Someone, he thought, should put more wood on the fire.
He roused himself to do it, standing up.
And it was not until then that he saw he was alone.
He stood there, trying to quiet his terror.
They had gone away and left him.
They had forgotten him.
But that couldn't be. They'd simply slipped off in the dark. Up to some prank, perhaps. Trying to scare him. Talking about the animals and then slipping out of sight while he lay dreaming at the fire. Waiting now, just outside the circle of the firelight, watching him, drinking in his thoughts, reveling in his terror.
He found wood and put it on the fire. It caught and blazed.
He sat down nonchalantly, but he found that his shoulders were hunched instinctively, that the terror of aloneness in an alien world still sat by the fire beside him.
Now, for the first time, he realized the alienness of Kimon. It had not seemed alien before, except for those few minutes he had waited in the park after the gig had landed him, and even then it had not been as alien as an alien planet should be because he knew that he was being met, that there would be someone along to take care of him.