"Well I should," she said, pushing her hair in an unconscious gesture with the back of her hand. "I've been doing nothing but lie in the ship's hospital, while you were having such a fine time this last week. Rushing around down there shooting all the magter."
"Just gassing them," he told her. "The Nyjorders can't bring themselves to kill any more, even if it does raise their own casualty rate. In fact they are having difficulty restraining the Disans led by Ulv, who are happily killing any magter they see as being pure umedvirk."
"What will they do when they have all those frothing magter madmen?"
"They don't know yet," he said. "They won't really know until they see what an adult magter is like with his brain-parasite dead and gone. They're having better luck with the children. If they catch them early enough, the parasite can be destroyed before it has done too much damage."
Lea shuddered delicately.
"I hate to think of a magter deprived of his symbiote," she said. "If his system can stand the shock, I imagine there will be nothing left except a brainless hulk. This is one series of experiments I don't care to witness. I rest secure in the knowledge that the Nyjorders will find the most humane solution."
"I'm sure they will," Brion said.
"Now what about us," she said disconcertingly.
This jarred Brion. He didn't have her ability to put past horrors out of the mind by substituting present pleasures. "Well, what about us?" he said with masterful inappropriateness.
She smiled and leaned against him. "You weren't as vague as that, the night in the hospital room. I seem to remember a few other things you said. You can't claim you're completely indifferent to me, Brion Brandd. So I'm only asking you what any outspoken Anvharian girl would. Where do we go from here? Get married?"