He locked his hands beneath his head. His green eyes looked older. They seemed to peer inward as he sought to organize the flood of information he'd received almost instantaneously in that startling, intimate exchange with Tabak.
Gradually it dawned on him that he was in full possession of Tabak's life history—all the millions of insignificant items that went to make up the girl's personality.
Once he realized that, the pieces began to click into place. It was indeed like a jig-saw puzzle. And slowly the picture appeared.
Tabak was a pet, like a cat or dog, and as such she'd had a greater opportunity to observe the purple-shelled octopods.
The Anolyns hadn't always been the dominant life form on Yogol. Ages ago, eons perhaps—Tabak had entertained only the vaguest notion of time—the humans had ruled the planet. They had built splendid cities, now crumbled into dust and even the dust buried beneath the jungle mould. Only the legend remained.
The ancients, according to that legend, had experimented finally with telepathy. They had discovered that the young of the Anolyn—a semi-intelligent, telepathic, parasite—acted as a thought receiver and transmitter if it were allowed to fasten its tentacles directly into the spinal cord.
The fad spread. More and more Yogolians began to make use of the telepathic parasites.
Then one day the adult Anolyn rose from the sea and, through their young, took over the human race.
Not all at once and not everyone.
Some had refused to allow the Anolyn to be fastened to their necks. These few fled to the wilderness, where during ages of warfare with their Anolyn-dominated brothers, they had sunk into barbarism. These were the Kagans, the wild cave people whom the Anolyn now hunted for sport.