Good Times, Bad Times And Farewells

A Circus of Hells, CHAPTER TWENTY.

It is good to see Flandry and Ydwyr cooperate at the conclusion of this novel.

Djana has learned not to think past any good time because knowing that a bad time was sure to come would spoil the good time. I have drawn a different conclusion from experience. Good times have been followed by bad times which have been followed by a different kind of good time. If life had ended during one of the bad times, then that would have prevented the later good time. As Flandry asks at the end of The Game of Empire, who knows what the score will be when the game is over?

Flandry makes an honest offer to recruit Djana into Intelligence but she interprets this offer as Flandry, like Ydwyr, trying to use her. And, incidentally, while rejecting Flandry, she also loses her religious faith:

"'It's a strange feeling,' she told her God, in a voice turned high and puzzled, like that of a child who cannot understand, 'to learn, once and forever, that there's no one who cares. Not even You.'" (p. 365)

Before that, she has placed a curse on Flandry:

"He thought little of her remark, then." (ibid.) (my emphasis.)