He fought against the memories that kept struggling back. He didn't want to remember the excited voices of the commentators, the descriptions of the crash in space, the long list of the dead. Only one name on that list had any meaning for the ragged, homely youngster. His heart and soul were burned and seared to one mass of scar. He would become a captain. He would fight the space that had taken his gem. He would fight it, and the men in it.
Brace sighed, and looked up at the stars. But was he fighting space? Or was he fighting a memory, the memory of a girl? And what about this girl—was he fighting her? Suddenly, he felt rotten, inside and out.
Brace looked down at the girl beside him. The kindly light of the stars mellowed the outlines of her face. It could have been the face of Cecelia. Starlight was kind, but no one could ever be so beautiful as Cecelia, never. No, she wasn't Cecelia, yet in one way they were the same, that same smallness and frailty against the backdrop of a cruel space ship and its even crueler Captain.
He took a deep breath and straightened himself resolutely. "Wait here," he whispered hoarsely, and he quickly backed down the ladder to the companionway.
As Brace entered the control room, Barrows looked up. "We've been stalling that space-rat."
"Who?"
"Gartland!"
Brace stared at him blankly for a moment.
"Well, you shoved her out, didn't you?" Barrows asked, annoyed.