He went to the bed, approaching it gingerly, as if it might be a hidden trap. He poked and prodded it and it was a bed and nothing more.
Turning from the bed to the machine, he went over it carefully, checking the wiring contacts as the instructions said he should, finding the cap, finding the switches, checking on other vital points. He found two loose contact points and he tightened them, and finally, after some hesitation, he threw on the first switch, as the instructions said he should, and the red light glowed.
So he was all ready.
He climbed onto the bed and took up the cap and set it on his head, twisting it securely into place. Then he lay down and reached out and snapped on the second switch and there was a lullaby.
A lullaby, a singing, a tune running in his brain and a sense of gentle rocking and of drowsiness. Jon Hoff went to sleep.
HE WOKE and there was knowledge. A slow, painful groping to recognize the place, the wall without the Holy Picture, the strange machine, the strange thick door, the cap upon his head.
His hands went up and took off the cap and he held it, staring at it, and slowly he knew what it was. Bit by painful bit, it all came back to him, the finding of the room, the opening of the vault, checking the machine and lying down with the cap tight upon his head.
The knowledge of where he was and why he was there—and a greater knowledge.
A knowing of things he had not known before. Of frightening things.
He dropped the cap into his lap and sat stark upright, with his hands reaching out to grasp the edges of the bed.