The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back in the grass, looking up at Medart's worried face. "Are you all right, Sir Corina?" he demanded.
She struggled to sit up, dazed, and felt him supporting her.
"Are you all right?" he asked again.
She took a quick self-inventory, decided she was well if uncomfortable, and reassured him. "I am unharmed, though I will have a headache for some time. What did you do?"
He hesitated for a moment, looking her over carefully. "I'm not certain. Nothing seemed to be working, so I tried picturing a giant anaconda—that's a Terran snake—wrapped around you, contracting. I finally got it good and clear, and you collapsed. Are you sure you're all right?"
Corina growled softly, disgusted at herself. "Blades! I should have thought of that. Unless you concentrate on words, I keep getting pictures from you. I should have realized your primary orientation was visual, and guided you—"
"Oh, no, you don't," Medart interrupted. "If there's any chewing out to be done around here, I'll take care of it. You said it yourself: everyone's different, and you're not that familiar with human patterns. And you've never taught before. You can't be expected to anticipate everything at once."
He gave her a quizzical look that reminded her of their first meeting. "I hadn't realized how different in some ways, and how similar in others, Irschchans and humans are until your shield fell. I seemed to almost be you for a couple of seconds, just before you blacked out. I glimpsed a lot of things, but I couldn't understand more than half of them."
Corina was sitting unsupported now, with Medart squatting on his heels facing her. She stared at him, then started searching intensively through her memories of the last few minutes. Her shield was still down, and Medart followed her thoughts with no difficulty.