Bryce Walton

“ Zeiger insisted.
Von Ulrich said, "I'll turn in a complete report on Barton. If the authorities want to have him removed, all right. But maybe they won't. Maybe they'll decide they have a laboratory here for the study of a human being that's more important than whatever's being absorbed by those recorders. Barton is the thing to watch. I call him the 'Adaptable,' because I believe he can adapt to anything, fit himself into any situation, any kind of environmental circumstance, if he's not interfered with too much, if he's given even a slight chance. ”

“ The first two or three hours of that dead man's float is a good test for basketball duty, Barton. It's a kind of final isolation of the human organism. Normal human beings can take a couple of hours of it usually. They like it. Every human being to some extent likes to return to the womb. But after a couple of hours most human beings start going to pieces, short-circuiting. ”

“ Von Ulrich told Zeiger, "that Barton was unique—he was the impossible. The absolutely self-sufficient human being, needing nothing but himself. I was getting older and I figured there was a chance I might not get back and the war threat and so forth. ”

“ Something has to feed in through some source—some reception source—the skin, ears, nose, the eyes. These things feeding in, they orient a person, tells him when he's thinking, feeling, gives him stimuli for additional thinking. ”

“ A man who never matured, never was able to accept responsibility as a mature adult. Always just drifting along, into one job, out of it, into another job, out of that, never establishing roots anywhere, always floating about. ”

“ The floater becomes anxious, then very anxious, then he begins having hallucinations, finally becomes completely disoriented. All this happens to a normal human being inside, at the most, three or four hours. No human being should be able to remain sane after four hours of the dead man's float, Barton. ”