r and washed
himself. Then the attendant turned off the shower and sluiced the
patient with powerful streams of water from the hoses.

The routine seemed senseless and innocent enough, but Potts had heard
whispered conversations in the night that filled him with horror. The P.
T. machine, rumor said, was actually an instrument of torture and death.
The water pressure could be increased to two thousand pounds, enough to
push out a man's eyes or break his bones. Instead of water, the hoses
could spit fire like a flamethrower. Acid could spray from the shower.
Potts had even heard that Joe had killed seven men in the P. T. bath.
How much of this was true, Potts did not know. When he saw bodies turn
suddenly red under a rain of hot water, or writhe and tremble as if
being whipped, he could believe all of it.

The line advanced slowly, like a gang of criminals going to the gas
chamber. Potts grimly determined to think himself out of the hospital at
once, for who knew when fire instead of water would spout from the
hoses? If he recalled some place outside, in exact detail, Potts knew he
could become all mind and project himself there. He must recall
everything, scents, temperature, the ground beneath his feet, precise
colors. Potts concentrated.

He tried to remember the home he had not seen for three months. He
received a dim impression of a tiny crowded apartment and a wife growing
increasingly indifferent. He could not even remember the color of her
eyes, or whether the living room contained one easy chair or two. He
would have to project himself to another place, one that did not seem
like a vague dream.

Potts saw that his bath would come next. Danny Harris stood in the spray
and stared stupidly at the tile floor. Potts looked at Joe. A wide smile
that revealed two gold teeth creased the burly attendant's face. Hairy
hands turned off the needle shower, twisted two more knobs, and picked
up the twin hoses. Joe stood like the villain in a Western movie,
blazing away with two guns, and shot thin powerful streams of water
against Harris's spine. Harris shrieked, though he rarely uttered a
sound outside the P. T. bath. As the icy water raked him from head to
heels, he yelled and danced.

"Turn around," Joe commanded.

Harris pivoted and wailed, and Joe basted him on all sides with water.
Potts watched fascinated as the thin body turned alternately blue with
cold and red under the stinging water. He would not endure tha