(urth) short story 11: trip, trap

[Marc Aramini]

Thanks for the comments Ed.  There is a point where Finch WANTS to kill the traki, but knows that he cannot (previously he mused on what "ego": "my body seemed a cast, an almost intert but painful prison from which the essential 'I' struggled to escape, adn while the essency of my being thus twisted to get away it forced my lips and larynx to say that it did not appear to me that I had escaped" (p 254)

His "i" does escape - to get Garth to do the job he cannot do:
 
The traki claims: "YOU WILL NOT KILL ME, THE SLAYER IS NOT IN YOU"
Later, Garth starts capitalizing things like Finch does because for a time they were a gestalt, though Finch passed out to avoid "killing" the traki.  The spirit with longish hair that gets Garth leads him to the battleground - controlling Finch's body.

You are correct, it must be from Orbit 2, I probably was looking at a different story like Mountains Like Mice at the time, sorry about that.