Bordman was aware of an extreme unhappiness on her account. For himself, of course, the tragedy was less. He had no family, and very few friends. But he could see something that had not occurred to them as yet.
"Of course," he said, "it's not only their trouble. If the solar constant is really dropping like that, things out here will be pretty bad, too. A lot worse than they are now. We'll have to get to work to save ourselves!"
Riki did not look at him. Bordman bit his lips. It was plain that their own fate did not concern them immediately. When one's home world is doomed, one's personal safety seems a trivial matter.
There was silence save for the cackling, confused noises that came out of the speaker on Herndon's desk.
"We," said Bordman, "are right now in the conditions they'll face a good long time from now."
Herndon said dully:
"We couldn't live here without supplies from home. Or even without the equipment we brought. But they can't get supplies from anywhere, and they can't make such equipment for everybody! They'll die!" He swallowed. "They—they know it, too. So they warn us to try to save ourselves because they can't help us any more."
There are many reasons why a man can feel shame that he belongs to a race which can do the things that some men do. But sometimes there are reasons to be proud, as well. The home world of this colony was doomed, but it sent a warning to the tiny colony so that they could try to save themselves.
"I wish we were there to—share what they have to face," said Riki. Her voice sounded as if her throat hurt. "I don't want to keep on living if everybody who ever cared about us is going to die!"
Bordman felt lonely. He could understand that nobody would want to live as the only human alive. Nobody would want to live as a member of the only group of people left alive. And everybody thinks of his home planet as all the world there is. I don't think that way, thought Bordman. But maybe it's the way I'd feel about living if Riki were to die. It would be natural to want to share any danger or any disaster she faced.