Hunati!
Farris had expected it, but that didn’t make it less shocking. It wasn’t that the tribesmen mattered less as human beings. It was just that he had talked with a normal Berreau only a few hours before. And now, to see him like this!
Berreau stood in a position ludicrously reminiscent of the old-time “living statues.” One foot was slightly raised, his body bent a little forward, his arms raised a little.
Like the frozen tribesmen ahead, Berreau was facing toward the inner recesses of the grove, where the giant banyans loomed.
Farris touched his arm. “Berreau, you have to snap out of this.”
“It’s no use to speak to him,” whispered the girl. “He can’t hear.”
No, he couldn’t hear. He was living at a tempo so low that no ordinary sound could make sense to his ears. His face was a rigid mask, lips slightly parted to breathe, eyes fixed ahead. Slowly, slowly, the lids crept down and veiled those staring eyes and then crept open again in the infinitely slow wink. Slowly, slowly, his slightly raised left foot moved down toward the ground.
Movement, pulse, breathing — all a hundred times slower than normal. Living, but not in a human way — not in a human way at all.
Lys was not so stunned as Farris was. He realized later that she must have seen her brother like this, before.
“We must take him back to the bungalow, somehow,” she murmured. “I can’t let him stay out here for many days and nights, again!”