_August 24, 1977_
_Dollars Dome--6_ P.M. (_C.S.T._)
They had buckled her into the comfortable safeness of the couch, and
she had swallowed a pill, and then vaguely felt the faint prick in her
arm.
There had been dreams and dreamy times and maybe-dreams which were
hard to sort out, but as she came more awake, she decided the
truly-half-awake times had been only the ones where she swallowed what
someone told her to, and float-walked to the toilet and back again.
She was very hungry. Somebody came and unstrapped her arms, and left
her to free herself after that from the rest of the fastenings. She sat
up stiffly, stood up on prickling feet, and stepped into the corridor.
A whitecoated young man looked horrified, came running at her.
“Sorry, Miss, I didn’t think you’d be up so quick.”
Vaguely, she recognized him--or his jacket?--as the one who’d
unfastened her. Then, with a rush of clarity, she saw it was Johnny
he’d been standing with down the corridor. She stepped forward and
whitejacket caught her arm.
“Steady--”
“I’m all right.” She took another step, and the prickling began to
ease. Johnny didn’t look any better than she felt.
“Home was never like this,” she muttered.
“Huh? Feeling rocky, babe?” His face was gray but he was a lot steadier
on his feet. “Takes getting used to,” he said, but he didn’t sound as
if it made much difference. He wasn’t even looking at her. He kept
staring at the couch behind him.
She stood still. _Getting my Moon legs_, she thought nervously, and
wished the damn whitejacket character would go away, or Johnny would
kiss her, or preferably both.
“Hello?” she said, smallvoiced, and put her hand on his arm.
“Hi, babe.” He turned and really looked at her this time, and
closed his other hand over hers. “Better yet? I was just looking at
this setup--didn’t get a chance when we boarded. It’s changed some
since--They’ve improved it a lot, but it seems to me there should
be something better than all this belt-and-buckle junk. There must
be some kind of synthetic fabric that would do the job,” he said
thoughtfully. “See, if you had--”
_If I had half a brain_, she thought, turning the mounting irritation
back on herself, _I’d have stopped to think_ I’m _not the one who needs
coddling this time!_
“--made up into a net--soft enough for comfort, but rigid--”