“Carlin! Carlin!”
And someone answered. He heard the voice quite clearly in his mind or the part of his new being that was sensitive to the reception of thought.
“Who calls, little brother?”
Golden bright against the crimson chromosphere above, he saw winging toward him another of the Children of the Sun.
He went to meet the stranger. Wheeling and dancing like two incredible butterflies of flame they hovered above a burning river that ran across the face of the Sun. And they talked.
“Are you — were you Philip Carlin?”
“Philip Carlin? No. In human I was Thardis, chief physicist to Fer Roga, Lord of Vulcan. That was long ago.”
Silence, except for the booming thunders of the Sun.
“Tell me, little brother. You are new here?”
“Yes.”