"But you're a Lhari!" It burst from her, uncontrollable. She stopped,
looked at him in consternation. He smiled, bitterly.
"No, Meta, they didn't do a thing to my internal organs, to my brain, to
the tissues of my body. Just a little plastic surgery on my hands, my
feet and my face. Meta, there's nothing to be afraid of--nothing," he
repeated.
She twisted her small hands together. "I'm--trying to--to believe that,"
she whispered, "but all my life I've known--"
The screaming whine in the ship gripped them with the strange, clawing
lassitude and discomfort. Bart, gasping under it, heard the girl moan,
saw her slump lax in her chair, half fainting. Her face was so deathly
white that he began seriously to be afraid she would die of her fear.
Fighting his own agonizing weakness, he pulled himself upright. He
reached the girl, dug his claws cruelly into her.
"Girl, get hold of yourself! Fight it! Fight it! The more scared you
are, the worse it's going to be!"
She was rigid, trembling, in a trance of terror.
"You rotten little coward," he yelled at her, "snap out of it! Or are
all you Mentorians so gutless that you believe any half-baked folk tale
the Lhari pass off on you? You and your fine talk about earning the
star-drive! What would you do with it after you got it--if you die of
fear when you try?"
"Oh! You--!" She flung her head back, her eyes blazing with rage.
"Anything you can do, I can do, too!" He saw life flowing back into her
face, and the trembling now was with fury, not fear; she was fighting
the pain, the crawling itch in her nerve ends, the terrible sense of
draining disorganization.
Bart felt his hold on himself breaking. He whispered hoarsely, "That's
the girl--don't be scared if I--black out for a minute." He held on to
consciousness with his last courage, afraid if he fainted, the girl
would collapse again.
She reached for him, and Bart, starved for some human touch, drew her
into his arms. They clung together, and he felt her wet face against his
own, the softness of her trembling hands. She was still crying a little.
Then the blackness closed on him, as if endless, and the gray blur of
warp-drive peak blotted his brain into nothingness.
He came out of it to feel her cheek soft against his, her head
trustfully on his shoulder. He said huskily, "All right, Meta?"
"I'm fine," she murmured, shakily. He tightened his hands a little,
realizing that for the first time in months he had physically forgotten
his Lhari disguise, that Meta had given him this priceless reassurance
that he was human. But, as if suddenly aware of it again, she looked up
at him and drew hesitantly away.