He started down the corridor, steadying himself with his hand against the smooth wall. Before he had gone more than a few steps, the anger that pushed him began to ebb away. Of a sudden, the mountainous and incredible fact of his being here, in this place, this time, this ship, came down on him like an avalanche from which the hypnopedic pre-conditioning would no longer protect him.
I am touching a starship, I am in a starship, I, Reed Kieran of Midland Springs, Ohio. I ought to be back there, teaching my classes, stopping at Hartnett's Drug Store for a soft drink on the way home, but I am here in a ship fleeing through the stars ...
His head was spinning and he was afraid that he was going to go out again. He found himself at the door and slid it open and fell rather than walked inside. He heard a startled voice.
This was a bigger room. There was a table whose top was translucent and which showed a bewildering mass of fleeting symbols in bright light, ever changing. There was a screen on one wall of the room and that showed nothing, a blank, dark surface.
Vaillant and Paula Ray and a tall, tough-looking man of middle age were around the table and had looked up, surprised.
Vaillant's face flashed irritation. "Paula, you were supposed to keep him in his cabin!"
"I didn't think he was strong enough to follow," she said.
"I'm not," said Kieran, and pitched over.
The tall middle-aged man reached and caught him before he hit the floor, and eased him into a chair.