Kane was going to be happy. He wouldn't concern himself with the stars any more. He wouldn't practice a self-imposed barren isolation of himself any more. Kane was going to be happy. He was going to be one of the Group.
Time went by. He was given sedatives. He slept at last. He awoke and was tested and went to sleep again, many times. He was fed too, given injections with needles of energy and vitamins and proteins and glucose and carbohydrates, because he refused to eat any other way.
Vaguely he remembered episodes of babbling under the influence of hypnotic drugs.
He kept remembering the briefcase. In a dream the Group had it, throwing it around among them like a basketball. The clasp broke. The papers, thousands of papers spilled out and drifted away over New York and Kane was running through a maze looking up at them and then he was lost.
Now he knew what had happened to the other Moon ships, and to the rest of the Captain's crew, where they had gone to and never come back from.
Space was lonely and dark. Space was empty. Space was frightening.
They had gone back to the closeness and warmth and security of their Group.
How many were there left such as the Captain, and Kane—Kane for a while yet perhaps? How many were there?
Could he escape?
At some unrelated point on the Testing chart, the Staff closed up their briefcases, politely said good-bye, and left.