Read A Century of Progress for Free Online Page B

what had looked like a primitive oscilloscope built into the console in front of Norlund cleared its round gray screen and showed him a color-graphics display as sophisticated as anything he’d seen on equipment of the Eighties.
    Ginny started to explain to him how he was going to use it. After she’d made the scope turn gray again, displaying one primitive green-line trace like an ancient A-scan radar, Norlund interrupted the lesson to point at it. “They had scopes like this in nineteen thirty-three?”
    “I see you weren’t doing advanced electronic research in that year. Yes, they did. Would you believe they had something almost like it in eighteen ninety-seven?”
    Ginny went on showing him what he was expected to do with the equipment; the way she talked about it, it didn’t sound particularly hard. And maybe he didn’t yet believe wholeheartedly in the reality of all that she was telling him, but he remembered everything she said. He also lost track of how much time was passing. When he began to get overpoweringly sleepy, she calmly sent him back to his room to rest.
    Lying on his bed, he tried to think. But too much had happened to him today; he couldn’t think straight about any part of it . . .
    He awoke with the feeling that he might have slept for half an hour. The phone at bedside was chiming musically. When Norlund answered, Ginny’s voice invited him to come downstairs for dinner.
    It was still daylight outside, and Norlund’s wrist-watch indicated seven o’clock. He washed up and put on a clean shirt, choosing one of several that he now found hanging in the room’s closet. He didn’t think they had been there when he came upstairs, but he had been so sleepy he hadn’t even noticed what time it was. Ginny had said that everything was going to be provided for him, and he decided to take her at her word.
    Had he been dreaming Andy Burns?
    It was just a few minutes after seven when he located some stairs and went down them. They brought him to the ground floor in sight of a rather ordinary dining room, with a table big enough for eight or ten. Only three places were set, and two of those were occupied by Ginny and Dr. Harbin.
    They both looked up as Norlund approached. Ginny asked: “How’re you feeling, Alan?”
    “Pretty good, after that siesta. I don’t know what happened. I don’t usually . . .”
    “Common reaction,” said Harbin, clearing his throat as if it were rusty with disuse, “after a learning session like the one you had. Sit down.”
    Norlund sat. A casually dressed young man Norlund hadn’t seen before appeared in the capacity of waiter, outlined some limited choices in the way of food, and went casually away.
    Norlund looked at the doctor. “Are you the one who’s treating Sandy?”
    The man’s expression did not change, nor did he answer, but went on chewing methodically. Ginny said quickly: “That’s not an answerable question right now. Do you want to call the hospital, Alan? You may, of course.”
    “And then call again in the morning?”
    “Yes, certainly. Use the phone in the next room there. Or the one in your room, if you prefer.” As Norlund started to rise, her eyes held his. “Alan? Don’t give any hints. About this. It’s getting more important hour by hour. It could wreck everything right now.”
    “I won’t.”
    He used the phone near the dining room, punching out the never-to-be-forgotten hospital number. There was more than one way to learn something indelibly. Sandy’s oncologist was naturally not at the hospital at this time of the evening, nor was Marge on hand. But the nurse on the floor—one who, after the long struggle, Norlund thought of as something of a friend—reported that the patient was better today, eating well and resting comfortably.
    Norlund announced this when he got back to the dinner table. Ginny and the doctor smiled to show that they were pleased; neither was in the least surprised.
    The food, brought by the casual waiter,