"Give him a cigarette, Johnson," the doctor ordered the male nurse
standing alongside my right foot.
Johnson did. I fired up.
"You're coming along _splendidly_," Dr. Santly said. He was one of these
psych guys that thinks if you say it's so, it makes it so. You know that
kind? "We'll have you down under an hour before the end of the week.
That's _marvelous_ progress. Then we can work on the conscious level!
You're doing extremely well, whether you know it or not. Why, in six
months--say in eight months, because I like to be conservative--" he
twinkled at me--"we'll have you out of here! You'll be the first of your
crew to be discharged, you know that?"
"That's nice," I said. "The others aren't doing so well?"
"No. Not at all well, most of them. Particularly Dr. Gilvey. The
run-throughs leave him in terrible shape. I don't mind admitting I'm
worried about him."
"That's nice," I said, and this time I meant it.
* * * * *
He looked at me thoughtfully, but all he did was say to the male nurses,
"He's all right now. Help him off the table."
It was hard standing up. I had to hold onto the rail around the table
for a minute. I said my set little speech: "Dr. Santly, I want to tell
you again how grateful I am for this. I was reconciled to living the
rest of my life confined to one part of the country, the way the other
crews always did. But this is much better. I appreciate it. I'm sure the
others do, too."
"Of course, boy. Of course." He took out a fountain pen and made a note
on my chart; I couldn't see what it was, but he looked gratified. "It's
no more than you have coming to you, Byron," he said. "I'm grateful that
I could be the one to make it come to pass."
He glanced conspiratorially at the male nurses. "You know how important
this is to me. It's the triumph of a whole new approach to psychic
rehabilitation. I mean to say our heroes of space travel are entitled to
freedom when they come back home to Earth, aren't they?"
"Definitely," I said, scrubbing some of the sweat off my face onto my
sleeve.
"So we've got to end this system of designated areas. We can't avoid the
tensions that accompany space travel, no. But if we can help you
eliminate harmful tensions with a few run-throughs, why, it's not too
high a price to pay, is it?"
"Not a bit."
"I mean to say," he said, warming up, "you can look forward to the time
when you'll be able to mingle with your old friends from the rocket,
free and easy, without any need for restraint. That's a lot to look
forward to, isn't it?"
"It is," I said. "I look forward to it very much," I said. "And I know
exactly what I'm going to do the first time I meet one--I mean without
any restraints, as you say," I said. And it was true; I did. Only it
wouldn't be a broken beer bottle that I would do it with.