Study Questions
1. What is Ward 81 like?

2. What shocks and embarrasses the nurse?

3. In what condition is Linda?

4. What are John’s first memories as he sits at Linda’s bedside?

5. What disturbs the Savage’s memories?

6. How does the Savage react when one boy squeezes up beside him?

7. How does the nurse try to pacify the children?

8. Whose name does Linda speak? What does this do to John?

9. What upsets the nurse when the Savage shouts for her to come to Linda?

10. How does the Savage leave the ward?

Answers
1. Ward 81 is synthetically pleasing with music, aromas, and television. Everything is in bright colors.

2. The Savage says that Linda is his mother.

3. Linda is in her soma dreams, unaware of everything around her.

4. John remembers the Linda who sang to him and told him stories and, in her own way, loved him.

5. The group of Delta twins crowd into the ward for their death conditioning.

6. The Savage grabs the boy, slaps him, and makes him cry.

7. The nurse offers chocolate to try to distract the children.

8. Linda speaks the name Popé. This upsets John and makes him angry.

9. The nurse doesn’t want the children upset and perhaps deconditioned.

10. The Savage shoves the children, knocking one down, and storms out of the ward.