"So you want to embroil the whole human race in your fight, eh?"
"Oh, hell, Mike, it's not my fight—it's humanity's battle for self-preservation. You know that as well as I do. Besides, wouldn't you like to see Jane again?"
"That hurt, Sean," Mike said softly.
Sean touched him lightly on the shoulder: "Sorry, Mike, but don't you see? All of us want to see the ones we love again. And we won't, if we let despair grab us."
"All right," said Mike. "I'll go along with you. But it's no go just the same."
"Pessimist," Sean said and laughed softly. But he was glad the blocky, black-haired Mike was with him.
The uprooting of these humans from their home of ages had been simple enough, Sean decided. Except for the nausea that held the stomach in noisome fingers when the Krak ship broke loose from the earth.
Were there more captives this time than in the long years before? Were there 1,000 Krak ships—instead of 500—transplanting men and women and children to that scarlet land of Karrar?
Sean said as much to Mike, and Mike said: "I heard before we left that this would be the biggest batch." Mike looked harried in the yellow wall light. "Sean," he said quickly, with a twist on his lips: "How's the search coming?"