IN a room on the eighty-seventh floor of the General Mercy Hospital, Sam Falkirk sat and waited to discover if he was going to live or die. It was a pleasant enough room, with a bed table and chair, television screen, music console, books and magazines, and all the luxury of a high-priced private ward. It was small consolation to know that, if he did die, none of this need be destroyed with him. The cover-skin he was wearing would take care of that. The only things that could pass the paper-thin plastic were sound vibrations, air and light. Sound was transmitted by a stiffened portion that served as a diaphragm, and the plastic was transparent. A valve admitted external air and another fed the respiration through an oxygen trap. If Sam were to die the cover-skin would be used as his coffin
