'I'm beginning to suspect,' he said dryly, 'that "disabled" is a slight understatement.'
Anderson relaxed visibly, and a slow smile spread across his face.
'You're quite correct. Tell me what you think happened.'
'Well, the best case scenario is that, after I became unconscious, Dave Bowman rescued me and brought me back to the ship. How is Dave? No one will tell me anything!'
'All in due course... and the worst case?'
It seemed to Frank Poole that a chill wind was blowing gently on the back of his neck. The suspicion that had been slowly forming in his mind began to solidify.
'That I died, but was brought back here wherever "here" is and you've been able to revive me. Thank you...'
'Quite correct. And you're back on Earth. Well, very near it.'
What did he mean by 'very near it'? There was certainly a gravity field here so he was probably inside the slowly turning wheel of an orbiting space-station. No matter: there was something much more important to think about.
Poole did some quick mental calculations. If Dave had put him in the hibernaculum, revived the rest of the crew, and completed the mission to Jupiter why, he could have been 'dead' for as much as five years!
'Just what date is it?' he asked, as calmly as possible.
Professor and Matron exchanged glances. Again Poole felt that cold wind on his neck.
'I must tell you, Mr Poole, that Bowman did not rescue you. He believed and we cannot blame him that you were irrevocably dead. Also, he was facing a desperately serious crisis that threatened his own survival...'
'So you drifted on into space, passed through the Jupiter system, and headed out towards the stars. Fortunately, you were so far below freezing point that there was no metabolism but it's a near-miracle that you were ever found at all. You are one of the luckiest men alive. No ever to have lived!'
Am I? Poole asked himself bleakly. Five years, indeed! It could be a century or even more.
'Let me have it,' he demanded.
Professor and Matron seemed to be consulting an invisible monitor: when they looked at each other and nodded agreement, Poole guessed that they were all plugged into the hospital information circuit, linked to the headband he was wearing.
'Frank,' said Professor Anderson, making a smooth switch to the role of long-time family physician, 'this will be a great shock to you, but you're capable of accepting it and the sooner you know, the better.'
'We're near the beginning of the Fourth Millennium. Believe me you left Earth almost a thousand years ago.'
'I believe you,' Poole answered calmly. Then, to his great annoyance, the room started to spin around him, and he knew nothing more.
When he regained consciousness, he found that he was no longer in a bleak hospital room but in a luxurious suite with attractive and steadily changing images on the walls. Some of these were famous and familiar paintings, others showed land and sea-scapes that might have been from his own time. There was nothing alien or upsetting: that, he guessed, would come later.
His present surroundings had obviously been carefully programmed: he wondered if there was the equivalent of a television screen somewhere (how many channels would the Fourth Millennium have?) but could see no sign of any controls near his bed. There was so much he would have to learn in this new world: he was a savage who had suddenly encountered civilization.
But first, he must regain his strength and learn the language; not even the advent of sound recording, already more than a century old when Poole was born, had prevented major changes in grammar and pronunciation. And there were thousands of new words, mostly from science and technology, though often he was able to make a shrewd guess at their meaning.
More frustrating, however, were the myriad of famous and infamous personal names that had accumulated over the millennium, and which meant nothing to him. For weeks, until he had built up a data bank, most of his conversations had to be interrupted with potted biographies. As Poole's strength increased, so did the number of his visitors, though always under Professor Anderson's watchful eye. They included medical specialists, scholars of several disciplines, and of the greatest interest to him spacecraft commanders.
There was little that he could tell the doctors and historians that was not recorded somewhere in Mankind's gigantic data banks, but he was often able to give them research shortcuts and new insights about the events of his own time. Though they all treated him with the utmost respect and listened patiently as he tried to answer their questions, they seemed reluctant to answer his. Poole began to feel that he was being over-protected from culture shock, and half-seriously wondered how he could escape from his suite. On the few occasions he was alone, he was not surprised to discover that the door was locked.
Then the arrival of Doctor Indra Wallace changed everything. Despite her name, her chief racial component appeared to be Japanese, and there were times when with just a little imagination Poole could picture her as a rather mature Geisha Girl. It was hardly an appropriate image for a distinguished historian, holding a Virtual Chair at a university still boasting real ivy.
She was the first visitor with a fluent command of Poole's own English, so he was delighted to meet her.
'Mr Poole,' she began, in a very business-like voice, 'I've been appointed your official guide and let's say mentor. My qualifications I've specialized in your period my thesis was "The Collapse of the Nation-State, 2000-50". 1 believe we can help each other in many ways.'
'I'm sure we can. First I'd like you to get me out of here, so I can see a little of your world.'
'Exactly what we intend to do. But first we must give you an Ident. Until then you'll be what was the term? -a non-person. It would be almost impossible for you to go anywhere, or get anything done. No input device would recognize your existence.'
'Just what I expected,' Poole answered, with a wry smile. 'It was starting to get that way in my own time and many people hated the idea.'
'Some still do. They go off and live in the wilderness there's a lot more on Earth than there was in your century! But they always take their compaks with them, so they can call for help as soon as they get into trouble. The median time is about five days.'
'Sorry to hear that. The human race has obviously deteriorated.'
He was cautiously testing her, trying to find the limits of her tolerance and to map out her personality. It was obvious that they were going to spend much time together, and that he would have to depend upon her in hundreds of ways. Yet he was still not sure if he would even like her: perhaps she regarded him merely as a fascinating museum exhibit.
Rather to Poole's surprise, she agreed with his criticism.
'That may be true in some respects. Perhaps we're physically weaker, but we're healthier and better adjusted than most humans who have ever lived. The Noble Savage was always a myth'.
She walked over to a small rectangular plate, set at eye-level in the door. It was about the size of one of the countless magazines that had proliferated in the far-off Age of Print, and Poole had noticed that every room seemed to have at least one. Usually they were blank, but sometimes they contained lines of slowly scrolling text, completely meaningless to Poole even when most of the words were familiar. Once a plate in his suite had emitted urgent beepings, which he had ignored on the assumption that someone else would deal with the problem, whatever it was. Fortunately the noise stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Dr Wallace laid the palm of her hand upon the plate, then removed it after a few seconds. She glanced at Poole, and said smilingly: 'Come and look at this.'
The inscription that had suddenly appeared made a good deal of sense, when he read it slowly:WALLACE, INDRA [F2970.03.11 :31.885 / /HIST.OXFORD] 'I suppose it means Female, date of birth 11 March 2970 and that you're associated with the Department of History at Oxford. And I guess that 31.885 is a personal identification number. Correct?'