They kept it up for an eternity and a half. Regan's vision got hazy, his throat burned and his stomach ached in irregular spasms.
He was barely conscious when the two bearers came back in, loaded him on the plank and took him out into the rotunda. The throng of scientists followed. The floor-wide elevator sank to the main level and they all went out into the street.
A big, rectangular, doorless, bus-like vehicle was standing there. The bearers, with a great deal of effort, propped Regan up in the front seat. His head lolled back inside the suit. The shift in position blacked him out temporarily. He came out of a period of nausea to hear himself saying over and over:
"You open it at the back of the neck. I'd do it myself if I could move my arms. You open it at the back of the neck."
The bus was in motion. It rumbled through the streets among the pastel beehives. In Regan's state, they were so many bouncing balloons being pointed out by madmen in white smocks in a caricature of a vehicle under an impossible sky.
They eventually reached a kind of park or estate. Shrubs and trees were neatly set out and a big golden beehive stood at the end of a long drive. They took him inside, half fainting, sweating, gibbering to himself.
Through half a dozen anterooms they went, to what could only have been a throne room. It was sumptuously hung with tapestries. There were guards standing at post and a thick carpet led to a dais on which were two huge chairs. A tall, slender, dark-haired man sat in one of them. The other was empty.
There was a confused kind of ceremony in which everyone got down on one knee before the man on the throne, and a ridiculous struggle began, to get Regan into a semblance of the same position.
The king, or whatever he was, gestured, and Regan found himself being dragged up on the dais and sat on the other throne.