Shairn seemed relieved. Then, "That's what I said! But knowing your friendship for Edri, I was afraid you'd lose your head when you heard."
She went on quickly. "I know you'll have a reckoning with Kerrel over this and your own score. But you'll have to be careful since he's a Council agent. I can help you—"
But Shairn's voice faded out of Trehearne's hearing except for that one phrase.
"—knowing your friendship for Edri—"
Yes, Edri had been his friend. He was sorry for Edri. But should he let friendship be a chain to drag him back down from all that he had dreamed and desired and finally achieved?
No! He would not let himself be trapped by friendship and by pity! He had been merely indulging in emotionalism, to sympathize as he had with the non-Vardda peoples' hunger for star-freedom, to remember as he had the hopeless longing in their eyes, to brood as he had over the dying of Torin.
A sick fatal foreboding grew in Trehearne as he realized the decision shaping in his mind. He knew that it was shaped by emotion, not by reason, and he felt a savage contempt for his own weakness.
He spoke, interrupting Shairn. "I'm sorry, Shairn, I was thinking. And I think I've got to try to help Edri."
She stopped, looking at him with wide steady eyes. Then, rapidly, "Michael! Don't be a fool!"
He smiled mirthlessly. "You've told me that before. I'm telling myself now. But it doesn't work. It seems that I'm determined to be a fool."