"It smells bad, boy. Sure, he was sulky, but the LeClarc I knew would have come crawling to Captain Moore, anyway. This one didn't." Kevin paused, ran a hand through his red hair. "Maybe it means he isn't the same man. Maybe it means he's something like that thing which calls itself your brother. That's not Charlie Stedman and you know it. Trouble is, boy, you can't admit it to yourself."
"I won't argue about it," Steve replied. "But you're off the beam there. Charlie doesn't remember me, but LeClarc's memory seemed fine."
"That's true, Steve. I can't explain it, except like this: whatever happened to both of them, we don't know a thing about it. Maybe it works in a different way on different people. Maybe because Charlie was dead first, his personal memories were a loss, but LeClarc's weren't because he might have been possessed alive."
"Possessed?"
"Yes, possessed. Oh, not by spirits, that's for sure. But possessed nevertheless. I won't say the anthrovacs were possessed, for we don't know enough about them to begin with. But look at those other animals now, the ones that died. You won't deny that something took over their brains?"
"Damned right I won't. But I still don't see how it all adds up."
"Nor do I," said Kevin. "Unfortunately, the brutes seemed to have perished in transit from Ganymede to here, wherever here is. It could be that the strain on their brain-tissue, with sentience and intelligence taking over where before only sentience had resided, was too great."
Kevin paused, then concluded: "whatever the reason, whatever the reason for all of it—I think you'll find LeClarc knows all about it."
The blue sun had neared the horizon and the purple mists had become cool and chilling at journey's end. It was then that they saw LeClarc.