was all too familiar for her though and she had resisted that a bit. On some level Anya had thought that she was escaping responsibilities. Gia had been the one to tell Anya that it wasn’t always going to be fun all the time and realized that she sounded exactly the same as Aunt Marcella from years earlier. Gia wasn’t looking forward to the coming battle over preparing Anya for starting school. The other difficulty was Saint Alexandra was back, news had leaked out that Gia had taken on an orphan from Saint Petersburg as her ward and she had an especially warm welcome when she had gone to church with Kira the prior Sunday.
Anya had no idea why they were the center of attention in Berlin’s small Orthodox community and hadn’t liked it much. Gia had told her they would get over it soon enough.
“What is this?” Anya asked. That was an interesting question, the stone slab contained the fossilized Archaeopteryx, the strange creature that had features of both a bird and a dinosaur, teeth and feathers. Anya couldn’t read the placards in German yet, so she had no idea what she was looking at. She also still had a child’s religiosity. Which meant that trying to explain Charles Darwin and evolution would probably be too much for one day.
“The world was once a very different place” Gia said.
“How long ago?” Anya asked.
Gia looked at the placard, “One hundred fifty million years according to this” She replied.
Anya just stared at Gia wide-eyed when she heard that. That was beyond comprehension to a nine-year-old.
25th January 1954
Jena
“You’ll be pleased to know that you perfectly healthy” Peter said reading the latest updates to Kat’s file, “No irregularities or anything you should be too worried about.”
“But what about my back” Kat replied, it had been a nagging backache that had caused her to go into the clinic.
“Age, Katherine” Peter replied, “You aren’t a teenager anymore and you push yourself to keep up with people half your age. The odds are high that you are going to eventually do serious injury to yourself if you continue.”
Kat’s reaction was one of anger that she did nothing to hide. It wasn’t Peter’s fault that this was happening, and it wasn’t something that anyone could do anything about. He could see that despite her generally youthful appearance there were signs of Kat’s age, she had to be aware of it too even if she was unwilling to admit it.
The week before she had been complaining about how she had basically been forced by competing circumstances to make choices she didn’t want to make. If it hadn’t left her so stressed Peter might have found it amusing, the indomitable Gräfin von Mischner delegating responsibility. Something that didn’t come naturally to her. She had received a sideways promotion within the 1st Foot to be the new Executive Officer and had to hire several people to oversee the Tempelhof Project for her. All of them were former members of the Pioneer Corps who she grudgingly felt she could trust with the task. She had also said that she was forced to deal with a Henning Kraus, one of her father’s former henchmen. He had shown up on Kat’s doorstep and demanded a slice of the pie. Kat hadn’t said how she had handled the situation, but Peter had a bad feeling that this Henning had probably not gotten what he expected. Attempting to extort Kat when she was in a mood was a good way to end up in traction.
“The General Practitioner didn’t know you personally” Peter said, “He included in his notes that he felt that you would do well to take a vacation.”
“You can’t be serious” Kat said, “There is no way that…”
“I know you have responsibilities” Peter said, “But workdays that are sixteen hours or more, seven days a week is something that you can’t keep doing because you are going to collapse.”
“What are you saying?” Kat asked.
“That the problems with your back should be a wake up call for you” Peter said, “Next time it might come in the form of a mental breakdown, heart arrhythmia or any number of other scary things.”
Peter realized partway through that he had raised his voice and that she was looking at him in surprise. In all the years that she had been seeing Peter, he had never done that.
“Start taking care of yourself or be ordered to” Peter said, “You aren’t being given a choice.”
Berlin
Anya was looking in awe up at the dinosaur skeleton in the Natural History Museum. Gia had promised her that this was real. It had been an enjoyable week with Gia living vicariously through Anya as she looked in wonder at everything around the city. A couple hours before Gia had introduced her to Vietnamese Pho soup and chopsticks. They had sat in the window of the restaurant watching people go by and Anya had talked excitedly about everything she was seeing. There had been people from all over the world walking past and Gia had almost burst out laughing when Anya saw a very dignified looking man of African extraction with skin so dark it was almost blue walk past. That was totally outside Anya’s experience. Gia figured that she must have had a similar reaction when she had first come from Tumbler Ridge.
So far, the fun had outweighed the difficulties. Both Gia and Anya were having to adjust. Having a room entirely to herself was a novel experience for Anya. Learning that she was responsible for keeping it clean was all too familiar for her though and she had resisted that a bit. On some level Anya had thought that she was escaping responsibilities. Gia had been the one to tell Anya that it wasn’t always going to be fun all the time and realized that she sounded exactly the same as Aunt Marcella from years earlier. Gia wasn’t looking forward to the coming battle over preparing Anya for starting school. The other difficulty was Saint Alexandra was back, news had leaked out that Gia had taken on an orphan from Saint Petersburg as her ward and she had an especially warm welcome when she had gone to church with Kira the prior Sunday.
Anya had no idea why they were the center of attention in Berlin’s small Orthodox community and hadn’t liked it much. Gia had told her they would get over it soon enough.
“What is this?” Anya asked. That was an interesting question, the stone slab contained the fossilized Archaeopteryx, the strange creature that had features of both a bird and a dinosaur, teeth and feathers. Anya couldn’t read the placards in German yet, so she had no idea what she was looking at. She also still had a child’s religiosity. Which meant that trying to explain Charles Darwin and evolution would probably be too much for one day.
“The world was once a very different place” Gia said.
“How long ago?” Anya asked.
Gia looked at the placard, “One hundred fifty million years according to this” She replied.
Anya just stared at Gia wide-eyed when she heard that. That was beyond comprehension to a nine-year-old.
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