Pseudo-death took him first.
3
That Garrard did not die completely, and within a com-paratively short time after the DFC-3 had gone into overdrive, was due to the purest of accidents; but Garrard did not know that. In fact, he knew nothing at all for an indefinite period, sitting rigid and staring, his metabolism slowed down to next to nothing, his mind almost utterly inactive. From time to time, a single wave of low-level metabolic activity passed through himwhat an electrician might have termed a “maintenance turnover”in response to the urgings of some occult survival urge; but these were of so basic a nature as to reach his consciousness not at all. This was the pseudo-death.
When the observer actually arrived, however, Garrard woke. He could make very little sense out of what he saw or felt even now; but one fact was clear: the overdrive was offand with it the crazy alterations in time ratesand there was strong light coming through one of the ports. The first leg of the trip was over. It had been these two changes in his environment which had restored him to life.
The thing (or things) which had restored him to consciousness, however, wasit was what? It made no sense.
It was a construction, a rather fragile one, which completely surrounded his hammock. No, it wasn’t a construction, but evidently something alivea living being, organized horizontally, that had arranged itself in a circle about him. No, it was a number of beings. Or a combination of all of these things.
How it had gotten into the ship was a mystery, but there it was. Or there they were.