"If somebody had told you four years ago that you'd be a bum hauled off
to a concentration camp, you'd have said that was fantastic too."
Jack did not have time to reply. The truck stopped outside a high,
barbed wire fence. The gate swung open; the truck bounced down the bumpy
dirt road. Jack saw some black-uniformed Bohas seated by heavy machine
guns. They halted at another entrance; more barbed wire was passed. Huge
Dobermann pinschers looked at the transies with cold, steady eyes. The
dust of another section of road swirled up before they squeaked to a
standstill and the engine turned off.
This time, agents began to let down the back of the truck. They had to
pry the pitiful schizo's fingers loose from the wood with a crow-bar and
carry him off, still in his half-crouch.
A sergeant boomed orders. Stiff and stumbling, the transies jumped off
the truck. They were swiftly lined up into squads and marched into the
enclosure and from there into a huge black barracks. Within an hour each
man was stripped, had his head shaven, was showered, given a grey
uniform, and handed a tin plate and spoon and cup filled with beans and
bread and hot coffee.
Afterwards, Jack wandered around, free to look at the sandy soil
underfoot and barbed wire and the black uniforms of the sentries, and
free to ask himself where, where, wherewherewhere? Twelve years ago it
had been, but where, where, where, was...?