"Actually, three days short.  You missed a few days, early on."

"Ah."

"Could happen to anybody."

"I don't suppose a few days more or less will matter.  Back in the real world, I mean."

"Ah.  Yes.  I mean, no, it shouldn't."

"Odd, how I never worried about things back there.  Whether I still have a job, for instance."

"Is it?  Oh, yes, I suppose it is."

"I suppose you told Walter what was going on?"

"Well."

"I mean, you wouldn't just pull the whole rug out from under me, would you?  You knew I'd have to be going back to my old life, once we were done . . . once we'd . . . well, done whatever the hell it is we've been doing here."

"Oh, no, of course not.  I mean, of course you'll be going back."

"One thing I'm curious about.  Where has my real body been all this time?"

"Harrumph."  Well, what he said was something like that.  He glanced at me, looked away, harrumphed again.  I felt the first little scamperings of doubt.  It occurred to me that I had been taking a lot of things for granted.  One of them was that the CC had his reasons for subjecting me to this tropical vacation, and that the reasons were ultimately beneficial to me.  It had seemed logical to think this at the time, since I in fact was benefiting from it.  Oh, sure, there were times when I had complained loudly to the crabs and the turkeys, bemoaned hardships, lusted after this or that.  But it had been a healing time.  Still, a year was a long time.  What had been going on in the real world in my absence?

"This is very difficult for me," the Admiral said.  He removed his huge, ridiculous hat and set it on the table beside him, then took a lace handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped his forehead.  He was balding almost to the crown; his pink scalp looked as bright and polished as tourmaline.

"Since I don't know what's bothering you, I can't really make it any easier for you."

Still he didn't say anything.  The silence was broken only by the never-ending sounds of the island jungle and the splash of my water wheel.

"We could play twenty queries.  'Something's bothering you, Admiral.  Is it bigger than a logic circuit?'"

He sighed, and drained his whiskey.  He looked up at me.

"You're still on the operating table at the studio."

If there was supposed to be a punch line, I couldn't see it coming.  The idea that what should have been a one or two-hour repair job should have taken the better part of a year wasn't even worth considering.  There had to be more.

"Would you like another drink?"

He shook his head.  "From the time you remember appearing on the beach to the time I spoke my first words to you, seven ten-thousandths of a second elapsed."