"Wonder if I'll ever get them back," Albert muttered as he bit into the
third dessert.

The Chief watched enviously. "I wouldn't worry about that," he said.
"Just get your strength back. There's another assignment for you, one
that will need your peculiar talents." He stood up. "I'll be seeing you.
My ulcer can't take your appetite any more." He walked away.

Inside Albert, the Zark alerted. A new assignment! That meant another
world and new sensations. Truly, this host was magnificent! It had been
a lucky day when he had fallen in running from the Bandersnatch. The
Zark quivered with delight--

And Albert felt it.

Turning his perception inward to see what might be wrong, he saw the
Zark for the first time.

* * * * *

For a second, a wave of repulsion swept through his body, but as he
comprehended the extent of that protoplasmic mass so inextricably
intertwined with his own, he realized that this thing within him was the
reason for his new powers. There could be no other explanation.

And as he searched farther, he marveled. The Zark was unspecialized in a
way he had never imagined--an amorphous aggregation of highly evolved
cells that could imitate normal tissues in a manner that would defy
ordinary detection. It was something at once higher yet lower than his
own flesh, something more primitive yet infinitely more evolved.

The Zark had succeeded at last. It had established communication with
its host.

"Answer me, parasite," Albert muttered subvocally. "I know you're
there--and I know you can answer!"

The Zark gave the protean equivalent of a shrug. If Albert only knew how
it had tried to communicate--no, there was no communication between
them. Their methods of thought were so different that there was no
possible rapport.

It twitched--and Albert jumped. And for the first time in its long life,
the Zark had an original idea. It moved a few milligrams of its
substance to Albert's throat region, and after a premonitory glottal
spasm, Albert said very distinctly and quite involuntarily, "All right.
I am here."

Albert froze with surprise, but when the shock passed, he laughed.
"Well, I asked for it," he said. "But it's like the story about the man
who talked to himself--and got answers. Not exactly a comforting
sensation."

"I'm sorry," the Zark apologized. "I do not wish to cause discomfort."

"You pick a poor way to keep from doing it."

"It was the only way I co