"There's no need to be disturbed. Everything is going perfectly."

"I'm not disturbed," said Cochrane. "I'm not even nervous. I'm perfectly
all right."

"But you should be drowsy!" she observed, concerned. "Most people are.
If you nap you'll feel better for it."

She felt his pulse in a businesslike manner. It was normal.

"Take my nap for me," said Cochrane, "or put it back in stock. I don't
want it. I'm perfectly all right."

She considered him carefully. She was remarkably pretty. But her manner
was strictly detached. She said:

"There's a button. You can reach it if you need anything. You may call
me by pushing it."

He shrugged. He lay still as she went on to inspect the other
passengers. There was nothing to do and nothing to see. Travellers were
treated pretty much like parcels, these days. Travel, like television
entertainment and most of the other facilities of human life, was
designed for the seventy-to-ninety-per-cent of the human race whose
likes and dislikes and predilections could be learned exactly by
surveys. Anybody who didn't like what everybody liked, or didn't react
like everybody reacted, was subject to annoyances. Cochrane resigned
himself to them.

The red light-letters changed again, considerably later. This time they