A long week's pacing, three steps each way. Thoughts ... defense at Prime Reference ... first the grave statement of facts, for the record and for unborn historians ... for some future Welnicki burning to vindicate his triple-great grandfather ... then the exhortation to courage and imagination, powerfully restrained emotion almost breaking through ... deep, ringing sincerity ... then the gray courtyard and the firing squad ... I die without resentment ... my short life justified, its meaning found in action....
Thoughts about his planet ... his planet?... Wendy, the child ... a boy, of course, the Welnickis were quite low-Rho ... never to see his son ... knowing that in the gray courtyard.... He wanted to cry.
Ensign Sotero, armed and brassarded, came to conduct him to the captain on the eighth day.
"Damn orders, Steve," Sotero said, standing in the door. "We know most of the story and we're all for you. Your wife and the skipper have been going round and round for days, beating each other over the head with that treaty, Patrol Regulations and the constitution of Sigma-3 Velorum. Somebody heard him say she's the smartest space lawyer this side of Earth. Don't let him stampede you, Steve!"
"Thanks, Juan, I won't." Ensign Welnicki's own voice sounded strange to him after the silence.
The captain was disconcertingly un-fierce. He looked tired and sad behind the gray desk.
"Sit down, Stephen," he said dully. "Let's talk about this mess we're in."
Ensign Welnicki sat down gingerly, his back stiff.