Almost as if aware of his thoughts, Helen spoke to him for the first time since he had crossed to the viewport.
"It's very strange, darling. I'm calmer now than I have ever been. I guess it can happen if you love a man so very much that you know your life would have no meaning if anything should happen to him. It's like facing up squarely to the fact that you no longer have any existence apart from him. I've done that, darling, and I'm not afraid."
There was silence in the cabin for an instant. Then another shell exploded, and another, and another. Corriston felt light and dangerously dizzy. It was amazing that he had not been hurled to the floor, still more amazing that he could have remained for so long motionless in just one spot.
Then, abruptly, the bombardment ceased. There was no sound at all in the cabin, just a silence so absolute that the roaring in Corriston's ears was like the sound made by an angry sea beating against vast stone cliffs in a world that had ceased to exist.
There were no longer any exploding white stars coming from the cruiser. It was dwindling into the blackness of space, giving up the battle, conceding defeat. It became thinner and thinner. Suddenly only the reef remained. Where the cruiser had been there stretched only empty space.
Corriston turned from the viewport. He crossed the cabin to the cot, swaying a little, but only from dizziness, and sat down and drew the girl on the cot close to him. He held her tightly, saying nothing.
13
Corriston was still sitting on the cot when the door opened and the commander and two executive officers came into the cabin.
He was not too surprised, for it had been somehow almost impossible for him to believe that the commander could have been killed. A scoundrel's luck and a drunkard's luck were often very much the same thing.