He fainted. More, he plunged parsecs deep into the blackest depths of oblivion as outraged nature took the toll she had been so long denied.
Worsel hurled a call to Earth, then turned to his maimed and horribly broken companion. He applied splints to the shattered limbs, he dressed and bandaged the hideous wounds and the raw sockets which had once held eyes, he ministered to the raging, burning thirst. Whenever Kinnison's mind wearied he held for him the nerve block, the priceless anodyne without which the Gray Lensman must have died from sheerest agony.
"Why not allow me, friend, to relieve you of all consciousness until help arrives?" the Velantian asked pityingly.
"Can you do it without killing me?"
"If you so allow, yes. If you offer any resistance, I do not believe that any mind in the Universe could."
"I won't resist you. Come in," and Kinnison's suffering ended.
But kindly Worsel could do nothing about the fantastically atrocious growths which were transforming the Earthman's legs and arms into monstrosities out of nightmare.
He could only wait—wait for the skilled assistance which he knew must be so long in coming.
XXI.