Free Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer

couldn’t possibly have taken in enough to do real damage, but we’re using that as a pretext to keep him from being discharged. Otherwise, he’d be in the slammer right now.”
    “‘The slammer,’” repeated the president, sounding amused.
    Reuben felt even more discombobulated. “Anyway, like I said, I don’t think he belongs in prison.”
    “Tell me why,” said the voice.
    And Reuben did just that.
    The president of Inco was a decisive man. “I’ll make the call,” he said.
     
    * * *
     
    Ponter was lying on a—well, it was a bed, he supposed, but it wasn’t recessed to be flush with the floor; instead it was raised up by a harsh-looking metal frame. And the pillow was an amorphous bag stuffed with—he wasn’t sure what, but it certainly wasn’t dried pine nuts, like his pillow back home.
    The bald man—Ponter had now seen that there was a stubble against his dark scalp, so the baldness must be an affectation, not a congenital condition—had left the room. Ponter had interlaced his fingers behind his own head, giving some firmer support for his skull. It wasn’t rude to Hak. His Companion’s scanners perceived everything within a couple of paces; it only needed its directional lens uncovered when looking at an object outside its scanning range.
    “It’s clearly nighttime,” said Ponter, into the air.
    “Yes,” said Hak. Ponter could feel the cochlear implants vibrate slightly as his head pressed back against his arms.
    “But it’s not dark out. There’s a window in this room, but they seem to have flooded the outdoors with artificial light.”
    “I wonder why?” said Hak.
    Ponter got up—so strange to dangle one’s feet over the side of the bed in order to rise—and hurried to the window. It was too bright to see stars, but—
    “It’s there,” said Ponter, facing his wrist out through the glass so Hak could see.
    “That’s Earth’s moon, all right,” said Hak. “And its phase—a waning crescent—is exactly right for today’s date of 148/118/24.”
    Ponter shook his head and moved back to the strange, elevated bed. He sat on the edge of it; it was uncomfortable to do so, what with no back support. He then touched the side of his head, which had been bandaged by the man with the wrapped head; Ponter wondered if that man’s bandages were because of a massive head wound of his own. “I hurt my head,” Ponter said, into the air.
    “Yes,” replied Hak, “but you saw the deepviews they took of you; there was no serious damage done.”
    “But I almost drowned, too.”
    “That’s certainly true.”
    “So … so maybe my brain was injured. Anoxia, and all that …”
    “You think you’re hallucinating?” asked Hak.
    “Well,” said Ponter, lifting his right arm, and gesturing at the bizarre room around him, “how else to explain all this?”
    Hak was silent for a moment. “If you are hallucinating,” the Companion said, “then my telling you that you are not could just be part of that hallucination. So there’s really no point in me trying to disabuse you of that notion, is there?”
    Ponter lay back down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, which was devoid of timepieces and artwork.
    “You really should try to get some sleep,” said Hak. “Maybe things will make more sense in the morning.”
    Ponter nodded slightly. “White noise,” he said. Hak complied, playing a soft, soothing hiss through the cochlear implants, but still it seemed to Ponter to be a long time before he fell asleep.

Chapter 9
    Day Two
    Saturday, August 3
    148/118/25
     
    Adikor Huld couldn’t take being inside the house. Everything there reminded him of poor, vanished Ponter. Ponter’s favorite chair, his datapad, the sculptures Ponter had selected—everything. And so he’d gone out back, to sit on the deck, to stare sadly at the countryside. Pabo came out and looked at Adikor for a time; Pabo had been Ponter’s dog—he’d had her long before Adikor and Ponter had begun living