"He's still sitting motionless," said Captain Greer. "Thinking, I suppose. Or sleeping. It's hard to tell."
"All right. Let me know if he starts moving, will you?"
"Will do."
Poor unsuspecting beastie, Stanton thought. Ten long years of hard work, of feeling secure in his little nest, and within a very short time he's going to get the shock of his life.
Or maybe not. There was no way of knowing what kind of shocks the Nipe had taken in the course of his life, Stanton thought. There was no way of knowing whether the Nipe was even capable of feeling anything like shock, as a matter of fact.
It was odd, he thought, that he should feel a strong kinship toward both the Nipe and his brother in such similar ways. He had never met the Nipe, and his brother was only a dim picture in his old memories, but they were both very well known to him. Certainly they were better known to him than he was to them.
And yet, seeing his brother's face on the TV screen, hearing his voice, watching the way he moved about, watching the changing expressions on his face, had been a tremendously moving experience. Not until that moment, he thought, had he really known himself.
Meeting him face to face would be much easier now, but it would still be a scene highly charged with emotional tension.
His foot kicked something that rattled and rolled away from him. He stopped, freezing in his tracks, looking downward, trying to pierce the dully glowing gloom. The thing he had kicked was a human skull.
He relaxed and began walking again.