deeply

nausea so she helped him back down. He sucked water from a bottle, face pressed against the smooth polymer, dripping cold, stale sweat. "Cooler," he begged, and she ordered the floor coils down five degrees. Segs later, he began twitching again.
It took three more days of waiting, sleeplessness and pain. She watched tearfully as he thrashed, vomited, rolled around on the floor from nerves driven to distraction, held his ears against sounds only he could hear and couldn't shut out and clawed at his face.
Not all his visions were negative. At one point, he began seducing her, very tenderly. She was shy of the blatant cameras, but agreed to his advances. She soon forgot about the environment and enjoyed his attentions. His brain was still very much alive underneath and stayed in control through their mutual excitement. He collapsed shortly afterward, exhausted from all his activities. She tucked a blanket around him and napped in the chair.
He woke lucid. He was worn and beaten looking and very hungry. He ate and kept the food down and suffered only an occasional flash of hallucination. "I hope that's it," he said tiredly, rubbing his eyes.
Rostov came in with an assistant and watched while Rob's responses were tested. He gave no expression either good or bad and left shortly. Rob was experiencing somewhat lesser effects now, and slept deeply and uninterrupted, snoring loudly. Accepting a risk, Kendra wrapped an arm around him and slept with him. She cried herself to sleep. How long would it be before things were normal? And what would constitute "normal"?
Rob was pronounced fit the next week. Kendra drove him to Marta's, he not being allowed to operate equipment yet. He kept the vent open for fresh air and looked queasy by the time they arrived. That was expected. His brain had adapted to the control module and lacked balance of its own now. That should improve, they'd been told, but not completely.
He greeted Marta very gently, utterly