"Back!" Croft commanded Zud. "Desire the return to thy body."
He suited his own act to the word, and an instant later opened his physical eyes to find Zud sitting tensely erect, regarding him out of staring, startled eyes.
He sat up. "You saw, O Zud," he questioned. "You heard?"
"Aye," said Zud a trifle hoarsely. "This passes understanding."
"Only until understood," Croft told him. "Art any less yourself for having left your flesh?"
Zud dropped his eyes. "Nay, not so," he said at last.
"And had you entered this body upon the couch, rather than that in the chair?" Croft pressed him closely. "Think you, Zud, you would have been any less yourself, any less Zud, the—priest of Zitu, and—a man?"
"Zitu!" Zud breathed sharply. Plainly he caught Croft's drift. "In such a fashion then you have visited other places, even to the stars, and seen strange things, and brought back what you deemed good?"
"Aye," said Croft with a smile. "In the spirit, Zud, you have seen your body lie sleeping, even as in the flesh you have seen my body lie. Yet are you Zud in the spirit or in the flesh; for with each man it is the spirit commands the flesh; that acts, and the spirit, Zud of Zitra, is of Zitu, breathed from his nostrils, into the flesh, to give the body life."
"Man then is a spirit?" Zud began slowly. He seemed shaken, yet in some subtle way exalted, despite the fact that he was pallid to the lips.