She twisted her small hands together. "I'm—trying to—to believe that," she whispered, "but all my life I've known—"
The screaming whine in the ship gripped them with the strange, clawing lassitude and discomfort. Bart, gasping under it, heard the girl moan, saw her slump lax in her chair, half fainting. Her face was so deathly white that he began seriously to be afraid she would die of her fear. Fighting his own agonizing weakness, he pulled himself upright. He reached the girl, dug his claws cruelly into her.
"Girl, get hold of yourself! Fight it! Fight it! The more scared you are, the worse it's going to be!"
She was rigid, trembling, in a trance of terror.
"You rotten little coward," he yelled at her, "snap out of it! Or are all you Mentorians so gutless that you believe any half-baked folk tale the Lhari pass off on you? You and your fine talk about earning the star-drive! What would you do with it after you got it—if you die of fear when you try?"
"Oh! You—!" She flung her head back, her eyes blazing with rage. "Anything you can do, I can do, too!" He saw life flowing back into her face, and the trembling now was with fury, not fear; she was fighting the pain, the crawling itch in her nerve ends, the terrible sense of draining disorganization.
Bart felt his hold on himself breaking. He whispered hoarsely, "That's the girl—don't be scared if I—black out for a minute." He held on to consciousness with his last courage, afraid if he fainted, the girl would collapse again.
She reached for him, and Bart, starved for some human touch, drew her into his arms. They clung together, and he felt her wet face against his own, the softness of her trembling hands. She was still crying a little. Then the blackness closed on him, as if endless, and the gray blur of warp-drive peak blotted his brain into nothingness.
He came out of it to feel her cheek soft against his, her head trustfully on his shoulder. He said huskily, "All right, Meta?"
"I'm fine," she murmured, shakily. He tightened his hands a little, realizing that for the first time in months he had physically forgotten his Lhari disguise, that Meta had given him this priceless reassurance that he was human. But, as if suddenly aware of it again, she looked up at him and drew hesitantly away.