Late on a day in 1959, three men sat in a room.

Edward Hawks, Doctor of Science, cradled his long jaw in his outsize hands and hunched forward with his sharp elbows on the desk. He was a black-haired, pale-skinned, gangling man who rarely got out in the sun. Compared to his staff of tanned young assistants, he always reminded strangers of a scarecrow. Now he was watching a young man who sat in the straight chair facing him.

The young man stared unblinkingly. His trim crewcut was wet with perspiration and plastered by it to his scalp. His features were clean, clear-skinned and healthy, but his chin was wet. “An dark…” he said querulously, “an dark and nowhere starlights” His voice trailed away suddenly into a mumble, but he still complained.

Hawks looked to his right.

Weston, the recently hired psychologist, was sitting there in an armchair he’d had brought down to Hawks’ office. Weston, like Hawks, was in his early forties. But he was chunky where Hawks was gaunt; he was self-possessed, urbane behind his black-rimmed glasses and, now, a little impatient. He frowned slightly back toward Hawks and arched one eyebrow.

“He’s insane,” Hawks said to him like a wondering child.

Weston crossed his legs. “I told you that, Dr. Hawks; I told you the moment we pulled him out of that apparatus of yours. What had happened to him was too much for him to stand.”