dumped him off the plank-stretcher onto a high stone table. Regan climbed down. He supposed they were being as gentle as possible, considering his great weight in the spacesuit.

Regan's weight also manifested itself to him. He felt the heaviness of a person who has been buoyed up for a long time in water, but is now on land.

All this happened, except for the clank as he was set down, in complete silence. He was entirely isolated from outside sound, of course.

He lay there, feeling less sick but still hot and dizzy, trying to compose his stomach. After a while, he felt calm enough to drink a little water through the tube inside the faceplate.

A rotund man wearing a kind of white tunic came into his field of vision. Regan could see him only from the waist up. Like the friend he had met at the river, this man had abundant black hair. But his face was fat, with puffy cheeks and sagging jowls. He was much older. His hands were pudgy. He waggled them in what might have been a gesture of delight or greeting; it was hard to say which. His expression was one of pleasure. He stood at Regan's side and smiled at him. His hands felt over the headpiece of the spacesuit, then went thumping down the rest of it.

"I'll be out of the damn thing soon," Regan thought. But apparently it was too much for the fellow. Regan tried to gesture to the fastening at the back of his neck to show how it was done, but he was unable to raise his arms. He realized then how exhausted he was.

The rotund man in the tunic patted him on the chest—it seemed to be a universal gesture—and went away.

Regan felt at peace in the room. He felt that now he was going to be taken care of and that everything, somehow, was going to be all right. He went to sleep.

He woke up ravenously hungry. He seemed to be alone in the room. His encased body felt as heavy as the whole world. He tried to raise up to bring his mouth to the water tube. He couldn't. He cried out in a voice that was weak even inside the confines of his suit. No one could possibly have heard and no one came. He tried to raise his arm. The muscles strained and quivered. By using all his strength, he was able to lift it a few inches above the table. Then the arm fell back on the stone with the barest tap of sound.

The jovial fat one reappeared. He was carrying a metal box with two dials on it and wires coming from it which ended in kinds of 

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