Consciousness came to Underwood as if he were responding to the persistent voice of some unseen speaker. It called him out of the depths of eternal existence into the realm of conflict and reality. Curiously, it sounded like Jandro.
He opened his eyes. Illia was there, her face white and strained. But as he looked at her, her blue eyes glistened and she bent down. "Del! Oh, Del—!"
Terry, Phyfe, Mason and Akers were standing near the bed, watching with anxious faces.
Pain was beginning to show itself in burning streamers, but he managed a quick smile to those about him. "Looks like we made it all right," he said. "I wonder what I can do with these gadgets now. Think they'll work, Illia?"
She raised up, brisk and businesslike once more. "You aren't going to find out for a while. I intend to knock you out for a good, cold twenty-four hours. Give me your arm."
She reached for a hypo needle on the table beside the bed.
It was like stumbling around in the dark at first, trying to run from an unseen pursuer. But all at once, Underwood knew he didn't need to run at all. The hypo was blocking the sensory equipment in other parts of his body, but it couldn't affect the abasic organs if he didn't want it to. He stopped running and watched the ordinary faculties of his body give way while he stood aside in complete immunity. It was as if he could step outside and look at himself.
And, suddenly, that was what he was doing!
He could see the room, the watching scientists, and Illia carefully checking his heartbeat and respiration. He could see himself lying still with eyes closed. Curiously, he could not identify the point of view. He thought for a moment that he was up near the ceiling somewhere, looking down, but that wasn't right, either, because he could see the ceiling just as well as the floor or the four walls. The scene was like a picture taken with a lens having a solid angle of perception of three hundred and sixty degrees.