"How ... many times ... do they drop it?"
"Four times during the day, three at night. Twenty days."
A nightmare of visual sensations ebbed into Craig's mind. He was vaguely aware of the moans of other men in the vaultlike room. Wave upon wave of nausea swept him as he watched the seam lines bend and warp fantastically. He snapped his eyelids shut, only to begin feeling the nightmarish bodily sensations once more. He felt the cot slowly rise longitudinally, felt himself upside down, then the snap of turning right side up once more—and he knew that neither he nor the cot had moved so much as an inch.
Craig heard the voices around him, muffled, as though talking through wadding.
"... got it bad."
"We better take him out."
"... pretty bad."
"He'll go into shock."
"... never make it the twelfth."
"We better yank him."