He raised his head and glanced around. Resi was standing by the helmsman, talking with his deck lieutenant. Water splashed down on the maindeck; the water crews at work. There was a breathless quiet over the ship. He could see them standing like shadows, watching the curve of the narrows.
The Spartans must have stood like that at the Pass of Thermopylae!
And the Athenians on the Plains of Marathon.
And the Americans at Bastogne.
And men anywhere, any time before a battle.
A single, whispering line from an old poem sang through him:
Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred.
There was no alien here but himself.
The ominous walls of the narrows closed and filled the sky. Beyond the curve, some two miles up, the Grimnal ships were slowly beating upwind. Suddenly, like a touch of fire to old ashes, he knew what he was doing here. A long imprisoned breath escaped from him, and a great sigh seemed to come from the whole ship.