"Coming down," said Joris. "Better get Shairn a coverall. It's cold down there."
Trehearne found a warm coverall in the equipment locker and took it to Shairn's cabin. She put it on, and he saw how her face was shadowed with weariness and strain.
She said quietly, "Do you still love me, Michael?"
Her question took him by surprise, and the answer came of itself. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I do."
"Then we must stop behaving like two angry children and not throw away the life we can have together."
He bent his head. "I'm sorry you got caught in this."
"It's as much my fault as yours. I was too quick to lose my temper. I should have stopped to think that the Vardda world was so new to you that you had little to judge it by."
She was not now the mocking Shairn of old. Her voice was full of a sombre passion, a pleading for him to understand.
"Michael, your motives were good—loyalty to a friend, reaction against what seemed to you injustice. But surely now you must see how hopeless this all is. I know you're hunting Orthis' ship. You'll never reach it. Kerrel will run you down. It'll all have been for nothing."
It seemed to Trehearne that what she said was very likely true. But he only answered, "It's too late to think about that now."