"Not your brain, but your mind" Kree said grimly. "The mind is immaterial, a tenuous web of force. So said the ancients. And they built the instrument that can transfer minds to other bodies. I merely used that instrument.
"It is Asha's body still and Asha's brain. Asha's instincts, memories, latent knowledge are still in that brain and you will have use of them. But the real you, your conscious mind, is now in Asha's body and Asha's conscious mind-sleeps."
Nelson felt his new body tense and rise. He cried out bewilderedly, "But why? Why didn't you just kill me?"
"You are hostage for my son Barin," Kree answered. "When Barin is returned to us you will be returned to your own body!"
The anger that had been growing and growing in Nelson burst suddenly into a flame of rage. Rage such as he had never known, the wild anger of the wolf.
That they should have done this to him, Eric Nelson! That they should have dared!
Nelson was dimly aware of a strange linking of his familiar mind to something dark and primal and alien. Man-rage drawing from the deep red wells of the beast. He bared his fangs and snarled. He felt his whole new wolf-body coil tensely tight as he crouched.
Man-rage, beast-rage - memory, instinct, the loosing of the chain — not so alien after all, not so strange! Not so long ago man himself was a hunting beast!
He sprang in a beautiful, deadly, arching leap, straight for Kree.
He heard Nsharra cry out, and then in mid-air he felt the shock of Tark's great leaping body. The wolf's broad breast struck his shoulder, bowled him over to crash on the glassy floor. He slashed out, felt hair and hide tear under his teeth, tasted blood on his tongue.