The scene disappeared, the lenses of the projector retreated from his eyes and Swarts was standing over him, white-lipped. Maitland swore at him for a few seconds, then relaxed and smiled weakly. His head was starting to ache from the effort of blinking.
"What year is this?" he asked.
"All right," Swarts said. "A.D. 2634."
Maitland's smile became a grin.
"I really haven't the time to waste talking irrelevancies," Swarts said a while later. "Honestly. Maitland, I'm working against a time limit. If you'll cooperate, I'll tell Ching to answer your questions."'
"Ching?"
"Ingrid Ching is the girl who has been bringing you your meals."
Maitland considered a moment, then nodded. Swarts lowered the projector to his eyes again, and this time the engineer did not resist.
That evening, he could hardly wait for her to come. Too excited to sit and watch the sunset, he paced interminably about the room, sometimes whistling nervously, snapping his fingers, sitting down and jittering one leg. After a while he noticed that he was whistling the same theme over and over: a minute's thought identified it as that exuberant mounting phrase which recurs in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.