 Why was Hank lying down for months?
There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usual speeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which had once been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city had since engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite as at-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming—for Corporal Berringer, one of the crew of the spaceship Washington , first to set Americans upon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. There he sat between the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen, and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the National Guard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several of the churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct their parishioners to treat him. He was a very tired man and he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, than any man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, a kiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some old friends and a relative or two. He had traveled and he had returned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the great mariners, from Columbus onward—long, dull periods of time passing, passing, and then the arrival. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who had escorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him. But when he looked back at them, their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornate flagstone path. She was still the small, slender girl he'd loved in high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the old jokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, the and- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left Washington.
 Hank's body was lying in a tank designed to regenerate his body processes.
 Hank's body was lying in a cryostasis tank while the doctors figured out how to bring him back to life.  Hank was lying in a stasis tank on the way back from the moon.  Hank was lying in a stasis tank on the way back from Mars.  Hank's body was lying in a tank designed to regenerate his body processes.