He burst into the control room and saw it in one blinding instant. Alonzo's charred body sagging in its harness, Janazik half out of his, Carse staggering to his feet—the blaster turned on Janazik, Janazik, the finger tightening—
Tiger-like, Anse sprang. Carse glimpsed him, turned, the blaster half swung about ... and the murderous fighting machine which was Dougald Anson had reached him. Carse saw the sword shrieking against his face; it was the last thing he ever saw....
Anse lurched back against the control panel. "Turn it off!" yelled Janazik. "Throw that big switch there!"
Mechanically, the human obeyed, and there was silence again, a deep ringing silence in which they floated free. It felt like an endless falling.
Falling, falling—Anse looked numbly down at his bloody sword. Falling, falling, falling—but that couldn't be right, he thought dully. He had already fallen. He had killed Ellen's brother.
"And I love her," he whispered.
Janazik drifted over, slowly in the silent room. His eyes were a deep gold, searching now. If Ellen won't have him, he and I will go out together, out to the stars and the great new frontier. But if she will, I'll have to go alone, I'll always be alone—
Unless she would come too. She's a good kid.... I'd like to have her along. Maybe take a mate of my own too.... But that can never be, now. She won't come near her brother's slayer.
"You might not have had to kill him," said Janazik. "Maybe you could have disarmed him."