Her face grew blurred in his eyes. He saw her as through a mist. He was falling away from her, dropping. She cried out in alarm, ran toward him. Her soft hands caught him, but could not hold his big body. He hit the floor and lay still.
There was perfume in his nostrils, and a faint murmur of sound. Travis opened his eyes, lay staring up at the white ceiling of the crystal crypt. He turned his neck, saw Nuala with oddly-shaped jars set before her on a long, flat tabletop.
She was murmuring, "If only I were sure of the cell formation, it would be easy. Not like ours, yet different from that of the arklings. This ... yes, this might be the right one."
She came toward him a blue jar grooved and opaque in her hand. Smiling at him, she unscrewed the top and dipped her fingers inside. She brought out a reddish jelly that she smoothed gently into the bite in his thigh, then into the torn flesh of his arm. There was faint pain, a tingle of nausea.
"It will pass," said Nuala. "The red jelly is celluvalin. It is—you might call it plastic flesh. It has the cell formation of blood and sinew, and will knit and unite with the torn sections of your body."
Travis lay still. The pain was going swiftly. Tentatively he flexed his leg. It moved easily. He grinned, "You could make a fortune with that on Earth or Mars. What the Fleet wouldn't give for plastic flesh. Whew!"
Nuala sighed and replaced the jars. "If we defeat Rudra, I will return to the calyx. There is no place in the world for me."
Travis saw the blue eyes and the tiredness, the wisdom and knowledge behind them, and bit at his lip. She was right. Earth and Mars, even Cyngi and Lalande-80 would be boring to her. She knew too much to be happy with anyone less intelligent than she. And that meant everyone—except the Werwile.
Travis swung his long legs in their torn spaceslacks off the table. He ran his hands over the broad leathern belt that held his stil-gun and holster, over the leather-and-cloth jerkin with the ripped sleeves.