aint hum of the gas tubes and transformers, the whir
of the gyros, the reedy buzz of hydraulic actuators, the periodic
clicking of the oxygen reclaim unit. I was aware of everything that
was happening in the ship, as if it were my own body.

My body. I knew that I would have to explore my new self before
investigating the ship. With an effort of will I shut off my new sense
impressions, and--looked inside. I sensed the rhythmic muscular action
of my heart, the opening and closing of the valves. I felt the surge
of blood in all my vessels. I moved my hand to touch the bulkhead, and
found that I could count the number of microseconds it took for the
nerve impulses to travel from my fingers to my brain. Time seemed to
have slowed down, it took an hour for the second hand on the panel
clock to make one circuit.

In retrospect I know that this condition of super-awareness must have
lasted only for a few minutes. But it seemed then that I had all the
time in the world.

I found that I no longer needed to think in words, or even symbols. I
could pose myself a problem in, say, four-dimensional vector analysis
and see the solution immediately, like a flash of intuition. I had
attained total somatic consciousness; I was able to analyze the exact
relationship of the drug to the molecular structure of my own
protoplasm.

It was then I knew that, although I had recorded no information about
Mars that the Russians didn't already have, I was going to bring back
home a piece of candy much sweeter.

Wait, now, I told myself. Wait. You have a specific problem to solve.
The problem being how to stop that leak in the hull long enough to get
home alive. It was a problem of basic survival. I was confident. I
knew that if any possible solution to my predicament existed I would
find it. I was my own data computer now, but with eyes and ears and
imagination. I opened my senses again and concentrated on the flood of
information coming at me from the instrument panel. I found that I had
total recall, I could remember--simultaneously--every wiring diagram
and blueprint of the ship, every screw and transistor and welded seam,
that I had ever glanced at. I saw the entire ship as a single entity,
a smoothly functioning organism. In a flash I saw a hundred ways of
improving its design. But that would have to wait. For a moment I
gathered all my psychic energy and concentrated on the single crucial
problem of stopping that leak.

And I saw that