There was too much agony for his mind to absorb. Knight sensed the waning of his mind's last resources with relief. The mental shocks ceased, his nerves and muscles quieted, and he drifted into a gentle darkness where there was no pain....
... It's gone, his mind observed gleefully. The thankful knowledge that wakefulness did not bring renewed pain smothered the other thing. But only for a moment.
Kent Knight. I am Kent Knight, I must remember that. I mustn't forget it. I mustn't let It make me forget. I am a man. My shipmates and I crashed on this asteroid in the Star Climber.
The other thing laughed at him—in him. The wee bit of Kent Knight which the other thing couldn't take or didn't want urged him to his feet. It didn't seem to mind his doing that much.
Knight drew his lean, rawboned frame erect. His muscles didn't hurt any more, he realized. He ran his strong fingers—which were shaking now—through his brown hair, ruffling the rock dust out of it. He looked toward the green oasis on the far side of the rocky plain where his friends were.
It's hard to remember that I am Kent Knight. It doesn't really matter anyway. No, Kent Knight, that's the other thing! I am six feet tall. I weigh one hundred and seventy pounds. I have brown hair. My eyes are hazel with funny blue flecks in them. Remember? Looks like somebody punched at them with a sharp blue pencil—that's what Mary Jo said.
I wonder if Sammy's drunk. That last time just before we crashed should have been a drunk to finish even Sammy, his big, broken nose, shiny, bald head and all.
Yes, I know you know my every thought, Thing! You've stolen my mind. But you cannot steal me. I am Kent Knight. I am a man. You, Thing, are my enemy and man's enemy.
It chuckled in Knight's mind.
"You are whistling in the dark, fool. Have you not wondered why you crashed on this wandering asteroid? We Arkkhans willed you here. There was nothing wrong with your ship—we willed you to crash because we wanted weak creatures like you.