Chapter 5 Chapter 3 Rehabilitation

He woke up again and found the head nurse and two nurses around the bed.Poole felt he had recovered enough to express his position. "Where am I, can you tell me?" The three women exchanged glances, apparently not knowing what to do next.Then the head nurse spoke very slowly and carefully, and replied: "Mr. Poole, everything is all right. Professor Anderson will be here soon...he will explain to you." Explain what?Poole was a little annoyed.I couldn't tell where she was from, but at least she spoke English... Anderson must have been on his way, because the door opened a short while later, giving Poole just in time to catch some curious people peeking at him.He was beginning to feel like some new animal in the zoo.

Professor Anderson was a short, dapper man whose appearance seemed to combine the important characteristics of several different nationalities: Chinese, Polynesians, plus Nordics, blended together in an indescribable way.First he raised his right palm in greeting to Poole, then, suddenly thinking that something was wrong, he shook Poole's hand again, with strange delicacy, as if practicing some unfamiliar gesture. "Mr. Poole, it's a pleasure to see you in such good health... We'll get you up right away." Another man with a strange accent and slow speech.However, the confident attitude towards patients is the same for doctors of any age no matter when and where.

"That's good. Can you answer some questions for me now..." "Of course, of course, but wait a moment." Anderson said something quickly and in a low voice to the matron, and Poole caught a few words, but still didn't understand them.The head nurse nodded to one of the nurses, who opened the closet and took out a thin metal band, which she put around Poole's head. "What's this for?" he asked.He became one of those nagging patients who would annoy doctors, always wanting to know what had happened to him. "Read the EEG!" The professor, the matron, and the nurses all looked equally bewildered.Then a smile crept across Anderson's face.

"Oh, brain...electricity...graph...yeah," he said slowly, as if digging out these terms from the depths of his memory, "you're right, we just want to monitor your brain function .” Poole muttered in a low voice, I've got a pretty good brain if you'll let me use it.However, at least some progress has been made. Anderson, still in his strange and artificial voice, mustered up his courage as if speaking in a foreign language, and said: "Mr. Poole, of course you know that you were disabled by a serious accident while you were working outside the 'Discovery'. "

Poole nodded in agreement."I'm starting to wonder if 'disabled' is an understatement," he said sarcastically. Anderson was visibly relieved, and another smile crept across his lips. "You're right again. What do you think happened?" "Best case scenario, after I lost consciousness, David Bowman rescued me and brought me back to the boat. What happened to David? You don't tell me anything!" "When the time comes...what's the worst case?" Frank felt a gust of cold wind blowing on the back of his neck, and the doubts that had surfaced in his mind gradually materialized.

"I died, but I was brought here, no matter where it is, and you guys managed to bring me back to life. Thank you..." "Exactly. And you're back on Earth, or rather, very close to Earth." What did he mean by "very close to Earth"?Of course there is a gravitational field here, so it is also possible that he is on a rotating orbital space station.Never mind, there are more important things to think about. Poole did a quick mental calculation that if David put him in a hibernation device, woke up the rest of the crew, and completed the classified mission to Jupiter... Silicon, he could have been 'dead' for five years!

"What day is it?" he asked as calmly as possible. The professor and the matron exchanged glances, and Poole felt another gust of cold wind blowing. "Mr. Poole, I must tell you that Bowman didn't save you. He believed that you were hopeless, and we can't blame him. Because he himself was facing life and death... "So you drifted into space, passed through the Jupiter system, and headed towards other stars. Fortunately, your body temperature is far below freezing point, so you have no metabolism. But it is a miracle that you were found, you can Said to be the luckiest person in the world, no, it should be said, the luckiest person in history!"

Am I?Poole asked himself sadly.Five years, yes!Maybe it's been a century, maybe it's been longer. "Tell me." He asked persistently. The professor and the head nurse seemed to be consulting invisible monitors.As they looked at each other and nodded in agreement, it seemed to Poole that they were both connected to the hospital's information loop, directly connected to the metal band around his head. Professor Anderson deftly shifted his role as a long-standing family doctor, saying: "Frank, this will be extremely shocking to you, but you can bear it, and the sooner you know it, the better.

"We're just entering the fourth millennium. Believe me, it's been almost 1,000 years since you left Earth." "I believe you." Poole replied calmly.Then, something happened that made him very helpless: the whole room was spinning, and then he didn't know anything. When he woke up again, he found that he was no longer in a white hospital ward, but in a luxurious suite with attractive and constantly changing images on the walls.Some are well-known familiar paintings, others are landscapes that may have been drawn from his time.Nothing strange or unpleasant, but he guessed that would come later.The circumstances in which he is currently in are clearly well designed.He wasn't sure if there was anything resembling a TV screen nearby. (I wonder how many channels there are in the third millennium?) But there are no control buttons beside the bed.He was like a savage suddenly encountering civilization, in this new world, there was so much to learn.

But first, he must regain his strength and learn the language.The fact that recording equipment had been invented more than a century before Poole's birth did not prevent major shifts in grammar and pronunciation.Now there are thousands of new words, mostly technical terms, but he can often guess the meaning by clever tricks. But what frustrates him the most is the countless names accumulated over the past 1,000 years, whether they are good names or notorious, they are all meaningless to him anyway.In the weeks leading up to his own database, his conversations were interrupted by profiles.

As Poole regained his strength, so did the number of visits, but always under the careful supervision of Professor Anderson.These visitors included medical experts, academics in various fields, and, in Poole's favour, spaceship commanders. Most of what he was able to tell doctors and historians could be found in humanity's vast databases, but he usually gave them research shortcuts and new insights into the events of his time.They all respected him and listened patiently to him when he tried to answer; however, they seemed reluctant to answer his questions.Poole was starting to feel a little overprotected, probably out of fear that he might have a culture clash.And he was also half-seriously thinking about how to escape from his suite.A few times he was left alone in the room and, as expected, he found the door locked. Then, the arrival of Dr. Indira Wallace changed everything.Name aside, her physical features appear to be Japanese.Several times Poole, using a little imagination, thought she was actually more like a sophisticated Japanese geisha.That doesn't seem like a very fitting image for a historian of such renown, especially since she's giving virtual lectures at a real Ivy League university.Of all the people who visited Poole, she was the first to speak fluently in the English language Poole used, so Poole was glad to know her. "Mr. Poole," she began in a very methodical voice, "I have been appointed as your official guardian, let me say tutor. My major is history, and I specialize in your era. The thesis title is '2000 to 2050 The disintegration of the country in the 1980s'. I believe that in many ways, we can help each other." "I believe it too. But the first thing I want is to get me out. That way I can see your world." "That's exactly what we're going to do. But give you an 'identity.' The input device can read your existence." "I knew it." Poole smiled bitterly: "We were a bit like this back then, and many people didn't like it." "It's the same now. People who don't like them hide away and live in the wilderness. There are more people like this on the earth now than in your time! But they all carry a communication bag with them, so that they can call for help when they encounter trouble. ; usually within five days, they call for help." "It's a pity that humans have clearly degenerated." He tentatively probed her, trying to find out her tolerance, sketch out her personality.Obviously the two of them would be together for a long time, and he would be dependent on her in many ways.But he was still not sure if he would like her or not.Maybe she just saw him as a fascinating exhibit in a museum. To Poole's surprise, she agreed with Poole's criticism. "In some respects, this may be true. We may have become less physically fit, but we are much healthier than previous humans, and we are quite well adjusted. The so-called 'noble savages' have always been It's a legend." She walked over to a small square panel at eye level in front of the door, the size of a magazine overflowing in the early days of printing.Poole noticed that there seemed to be at least one in every room, usually always blank, with the occasional line of slowly moving text on it.Even if he knew some of the words, it was completely meaningless to him.Once a panel in his room made an urgent beep, and he decided that whatever the problem was, someone would fix it anyway, so he ignored it.Fortunately the noise ended as abruptly as it began. Dr. Wallace placed his palm on the panel for a few seconds.Then she looked at Poole and said with a smile, "Come and see." The sudden appearance of the inscription is meaningful this time, he read out slowly: Indira Wallace female/2970.03.11/31.885/Oxford.history "I think it means: female, born on March 11, 2970, teaching in the History Department of Oxford University, I guess 31.885 is a PIN, correct?" "Excellent, Mr. Poole. I've seen your email addresses and credit card numbers. It's a nasty mess of letters and numbers that no one remembers! But everyone knows their birthdays, and at most they just follow The same for the other 99999 people. So, a five-digit number is enough... It doesn't matter if you forget it. As you can see, it's part of your body." "Is it implanted?" "Nanochip implanted at birth. One in each hand, just in case, and you don't feel it at all when implanted. But you gave us a small problem." "what is the problem?" "The reading devices you'll come across are too dumb to believe your birthday. So, if you agree, we'll add 1,000 years to your birthday." "All with your approval. What about the rest?" "It's up to you. You can leave it blank, or write your current interests and location. Otherwise, use it as a bulletin board, open or only for specific friends to see." Some things, even through the centuries, did not change, Poole was sure.A large percentage of those so-called "specific" friends are actually very private. He was wondering whether there is self-discipline or compulsory supervision in this era, and whether their efforts to improve human morality are more effective than his own era. When he got to know Dr. Wallace better, he must ask her.