The beetle's tiny commotion fades, then stops as it lands. Once he's finished giving this new arrival a thorough look up and down, lips still parted in artless surprise, David says the second thing that occurs to him to say:

"Erik?"

The first thing was his own name, as he knows very well that he isn't one of a kind. Wasn't. Still isn't, perhaps, if what so recently happened to him has already happened before—and to him, the other body standing right here, looking much the worse for wear, might have seemed like proof that it has happened were it not for that scientist he met back in the camp. The fundamental similarity really is astonishing. Even his voice is a gentler take on Erik's own, cautious, but not fearful. Of course the man looks fearsome; anyone might be hardened by whatever he went through to reach such a state. Perhaps he's really just afraid.