At that, the other sentience which shared the body with Mayhem snickered and lapsed into silence. Mayhem, for his part, was astounded.
Don’t get ornery now, Mayhem pleaded. I’m Johnny Mayhem. Does that mean anything to you?
Oh, sure. It means I’m dead. You inhabit dead bodies, right?
Usually. Listen—where are we?
Glory of the Galaxy—bound from Earth to Mars on perihelion.
And there’s trouble?
How do you know there’s trouble?
Otherwise they wouldn’t have diverted me here.
We’ve got the president aboard. We’re going to hit the sun. Then, grudgingly, Larry went into the details. When he finished he thought cynically: Now all you have to do is go outside yelling have no fear, Mayhem is here and everything will be all right, I suppose.
Mayhem didn’t answer. It would be many moments yet before he could adjust to this new, unexpected situation. But in a way, he thought, it would be a boon. If he were co-inhabiting the body of a living man who belonged on the Glory of the Galaxy, there was no need to reveal his identity as Johnny Mayhem to anyone but his host….