"I'm too ill to move," she quavered, alarmed at the prospect.
But he simply moved in and took over, virtually forcing Lynne firmly but gently into her clothes, getting her downstairs and onto a moving strip, escorting her through the prophylactic entrance of the huge vertical cross of the Centromed, giving her in charge of a stern-faced but kindly physician in white, who put her in turn in the hands of a giant red-headed nurse in steropants and white cap.
Lynne never did find out what they did with her. She recalled lying down and looking up at a hypnotic ceiling, drifting quickly into merciful unconsciousness. When she recovered her headache was gone and she had a sense of having undergone an important experience.
"Miss Fenlay," the doctor said, "you're undergoing a period of mental growth and change that in your case seems to make such suffering periodic."
"What can I do about it?" she asked in panic.
"I believe your trouble is one of environment," he replied. "During this period of readjustment you find familiar surroundings unsufferable. In plain English, you need a change."
"But how am I to get it?" she asked.
"That is hardly our department," he told her. "You'll have to take it up with your Integration Chief, I'm afraid. Naturally we'll be glad to make a recommendation for transfer on medical grounds."
"Thanks—thanks a lot," she said uncertainly. She walked out of the building and discovered it was already late afternoon. Unsureness chewed at her for the first time in her well-ordered life. The headache was gone but it might return if she didn't make a change—and she didn't want to leave the only home she'd ever known.
Rolf rose from an alloybanc on which he had been sitting and said, "Headache gone, Lynne? You look upset."