Chapter 5

A half-hour later the kid was taken away and Corriston found himself completely alone. There are few events in human life more unnerving than the totally unexpected removal of a sympathetic listener when dark thoughts have taken possession of a man.

The kid wasn’t forcibly removed from the cell. He left without protesting and no rough hands were laid on him, no physical violence employed. But he was not at all eager to leave, and if the guards who came for him had eyed him less severely, his attitude might have been the opposite of complacent.

“Sorry, kid,” one of them said. “Your discharge has been postponed. Somebody on the psycho-staff wants to give you another test. I guess you didn’t interpret the ink blots right.”

He looked at Corriston and shook his head sympathetically. “It’s tough, I know. Once you’re here waiting to be released can wear you down. I shouldn’t be saying this, but it stands to reason it might even slow up your recovery a bit. It’s easy to blame the docs, but you’ve got to try to understand their side of it. They have to make sure.”

When the door clanged shut behind the kid, Corriston crossed to his cot, sat down, and cradled his head in his arms. The fact that he was still free to go outside and walk around the Station was no comfort at all. That kind of freedom could be worse than total confinement. He could never hope to escape from observation. The guards were under orders to watch him, and wherever he turned there’d be eyes boring into the back of his neck.

On Earth a man under surveillance could duck quickly into a side street, run and weave about, and emerge on a broad avenue in the midst of a crowd. He could walk calmly then for a block or two, and turn in at a bar. He could drown his troubles in drink.

There were bars on the Station, of course. But Corriston knew that if he tried to mingle with officers of his own rank on the upper levels, he’d quickly enough find himself drinking alone. He could picture the off-duty personnel edging quickly and resentfully away from him, as though he’d suddenly appeared in their midst with a big, yawning hole in his skull.

Suddenly utter weariness overcame Corriston. He loosened his belt, elevated his legs, and relaxed on the cot.

He was asleep almost before he could close his eyes. How long he slept he had no way of knowing. He only knew that he was awakened by a sound—the strangest sound a man could hear in space. It was as if a gnat or a mosquito had developed a sudden, avaricious liking for his blood-type and was determined to gorge itself to bursting at his expense.

The buzzing seemed to go on interminably as he hovered between sleeping and waking. On and on and on, with absolutely no letup. Then, abruptly, it ceased. There was a faint swishing sound and something solid thudded into the hardwood directly above him.