25. Whenever two human beings spend time together, sooner or later they will probably irritate one another. This is true of best friends, married couples, parents and children, or teachers and students. The question is: How do they respond when friction occurs? There are four basic ways they can react:• They can internalize the anger and send it downward into a memory bank that never forgets. This creates great pressure within and can even result in disease and other problems.• They can pout and be rude without discussing the issues. This further irritates the other person and leaves him or her to draw his or her own conclusions about what the problem may be.• They can blow up and try to hurt the other person. This causes the death of friendships, marriages, homes, and businesses.• Or they can talk to one another about their feelings, being very careful not to attack the dignity and worth of the other person. This approach often leads to permanent and healthy relationships.

It did occur to him that perhaps he’d gone to the wrong Academy – the guys in the Space Fleet always had more interesting stories to tell at the spaceport bars. You know, tales about the dude who got vaporized in a plasma accident in the engineering section, or the fella who got turned into a blob of weird space jelly by some alien virus – or the time someone flew a starship into an astor-field at warp four by mistake (they were still trying to find the black box on that one). The Imperial Space Fleet’s recruiting office sure didn’t go around advertising ‘Join up, see the universe, meet interesting aliens and die screaming’, but it was known there were risks involved. It was part of the job after all, and yet somehow, they still got recruits signing up in droves. Yes, indeedy – the stories were far more interesting than his – took a load of ore to Gorda, took a load of mining equipment back to Tordrazil. Took a load of Florpavian Flame-birds to a zoo on Deanna, took a load of machinery to Salus. Picked up and dropped off a few passengers on the way. Still, Florpavian Flame-birds were a risky cargo… and damned tricky to transport – which is probably the only reason he’d had any entertainment at all on the last trip.

Tris!” Four calls out. Will and I exchange a look, half surprise and half apprehension. Four pulls away from the railing and walksup to me. Ahead of us, Al and Christina stop running, and Christina slides to the ground. I don’t blame them for staring. There are four of us, and Four is only talking to me.“You look different.” His words, normally crisp, are now sluggish.“So do you,” I say. And he does—he looks more relaxed, younger. “What are you doing?”“Flirting with death,” he replies with a laugh. “Drinking near the chasm. Probably not a good idea.”“No, it isn’t.” I’m not sure I like Four this way. There’s something unsettling about it.“Didn’t know you had a tattoo,” he says, looking at my collarbone.He sips the bottle. His breath smells thick and sharp. Like the factionless man’s breath.“Right. The crows,” he says. He glances over his shoulder at his friends, who are carrying on without him, unlike mine. He adds,“I’d ask you to hang out with us, but you’re not supposed to see me this way.”I am tempted to ask him why he wants me to hang out with him, but I suspect the answer has something to do with the bottle inhis hand.“What way?” I ask. “Drunk?”“Yeah...well, no.” His voice softens. “Real, I guess.”“I’ll pretend I didn’t.”“Nice of you.” He puts his lips next to my ear and says, “You look good, Tris.”His words surprise me, and my heart leaps. I wish it didn’t, because judging by the way his eyes slide over mine, he has no ideawhat he’s saying. I laugh. “Do me a favor and stay away from the chasm, okay?”“Of course.” He winks at me.