Rudy came into Steve's room wearing a big smile. "Welcome back, Steve. It's good to see you alert and responsive again. I knew you'd eventually come back on your own."

Steve gave Rudy a worried glance. "Yeah, well, what I'm wondering is where I went."

"Deep into your own mind," Rudy replied.

"My mind?"

"Yes," Rudy sighed. "This isn't going to be easy for you to hear but you had a condition called catatonic depression."

"I was catatonic?" Steve stared off at the ceiling for a moment. "Now I'm a nut case on top of everything else."

"No, you're a survivor, Steve. Let me be the judge of whether you have a chronic mental health condition, okay?"

"I guess this means you want to do an evaluation." It was a statement more than a question and he said it almost automatically. Steve had been required to submit to regular NASA psych evaluations over the years, so getting an evaluation was commonplace to him.

Rudy couldn't believe his luck. He'd been wanting to get Steve on a regular schedule of psych evaluations but because Steve had been fighting him, Rudy hadn't dared to broach the subject. But now it was Steve who brought it up. Rudy jumped at the opportunity. "A short one for now, if you feel up to it?"

Steve sighed. "Yeah, I guess I should find out if I'm crazy."

Rudy pressed the call button near Steve's bed. Carla walked in almost immediately.

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Let's set up for a psych eval."

"Yes, Sir." Carla left the room.

A few minutes later she was back pushing a cart in front of her. An orderly was behind her pushing another cart. Both carts carried electronic equipment. Carla pushed her cart over by the two chairs in the corner of the room. "That one goes by the bed," she told the orderly. The orderly pushed the cart next to the bed and then left.

While Carla was busy setting up the tape recorder on her cart, Rudy attached wired electrodes from the alpha wave machine on the other cart to Steve's forehead. He plugged the machine in and turned it on.

"Are we ready?" Rudy asked Carla.

"Yes, Doctor. Ready."

"Now, Steve, you've done enough of these to know the drill so just try to relax and answer the questions truthfully."

Steve nodded. He knew that if he didn't answer the questions truthfully, the machine would pick it up.

At Rudy's nod, Carla turned on the recorder and the spindles started moving the tape through the recording machine.

Rudy spoke toward the tape machine. "This is tape OSIBSAS-1. The date is April 4, 1975. Patient is Steven Austin, male, age 33. Evaluator is Dr. Rudy Wells. Assistant is Nurse Carla Peterson."

"I'm 33?"

"Yes," Rudy nodded.

Awareness washed over Steve's face. "I missed my birthday." He looked at Rudy. "How long was I, you know?"

"Catatonic? Twelve weeks." Rudy was in psychologist mode as he looked at the printout from the alpha wave machine and then observed Steve's reaction. "How does that make you feel?"

"Strange. Like I don't know who I am anymore."

"Do you want to die?" Rudy asked pointedly.

"No…I don't." Steve paused, thinking. "That doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't make sense?"

"I remember wanting nothing more than to die. It was such a strong, compelling feeling. It was all I could think about. But now it's gone. How is it just gone? My situation hasn't changed. I'm still one arm away from being a basket case."

"Well, it didn't happen overnight," explained Rudy. "Your mind shut itself off from the world for twelve weeks because it needed to process what you are going through and it needed to come to terms with it. How do you feel about living now?"

Steve stiffened.

Rudy noticed. "What's wrong, Steve?"

Steve chewed nervously on his lower lip then, "I don't remember evaluations being so uncomfortable before."

"That's because you never needed them before."

Steve's brow lifted quizzically as he looked at Rudy. "But NASA required them."

"Yes, NASA required them but you've always been the picture of perfect mental health, Steve." Rudy chuckled softly. "In fact, I was always bored to death when I had to give you your quarterly evaluation. But things are different now. You've been through a traumatic experience that has affected you deeply. Now you need these evaluations. Now you need to learn to talk about your feelings no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel. It's the only way you will heal."

Steve rubbed his face with his hand. "How do I feel about living now?" He sighed. "I accept that I'm going to live and I figure I might as well deal with it. But I'm scared."

"What are you scared about?"

"…of the future. How my life is going to change. What I'm going to become."

Rudy glanced at the readout and smiled slightly. Steve was being perfectly honest about his feelings.

"I don't know how I'm going to get through this, Rudy."

"Well, to start with, we're going to have these sessions every week. It will help you through the transformation process."

"Give it to me straight, Doc. What are the chances that it won't work?"

"Well, I have every confidence that it will work. But can I give you a one-hundred percent guarantee? No, I can't do that. There is a chance…mind you it's a very small chance, but there is a chance that it won't work." Rudy touched Steve's hand to comfort him. "You're the first one, Steve. The prototype. And we're venturing out into areas of science that no one has ever gone before. But I want you to know that I'm here for you, Steve, and I'll do everything I can to help you walk and function again just like before."

A single tear streamed down Steve's cheek. "I guess that's all anybody can ask."