 Why is Peter's status so important when he wakes up?
It was I who had changed: something inside me was dead, like the machinery, and like Peter. I do not think it was what Peter called an emotion; and yet it had nothing to do with logic, either. It was just an emptiness—a void that could not be filled by eating or drinking. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, for reason had told me that he had to die. But the void was still there, unexplainable and impossible to ignore. He could see, too, the level on level of laboratories and storerooms that filled its interlocking segments; the meteor deflectors, the air renewal system, the mighty engines at the stern—all the children of his brain. He stared at them dully, and then he reached over to the newsbox on his desk, and switched it on. NO COMMUNICATION FROM ANTARCTICA IN 6 HOURS STRANGE FORCE DEFLECTS PLANES FROM SAHARA AREA WORLD POLICE MOBILIZING The item below the last one said: Pacifica, June 7—The World Police are mobilizing, for the first time in fifty years. The order was made public early this morning by R. Stein, Secretary of the Council, who said in part: "The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilized peoples. "The peoples of the world, then, know what they are, and know that we face the most momentous struggle in our history. They have treated us precisely as we, in less enlightened days, might have treated a newly-discovered race of lower animals. They have examined us, dissected us, driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation; and this is more intolerable than any normal invasion. "I have no fear that the people of Earth will fail to meet this challenge, for there is no alternative. Not only our individual lives are threatened, but our existence as a race. Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for the first time. " Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled to a halt in front of the door marked "Radiation." It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded by the warm spring sunshine. Down on the lowest level, visible past the transport and passenger tubes, the parks and moving ways should have been dotted with colorful, holiday crowds. There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehow defiling the air they floated in; and below them, a pitiful huddle of flesh no longer recognizable as human beings.
 He's a scientist. Scientists are part of the last hope as people who could potentially piece together how to fight the aliens.
 He's one of the few people to have survived an encounter with the aliens.  He's a scientist. Scientists are part of the last hope as people who could potentially piece together how to fight the aliens.  He's a scientist. Scientists are part of the last hope as people who could lead a new life in the underground.  He's one of the few survivors of the new world. They need every healthy person they can get.