"Very well, but look after yourself. We cannot have you fading out on us." The captain looked more deeply into his face. "Colonel Joyce has been asking for you. He seems to take a special interest in you—-believes you have some potential or understanding the rest of us lack."
"Yes. It seems my curse to have lonely old men confide in me."
"Listen to me Brunner," said the captain sternly. "Don't be that way. We need him. We need his firepower. Whether you like it or not, we need you to listen to his every word, and learn what you can from him. Account yourself as befits the situation! We are in enemy Space now, and the Soviet detection screens won't hide us forever."
"Captain. They are not going to turn and leave us now."
"You must not count on that! And I am still your commanding officer, however vague the current status. Remember that."
"Yes, sir."
He performed officiously the duties of a long day, with growing impatience, but simultaneously fearing for the time to pass. For at least now he still had hope. He could still imagine the happy reunion with Ara, still picture the moment of finding her: the tearful embrace and releasing of pent-up, brutalized emotions—-the lonely hours of anguish, always fearing the worst, listening to the battle rage inside him.
And yet in the end came the thought, the realization, that he NEEDED TO
KNOW. Sixty odd hours, then the battle. Then the landing on Dracus.
When his shift was over he went to the officer's mess and partook, what little he ate of it, of the evening meal. He sat alone at an empty table and spoke to no one, but the others were used to this. With different words they all realized that he had sunk very deep into himself, and did not wish to be disturbed in his reverie. And they were right. Almost he feared to take comfort in the company of other men, as if this might somehow lessen the prayerful necessity of finding his wife.
He returned again to his room. Taking out a pen and pad of paper he made some notes for the following day, then picked up his copy of A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, and began to read. Dragged down after a time by its minute detail and understated hopelessness, he placed a marker in the book and set it down, scrawling idly some verses that came to him then. Weary and lethargic he lay back on the bed, though he did not yet wish to sleep.