The ship's medical officer, a man young and rather stiff, was shocked at first to see Barton lying there, but he had a ready explanation as he used his stethescope. "Must have sprung a leak and let in preserving frigidity."
"But then how did the leak repair itself and the temperature return to normal?" Von Ulrich asked as he studied Barton's smooth, unaged face.
"Dead," the medical officer said, and he dropped the stethescope back into his case.
Von Ulrich gripped the husks of his hands together to keep them from rattling, and he smiled slowly. "Barton didn't like death much."
Zeiger the medical officer looked puzzled. "You know this man?"
"A little. I tried to know him better but a war intervened. His name is Harry Barton and he was assigned to duty in this basketball fifty-three years and about four months ago."
Zeiger turned away as though to hide an embarrassed reaction.
"You think I speak out of some mental senility, Zeiger? You know this man isn't dead."
"He has to be dead."
"Not Barton. He would hardly approve of your diagnosis. He never cared much for diagnosis anyway. This is Harry Barton, and I've preserved—for personal reasons—his file. I have it with me. You want to check his fingerprints? You'll find it's the same man who was assigned to duty here fifty-three years ago."