They came a little later and told Trehearne that they had found where Torin had hidden himself under the wrappings of a bale, to be carried aboard with the cargo.
"It wasn't your fault," they told him. "There was no way you could have seen the boy."
Trehearne was not comforted.
They buried Torin in deep space, to drift forever among the Suns of Hercules. And Trehearne thought of a hut, of a man and a woman who were waiting for their son to come home. He wished that Torin had listened to the wisdom of his father.
The Saarga tramped her way onward among the worlds of the Cluster. Time and events gave Trehearne other things to think about. He was a starman now, tested and hardened, a functioning part of his environment. His horizons were boundless and the stars had not lost their lustre. But somehow, even so, the first fine flush of glory was gone.
He remembered the bitterness of the woman who had said, "You are free and I am chained and my children after me forever." He remembered the countless young men who hungered, the eyes of children wide with dreams. Each time he saw the new-healed scars on his body he remembered the boy who had dressed those wounds and found the Vardda flesh no different from his own—a treachery too subtle for his understanding.
Over and over, when he slept, he held Torin in his arms and watched him die.
He told himself that it was all wasted pity. Whatever had been done to Orthis long ago was not his doing. Things were as they were and there was no help for it. He was one of the lucky ones and he should be content with that. Most of the time he was content. But now and again there would come the small sharp doubts, the creeping sense of guilt.
If only Torin had not come aboard the ship to die!
He needed to talk to Edri. He needed to ease his mind, to get things straight with himself, and he knew that Edri would understand.