After she had gone, Walt relaxed. His body was still weak. He lay staring at the ceiling. Outside, the sun's rays slanted even more. A breeze, chill with approaching night, rustled the curtain.
There were shadows along the far wall.
I've been an instrument, Walt thought, a piece of metal, to be used as Forential saw fit: if she were not lying. My parents are somewhere down here on this planet, the third from the sun. They are not on Lyria. I might have killed them during the invasion. That would be worse than killing Forential, even. If Julia weren't lying to me. Forential has been raising me to fight my own people!
Forential. Saucer eyed. Tentacled. Moist and slippery. Breathing in labored gasps under high gravity. Air bubbling in his throat. Tentacles caressing, fondling—not with affection (if Julia is right) but with calculating design: to fashion my personality to his purpose....
Walt closed his eyes.
Forential, he thought.
Forential was far away in space; every second he was growing farther away in time. I've lost him, Walt thought. So much has happened, so much, so fast, since last I saw him, that I'm changing away from him every minute.
Earthlings aren't so bad. They're—they're not too much different from Lyrians, from ... mutants.
I'm a mutant?
I'm not a Lyrian?