He was lying on his face, his cheek pressed against the cool coral. He
opened his eyes, his mind groping for the shreds of some remembered
terror. He saw, vaguely at first and then with terrible clarity as his
vision became clear, a man lying close beside him.
A tall man, very strongly built, with skin burned almost to blackness
by exposure. A man who looked at him with eyes that were startlingly
light in his dark face....
His own eyes. His own face.
He cried out and struggled to his feet, trembling, staggering, and
his body felt strange to him. He looked down upon the strangeness of
another man's limbs, the alien shaping of flesh and sinew upon alien
bones.
The face of the dark giant who lay upon the coral mocked him. It
watched, but did not see. The eyes were blank, empty, without soul or
intelligence.
The mind of Eric John Stark fought, in its alien prison, for sanity.
Berild's voice spoke to him. Her hand was on his shoulder--Kynon's
shoulder....
"All is well, wild man. Do not fear. Kynon's mind is in your body,
still sleeping at my command. And you are Kynon now."
It was not an easy thing to accept, but he knew that it was so, and he
knew that he had wished it to be so. It was easier to be calm after he
turned his back on _the other_.
Berild took him in her arms and held him until he had stopped
shuddering, oddly like a mother with a frightened child. Then she
kissed him, smiling, and said,
"The first time is hard. I can remember--and that was very long ago."
She shook him gently. "Now come. We'll take your body to a place
of safety. And then I must tell you all of Kynon's plans for those
outside."
She spoke to the thing that lay upon the coral, saying, "Get up," and
it rose obediently and followed where Berild led, to a tiny barred
niche in a side passage. It made no protest when it was left, locked
safely in.
"Only I can give it back to you," said Berild softly. "Remember that."