The man who had stopped me nearly ran to meet the stretcher. He stared into the waxy face and whispered, "It's he! Oh, absolutely, it is he!"
I looked and the face was oddly familiar. It reminded me of my childhood; it had a link with school days and the excitement of turning twelve. By the way the four old men were carrying on, however, it meant more than that to them. It meant, if not the Second Coming, at least something close to it.
By then I had figured out that this was that rare event in the day of a clinic—a revival. I had never seen one. I suppose I could have got out of the way and gone about my conspiratorial business, and it is no credit to me as a conspirator that I did not. But I was fascinated.
Too fascinated to wonder why revivals were so rare....
The medic looked at his watch and, with careless efficiency, plucked the tube out of the waxy man's arm.
"Two minutes," he said to one of the civilians. "Then he'll be as good as he ever was. You've got his clothes and release papers?"
"Oh, definitely," said the civilian, beaming.
"Okay. And you understand that the Company takes no responsibility beyond the policy covering? After all, he was one of the first men suspended. We think we can give him another year or so—which is a year more than he would have had, at that—but he's not what you'd call a Grade A risk."
"Certainly," agreed the civilian. "Can we talk to him now?"