The car raced along the road, crossed a macadam highway, went four
blocks and pulled to a stop. He didn't bother saying good night. He
didn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone path
and entered the house.
* * * * *
"Hank," Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, "I'm so sorry--"
"There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'll
all work out in time."
"Yes," she said quickly, "that's it. I need a little time. We all need a
little time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening.
I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurt
you terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we're
frightened."
"I'm going to stay in the guest room," he said, "for as long as
necessary. For good if need be."
"How could it be for good? How, Hank?"
That question was perhaps the first firm basis for hope he'd had since
returning. And there was something else; what Carlisle had told him,
even as Carlisle himself had reacted as all men did.
"There are others coming, Edith. Eight that I know of in the tanks right
now. My superior, Captain Davidson, who died at the same moment I
did--seven months ago next Wednesday--he's going to be next. He was
smashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almost
ready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to save
all they possibly can from now on. Every time a young and healthy man
loses his life by accident, by violence, and his body can be recovered,
he'll go into the tanks and they'll start the regenerative brain and
organ process--the process that made it all possible. So people have to
get used to us. And the old stories, the old terrors, the ugly old
superstitions have to die, because in time each place will have some of
us; because in time it'll be an ordinary thing."
Edith said, "Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Please
believe that. Please be patient with me and Ralphie and--" She paused.
"There's one question."
He knew what the question was. It had been the first asked him by
everyone from the president of the United States on down.
"I saw nothing," he said. "It was as if I slept those six and a half
months--slept without dreaming."
She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he was
satisfied.
Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories of
how they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered and
pulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his own
home.