She pressed a stud, and the whirring stopped. On the lens was the picture of a dim red sun lost in a dark wilderness, with hardly a distant star to break the desolation. Around it circled one lonely planet, grey, forlorn, and hopeless.
After a long while Trehearne said, "But I'm not a criminal. They couldn't—"
"They could judge you a danger to society, as they judge the Orthists. Kerrel will do his best to put you there—as a matter of principle."
Dying star, and dying world, alone on the edge of nothing. Trehearne looked at it. "What do they do there?"
"Nothing. They just wait."
"For what?"
He knew the answer before she told him. No more ships, no more voyaging, nothing to look forward to but the only release there was. Trehearne drew back from the viewer. Shairn smiled.
"Afraid?"
"Yes."
"I'm on your side."