To Jason Crofts surprise Zud proclaims him to be the Mouthpiece of Zitu! Making Jason's life even more complicated!
Excerpt
"I didn't expect to come back when I left, Murray, and I don't wonder it surprises you to find me speaking to you with the lips of this poor hunk of flesh. Oh, this is an incipient wreck that I'm holding together simply for my own use. It will suffice, even if it has a pair of lungs badly engorged because of a very shaky heart. You laboratories will show the kidneys infected, too. I had to take it, because I wanted to get down here with you."
"With--me?" I faltered.
He smiled slightly. "Yes--you, of course. You were the only man on Earth who knew my story. So when I needed certain information which I couldn't gain save in the flesh, I knew you were the man to help me get it. But in order to reach you, I had to limit my choice of Earthly bodies. That's how I came to choose this thing at which you're looking.
"Murray, it's your job to keep me alive until I can gain what I came for--to help me, if you will. Earth possesses knowledge I need on Palos for my work--you can help me gain it just as well here as anywhere else. I want you to prescribe a certain course of study as a part of my treatment and discuss the things I'm after with me. Do you catch my plan?"
Oh, yes, I caught it. I made an effort to rally my staggering senses. "Just how is the Princess Naia?" I asked.
Croft nodded. He seemed to find acceptance of my part in my question. "The Princess Naia is very much all right."
And then I remembered what he had told me before he went to Palos for what I had thought a definite stay. "Or perhaps I should have asked for Mrs. Croft--you said that you expected to be married immediately upon your return to Palos."
Croft frowned. "What one expects and what one meets are not always one and the same, friend Murray," he rejoined. "I returned to Palos after my conversation with you, to encounter a situation of which I had never thought."
Genre: Science Fiction
Excerpt
"I didn't expect to come back when I left, Murray, and I don't wonder it surprises you to find me speaking to you with the lips of this poor hunk of flesh. Oh, this is an incipient wreck that I'm holding together simply for my own use. It will suffice, even if it has a pair of lungs badly engorged because of a very shaky heart. You laboratories will show the kidneys infected, too. I had to take it, because I wanted to get down here with you."
"With--me?" I faltered.
He smiled slightly. "Yes--you, of course. You were the only man on Earth who knew my story. So when I needed certain information which I couldn't gain save in the flesh, I knew you were the man to help me get it. But in order to reach you, I had to limit my choice of Earthly bodies. That's how I came to choose this thing at which you're looking.
"Murray, it's your job to keep me alive until I can gain what I came for--to help me, if you will. Earth possesses knowledge I need on Palos for my work--you can help me gain it just as well here as anywhere else. I want you to prescribe a certain course of study as a part of my treatment and discuss the things I'm after with me. Do you catch my plan?"
Oh, yes, I caught it. I made an effort to rally my staggering senses. "Just how is the Princess Naia?" I asked.
Croft nodded. He seemed to find acceptance of my part in my question. "The Princess Naia is very much all right."
And then I remembered what he had told me before he went to Palos for what I had thought a definite stay. "Or perhaps I should have asked for Mrs. Croft--you said that you expected to be married immediately upon your return to Palos."
Croft frowned. "What one expects and what one meets are not always one and the same, friend Murray," he rejoined. "I returned to Palos after my conversation with you, to encounter a situation of which I had never thought."
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for J U Giesy's Mouthpiece of Zitu