"It took you the longest time to figure me out," Deborah sighed. "I hope you'll treat it as a confidential disclosure or they'll try to cure me and make me normal."
"Heaven forbid!" I let her voice crawl up and down my spine with a freedom I'd never allowed before. It made me feel pretty drunk.
I looked at her and her eyes were green and wide. "God, you're beautiful," I said with the unbidden frankness that comes with any kind of drunkenness.
"You make me feel that way," she said.
I touched her hand very briefly. "It'll turn out as good as I can manage."
"I needed you, Steve. I was so afraid you wouldn't be there. I couldn't be alone with this one. She's going to kill herself, Steve."
"Aren't any of her people interested in helping her? What about her brother?"
"Another potential suicide, I suppose," Deborah said bitterly. "He's with Pundra Doh in the lead ship. He will ostensibly take over when he reaches Ul."
"Well, heaven bless him."