"But since I have learned to know you and to—like you, I have come to realize that outward semblances are meaningless. I may appear one way in your universe, another way in mine, but I am the same I. If there is beauty—" and she gave what, in a lesser personage, would have been almost a giggle—"it is an inner beauty."
Mattern could not agree with this premise. Although he had admired the mbretersha on Ferr, he felt quite differently toward her now, and because of no suddenly discovered inner beauty.
"You'll stay this way in this universe then?" he asked. "It makes it so much more comfortable for me—than just a collection of shadows," he added hastily.
"I will stay this way permanently while I am in your universe, Mattern," she told him, "if, in your turn, you will accept me as—as—"
"As my shipmate," Mattern finished, "my kqyres. I have already done so."
"Not merely as your shipmate."
"As my—wife?" he blurted, wondering whether he was reading her mind or whether she was projecting so forcibly into his that he merely spoke her thoughts for her.
She nodded.
To be chained again, after this brief moment of freedom! He wanted her, right enough, and he was delighted to have her for his partner, his companion, but he saw no need for formal commitments between them.
"You're the mbretersha," he protested, "the queen. It wouldn't be right for you to marry a commoner!"