The man hesitated, looked at him intently. "Three months," he said. He turned and gave low-voiced instructions to a nurse, and then went away.
Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metal stand near his head; the nurse bent over him with a glass half full of milky fluid. It tasted awful, but she made him drink it all.
In a moment he began to relax, and the room got fuzzy again. Just before he drifted off, he said sleepily, "You can't—fool me. It's been more—than three—months."
He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but he kept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed it out of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'd been in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered much sooner.
"She was only suffering from ordinary shock," Arnold explained. "Seeing that assistant of hers—it was enough to knock anybody out, especially a woman. But you stood actual mental contact with them for approximately five minutes. Yes, we know—you talked a lot. It's a miracle you're alive, and rational."
"But where is she?" Peter complained. "You still haven't explained why I haven't been able to see her."
Arnold frowned. "All right," he said. "I guess you're strong enough to take it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children, and a good two-thirds of the male population. That's where you'll go, as soon as you're well enough to be moved. We started digging in six months ago."
"But why?" Peter whispered.
Arnold's strong jaw knotted. "We're hiding," he said. "Everything else has failed."
Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went on after a moment, musingly. "We're burrowing into the earth, like worms. It didn't take us long to find out we couldn't kill them. They didn't even take any notice of our attempts to do so, except once. That was when a squadron of the Police caught about fifty of them together at one time, and attacked with flame guns and a new secret weapon. It didn't hurt them, but it annoyed them. It was the first time they'd been annoyed, I think. They blew up half a state, and it's still smoldering."