Asa Graybar kept his normal form on Jordan's Planet just long enough to learn the discomfort of double gravity. He was told he needed another physical examination and was taken right in to a doctor. His heart was pounding to keep his blood circulating on this massive world, but the doctor had apparently learned to make allowances.
"Swallow this," said the doctor after making a series of tests.
Asa swallowed the capsule. Two minutes later he felt himself beginning to lose consciousness.
"This is it!" he thought in panic.
He felt someone ease him back down onto a wheeled stretcher. Before consciousness faded completely he realized that no one got a chance to back out of becoming a changeling, that he was on his way to the conversion tank right now.
When he finally awoke he felt well rested and very comfortable. But for a long time he was afraid to open his eyes.
"Come on, Graybar," said a deep, booming voice. "Let's test our wings."
It was not Kershaw's voice, but it had to be Kershaw. Asa opened his eyes.
Everyone had seen pictures of muck men. It was different having one stand beside you. Kershaw looked much like an enormous frog except that his head was still mostly human. He was sitting on webbed feet, his lower legs bent double under huge thighs, and his trunk tilted forward so that his arms dangled to the ground. The arms were as thick around as an ordinary man's legs. The hands had become efficient scoops, with broad fingers webbed to the first joint and tipped with spade-like claws. The skin was still pinkish but had become scaly. Not a thread of hair showed anywhere on the body, not even on the head.
This, Asa realized, was what he looked like himself.
It would have been more bearable if the head had not retained strong traces of humanity. The nostrils flared wide and the jaws hardly emerged from the neck, but the ears were human ears and the eyes, under those horny ridges, were human eyes. Asa felt sure that the eyes could still weep.
He started to walk forward and tipped over on his side. Kershaw laughed.
"Come to daddy, babykins," Kershaw said, holding out his hands. "Only try hopping this time. And take it easy."
Asa pushed himself upright with one arm and tried a small hop. Nerve and muscle coordination was perfect. He found himself leaping as high as Kershaw's head.
"That's the way," Kershaw said approvingly. "Now get this on and we'll go outside."
Asa snapped on a belt and breech cloth combination that had flaps of fabric dangling from the belt in front and behind. He followed as Kershaw pushed open a sliding door to lead the way out of the room where they had been left to r............