The following morning as I emerged from my quarters I caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure in a nearby corridor and from then on for a long time I had further evidence that Ras Thavas suspicioned me. I went at once to his quarters, as had been my habit. He seemed restless, but he gave me no hint that he held any assurance that I had been responsible for the disappearance of Valla Dia, and I think that he was far from positive of it. It was simply that his judgment pointed to the fact that I was the only person who might have any reason for interfering in any way with this particular subject, and he was having me watched to either prove or disprove the truth of his reasonable suspicions. His restlessness he explained to me himself.
“I have often studied the reaction of others who have undergone brain transference,” he said, “and so I am not wholly surprised at my own. Not only has my brain energy been stimulated, resulting in an increased production of nervous energy, but I also feel the effects of the young tissue and youthful blood of my new body. They are affecting my consciousness in a way that my experiment had vaguely indicated, but which I now see must be actually experienced to be fully understood. My thoughts, my inclinations, even my ambitions have been changed, or at least coloured, by the transfer. It will take some time for me to find myself.”
Though uninterested, I listened politely until he was through and then I changed the subject. “Have you located the missing woman?” I asked.
He shook his head, negatively.
“You must appreciate, Ras Thavas,” I said, “that I fully realize that you must have known that the removal or destruction of that woman would entirely frustrate my entire plan. You are master here. Nothing that passes is without your knowledge.”
“You mean that I am responsible for the disappearance of the woman?” he demanded.
“Certainly. It is obvious. I demand that she be restored.”
He lost his temper. “Who are you to demand?” he shouted. “You are naught but a slave. Cease your impudence or I shall erase you—erase you. It will be as though you never had existed.”
I laughed in his face. “Anger is the most futile attribute of the sentimentalist,” I reminded him. “You will not erase me, for I alone stand between you and mortality.”
“I can train another,” he parried.