"Sir, keep your voice down--or speak Darkovan!" Jay blinked again. Kendricks was still the only familiar thing in a strangely vertiginous universe. The Spaceforce man said huskily. "Before heaven, Jay, I hadn't any idea--and I've known you how long? Eight, nine years?" Jay said, "That idiot Forth!" and swore, the colorless profanity of an indoor man. Somebody shouted, "Jason!" in an imperative voice, and Kendricks said shakily, "Jay, if they see you--you literally are not the same man!" "Obviously not." Jay looked at the tent, one pole still unpitched. "Anyone in there?" "Not yet." Kendricks almost shoved him inside. "I'll tell them--I'll tell them something." He took a radiant from his pocket, set it down and stared at Allison in the flickering light, and said something profane. "You'll--you'll be all right here?" Jay nodded. It was all he could manage. He was keeping a tight hold on his nerve; if it went, he'd start to rave like a madman. A little time passed, there were strange noises outside, and then there was a polite cough and a man walked into the tent. He was obviously a Darkovan aristocrat and looked vaguely familiar, though Jay had no conscious memory of seeing him before. Tall and slender, he possessed that perfect and exquisite masculine beauty sometimes seen among Darkovans, and he spoke to Jay familiarly but with surprising courtesy: "I have told them you are not to be disturbed for a moment, that your hand is worse than we believed. A surgeon's hands are delicate things, Doctor Allison, and I hope that yours are not badly injured. Will you let me look?" Jay Allison drew back his hand automatically, then, conscious of the churlishness of the gesture, let the stranger take it in his and look at the fingers. The man said, "It does not seem serious. I was sure it was something more than that." He raised grave eyes. "You don't even remember my name, do you, Dr. Allison?" "You know who I am?" "Dr. Forth didn't tell me. But we Hasturs are partly telepathic, Jason--forgive me--Doctor Allison. I have known from the first that you were possessed by a god or daemon." "Superstitious rubbish," Jay snapped. "Typical of a Darkovan!" "It is a convenient manner of speaking, no more," said the young Hastur, overlooking the rudeness. "I suppose I could learn your terminology, if I considered it worth the effort. I have had psi training, and I can tell the difference when half of a man's soul has driven out the other half. Perhaps I can restore you to yourself--" "If you think I'd have some Darkovan freak meddling with my mind--" Jay began hotly, then stopped. Under Regis' grave eyes, he felt a surge of unfamiliar humility. This crew of men needed their leader, and obviously he, Jay Allison, wasn't the leader they needed. He covered his eyes with one hand. Regis bent and put a hand on his shoulder, compassionately, but Jay twitched it off, and his voice, when he found it, was bitter and defensive and cold.