She arose, feeling that she must certainly collapse the next instant. She forced her legs to move, step by step, to the table by his couch. There she picked up the terif decanter and tipped it to fill his glass. The dry clatter of bottle on glass betrayed her shaking hands.
"One for you, too, my dear Lyn."
She held the decanter several inches above her glass to avoid that horrible clatter, and managed to spill quite a bit on the table.
Perat held his glass up to touch hers. "A toast," he smiled, "to a mysterious and beautiful lady!"
He drank prone, she standing. She knew she would spill her drink if she tried to recross to her couch.
"So you're a Terran? Then why did you kill the Terran officer on the balcony?"
She was so relieved that she sank limply to the floor beside him.
"Why should I tell you? You wouldn't believe anything I told you now, or that you found in my mind." She smiled up at him.
"True, true. Quite a dilemma. Should I shoot you now and possibly bring the rage of a noble Scythian house down about my ears, or should I submit you to mechanical telepathic analysis?"
"I am yours, viscount," she laughed. "Shoot me. Analyze me. Whatever you wish."