“You get back in that bed!”
“Where are my clothes?”
“Get back in that bed. Now!”
I answered reasonably, “Look, nurse, I’m a free citizen, over twenty-one, and not a criminal. I don’t have to get back into that bed and I’m not going to. Now are you going to show me where my clothes are or shall I go out the way I am and start looking?”
She looked at me, then turned suddenly and went out; the door ducked out of her way.
But it would not duck out of my way. I was still trying to study out the gimmick, being fairly sure that if one engineer could dream it up, another could figure it out, when it opened again and a man came in.
“Good morning,” he said. “I’m Dr. Albrecht.”
His clothes looked like a cross between a Harlem Sunday and a picnic to me, but his brisk manner and his tired eyes were convincingly professional; I believed him. “Good morning, Doctor. I’d like to have my clothes.”
He stepped just far enough inside to let the door slide into place behind him, then reached inside his clothes and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He got one out, waved it briskly in the air, placed it in his mouth and puffed on it; it was lighted. He offered me the pack. “Have one?”
“Uh, no, thanks.”
“Go ahead. It won’t hurt you.”
I shook my head. I had always worked with a cigarette smoldering beside me; the progress of a job could be judged by the overflowing ash trays and the bums on the drafting board. Now I felt a little faint at the sight of smoke and wondered if I had dropped the nicotine habit somewhere in the slept-away years. “Thanks just the same.”
“Okay. Mr. Davis, I’ve been here six years. I’m a specialist in hypnology, resuscitation, and like subjects. Here and elsewhere I’ve helped eight thousand and seventy-three patients make the comeback from hypothermia to normal life-you’re number eight thousand and seventy-four. I’ve seen them do all sorts of odd things when they came out-odd to laymen; not to me. Some of them want to go right back to sleep again and scream at me when I try to keep them awake. Some of them do go back to sleep and we have to ship them off to another sort of institution. Some of them start weeping endlessly when they realize that it is a one-way ticket and it’s too late to go home to whatever year they started from. And some of them, like you, demand their clothes and want to run out into the street.”
“Well? Why not? Am I a prisoner?”
“No. You can have your clothes. I imagine you’ll find them out of style, but that is your problem. However, while I send for them, would you mind telling me what it is that is so terribly urgent that you must attend to it right this minute . . . after it has waited thirty years? That’s how long you’ve been at subtemperature-thirty years. Is it really urgent? Or would later today do as well? Or even tomorrow?”
I started to blurt out that it damn well was urgent, then stopped and looked sheepish. “Maybe not that urgent.”
“Then as a favor to me, will you get back into bed, let me check you over, have your breakfast, and perhaps talk with me before you go galloping off in all directions? I might even be able to tell you which way to gallop.”
“Oh, okay, Doctor. Sorry to have caused trouble.” I climbed into bed. It felt good-I was suddenly tired and shaky.
“No trouble. You should see some that we get. We have to pull them down off the ceiling.” He straightened the covers around my shoulders, then leaned over the table built into the bed. “Dr. Albrecht in Seventeen. Send a room orderly with breakfast, uh. . . menu four-minus.”
He turned to me and said, “Roll over and pull up your jacket; I want to get at your ribs. While I’m checking you, you can ask questions. If you want to.”
I tried to think while he prodded my ribs. I suppose it was a stethoscope he used although it looked like a miniaturized hearing aid. But they had not improved one thing about it; the pickup he pushed against me was as cold and hard as ever.