The pilot followed the doctor out of the room and down to the lawn. They came up from behind the lawn chair and stood looking down at the man sitting in it. His eyes were closed.
The pilot saw that Duport's jaw was slack. He could not tell whether he was asleep. The flesh in his cheeks was sunken. He looked older.
Dr. Valdez said, "Catatonia, schizophrenia, it's like no condition I've ever seen before. He is perfectly aware of what is going on around him, you see. Bring him food and he eats. Stick him with a pin and he jumps. All his responses are normal. He took the cable and attached it himself, remember. But he will make no more than the minimum necessary effort to survive." The doctor chewed his lip, thinking. "If only he would say something."
"Have you decided why he jumped?" the pilot asked, not realizing that he was whispering. "What made him panic?"
"No." The doctor shook his head. "Not panic, it wasn't fear alone, I think. There was something else. We put him through equally critical moments in training, and he didn't panic then. Fear was part of it, but there was something else too."
"Well, what then?"
"I don't know the word. It's something new. Maybe Duport is a new kind of human being. If not fear, call it—love, or desire. He jumped into space because, I think, he wanted to."
"I don't understand that," the pilot said.
"I don't either—yet." Dr. Valdez moved a step closer to the man in the chair. "Rene. Rene Duport."
Without moving his head, Duport opened his eyes.