go."

* * * * *

The comfortable conviction that this was all a fake, an experiment of
some kind, began to drain out of Kieran. But if it was true--

He asked, with some difficulty, "You say that they found out how to
revive space-frozen men, that long ago?"

"Yes."

"Yet it took forty or fifty years to get around to reviving me?"

The woman sighed. "You have a misconception. The process of revival was
perfected that long ago. But it has been used only immediately after a
wreck or disaster. Men or women in the old space-cemeteries have not
been revived."

"Why not?" he asked carefully.

"Unsatisfactory results," she said. "They could not adjust
psychologically to changed conditions. They usually became unbalanced.
Some suicides and a number of cases of extreme schizophrenia resulted.
It was decided that it was no kindness to the older space-struck cases
to bring them back."

"But you brought me back?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"There were good reasons." She was, clearly, evading that question. She
went on quickly. "The psychological shock of awakening would have been
devastating, if you were not prepared. So, while you were still under
sedation, I used the hypnopedic method on you. Your unconscious was
aware of the main facts of the situation before you awoke, and that
cushioned the shock."

Kieran thought of himself, lying frozen and dead in a graveyard that was
space, bodies drifting in orbit, circling slowly around each other as
the years passed, in a macabre sarabande-- A deep shiver shook him.

"Because all space-struck victims were in pressure-suits, dehydration
was not the problem it could have been," Paula was saying. "But it's
still a highly delicate process--"

He looked at her and interrupted roughly. "What reasons?" And when she
stared blankly, he added, "You said there were good reasons why you
picked me for revival. What reasons?"

Her face became tight and alert. "You were the oldest victim, in point
of date. That was one of the determining factors--"

"Look," said Kieran. "I'm not a child, nor yet a savage. You can drop
the patronizing professional jargon and answer my question."

Her voice became hard and brittle. "You're new to this environment. You
wouldn't understand if I told you."

"Try me."

"All right," she answered. "We need you, as a symbol, in a political
struggle we're waging against the Sakae."

"The Sakae?"

"I told you that you couldn't