She tapped her forehead with a slender finger. "My notes were here," she said.
He looked amazed.
"And still are," she said.
"But how did you get the drugs to carry out your suspended animation?" Gary asked.
She waited for long minutes.
"That's the part I hate to think about," she said. "The part that's hard to think about. I worked with a young man. About my age, then. He must be dead these many years.”
She stopped and Gary could see that she was trying to marshal in her mind what next to say.
"We were in love," she said. "Together we discovered the suspended animation process. We had worked on it secretly for months and were ready to announce it when I was taken before the military tribunal. They never let me see him after that. I was allowed no visitors.
"Out in space, after the war cruiser left, I almost went insane. I invented all sorts of tasks to do. I arranged and rearranged my chemicals and apparatus and then one day I found the drugs, skillfully hidden in a box of chemicals. Only one person in the world besides myself knew about them. I found the drugs and two hypodermic syringes.”
Gary's pipe had gone out and now he relit it. The girl went on.