Phillips regarded the scene without enthusiasm. The sight of the dead man had reminded him of what the compartments of that other vessel must look like by now. Its parts were beginning to scatter slowly.
He looked at Donna, and found her regarding him soberly. "What will they do with us now?" she asked.
She looked exhausted. He extended an arm, and she leaned against him. "You heard what Varret said," he told her.
"Yes, but will he keep his word? They might be ... ashamed of us, now that it's done. Even if they're not, I can't bear the thought of going back to Earth and having them stare at me!"
Phillips nodded. He remembered the morbid curiosity during his own trial, the crowds who had watched him with a kind of shrinking horror—and he had actually been responsible for saving a spaceship and its crew, had they cared to look on that side of the affair.
But he had killed. That was no longer the action of a normal human being, according to popular thinking.
"I guess you and I are the only ones who will understand one another from now on," he shrugged.
Donna smiled faintly, just as the signal sounded on the communication screen.
It was Varret, looking pale and strained. He listened to Phillips' account, including the deaths of Truesdale and Brecken, and apologized for his appearance. He had, he informed them, been unpleasantly ill when he had seen the explosion. "It was a terrible thing," Varret continued sadly, "but necessary. They were beyond reasoning with, and a deadly menace."
He pulled himself together and tried to hide his agitation by reminding them of his promise. He suggested that they consider their requests while his ship attempted to tow them in to Deimos.