Ven did as I told her and her aura changed to a fiery pink. "Oh!" she said in a small voice, "but they never—"
I must have made some mistake in revising the controllers—or feedback was stronger than I suspected—for the Va Krul syndrome came back along our lines of contact with explosive force! Desperately I reached for the switch—but my hand froze in midair as an intolerable wave of emotion drove Ven and me together like two pieces of iron with opposite magnetic charge! The last thing I remember was being enveloped in the flaring golden glow of Ven's aura.
I came to my senses in our living quarters. I was stunned—exhausted—limp and gasping.
"Thalassa!" I said weakly, "we've really done it now!"
Ven smiled a pale blue radiance at me. "You have become strong, living on this heavy world," she said. "I like it."
"But—but!" I sputtered. "It was so—it can't—it couldn't—"
"But it did," Ven said softly. "And I'm glad it did."
"I don't mean that. What I mean to say was that it was so—"
"Unexpected?"