He shook hands with Birrel, and then he turned and shook hands with Kara, and kissed her, and said, "You're a bloody fool but I'd do the same thing," and turned and started back up the ladder.
Birrel said, finally, "Kara—"
"Yes," she said. "I'm staying."
He took her in his arms and could only speak her name again, and then she said, "We have to stand clear, before the ship takes off."
"I can't let you do this!" he cried. "It's why I wouldn't ask you to do it. No ship will come again, and you'll weary of it here, and—"
"Yes, yes," she said, as one might quiet a troubled child, "I know all that. But right now, we must get clear of the ship."
Minutes later, from a ridge a thousand yards away, they heard a boom of thunder and saw a quickly-muffled blast of flame, and then glimpsed the great silver bulk riding skyward, vanishing almost at once.
Birrel, holding Kara, looked up with her into the starry sky and saw the flying shadow against the stars, that was there for an instant and then was not there at all.
He wondered if, in the years ahead, she would look more and more with memory and longing at that starry sky. He hoped, he prayed, that she would not.