He could not. The door was locked.

Shevek’s first incredulity turned to rage, a kind of rage, a blind will to violence, which he had never felt before in his life. He wrenched at the immovable door handle, slammed his hands against the slick metal of the door, then turned and jabbed the call button, which the doctor had told him to use at need. Nothing happened. There were a lot of other little numbered buttons of different colors on the intercom panel; he hit his hand across the whole lot of them. The wall speaker began to babble, “Who the hell yes coming right away out clear what from twenty-two—”

Shevek drowned them all out: “Unlock the door!”

The door slid open, the doctor looked in. At the sight of his bald, anxious, yellowish face Shevek’s wrath cooled and retreated into an inward darkness. He said, “The door was locked.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Shevek—a precaution—contagion—keeping the others out—”

“To lock out, to lock in, the same act,” Shevek said, looking down at the doctor with light, remote eyes.

“Safety—”

“Safety? Must I be kept in a box?”

“The officers’ lounge,” the doctor offered hurriedly, appeasingly. “Are you hungry, sir? Perhaps you’d like to get dressed and we’ll go to the lounge.”

Shevek looked at the doctor’s clothing: tight blue trousers tucked into boots that looked as smooth and fine as doth themselves; a violet tunic opened down the front and reclosed with silver frogs; and under that, showing only at neck and wrists, a knit shirt of dazzling white.

“I am not dressed?” Shevek inquired at last.

“Oh, pajamas will do, by all means. No formalities on a freighter!”

“Pajamas?”

“What you’re wearing. Sleeping clothes.”

“Clothes to wear while sleeping?”

“Yes.”

Shevek blinked. He made no comment. He asked, “Where are the clothes I wore?”

“Your clothes? I had them cleaned—sterilized. I hope you don’t mind, sir—” He investigated a wall panel Shevek had not discovered and brought out a packet wrapped in pale-green paper. He unwrapped Shevek’s old suit, which looked very clean and somewhat reduced in size, wadded up the green paper, activated another panel, tossed the paper into the bin that opened, and smiled uncertainly. “There you are, Dr. Shevek.”

“What happens to the paper?”

“The paper?”

“The green paper.”

“Oh, I put it in the trash.”

“Trash?”

“Disposal. It gets burned up.”

“You burn paper?”

“Perhaps it just gets dropped out into space, I don’t know. I’m no space medic, Dr. Shevek. I was given the honor of attending you because of my experience with other visitors from offworld, the ambassadors from Terra and from Hain. I run the decontamination and habituation procedure for all aliens arriving in A-Io. Not that you’re exactly an alien in the same sense, of course.” He looked timidly at Shevek, who could not follow all he said, but did discern the anxious, diffident, well-meaning nature beneath the words.

“No,” Shevek assured him, “maybe I have the same grandmother as you, two hundred years ago, on Urras.” He was putting on his old clothes, and as he pulled the shirt over his head he saw the doctor stuff the blue and yellow “sleeping clothes” into the “trash” bin. Shevek paused, the collar still over his nose. He emerged fully, knelt, and opened the bin. It was empty.