Ellen pushed from the wall, over to the dead man. She looked at his still face, and stroked his blood-matted hair, and smiled through a mist of tears.
"You were always good to me, Carse," she whispered. "You were ... goodnight, brother. Goodnight."
Then turning to Anse and Janazik, with something cold and terrible in her voice: "Who killed him?"
Anse looked at her, dumbly.
"I did," said Janazik.
He held forth the dripping sword. "He stowed away—was going to take over the ship. Alonzo threw him off balance by turning the rockets back on. He killed Alonzo. Then I killed him. He needed it. He was a traitor and a murderer, Ellen."
"He was my brother," she whispered. And suddenly she was sobbing in Anse's arms, great racking sobs that seemed to tear her slender body apart.
But she'd get over it.
Anse looked at Janazik over her shoulder, and while he ruffled her shining hair his eyes locked with the Khazaki's. This is the end. Once we land, we can never see each other, not ever again. And we were comrades in the old days....
Farewell, my brother.