 Why was Hank lying down for months?
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. Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco De Gama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but more so. The body scars were faint, the scars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicing diagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving Walter Reed Hospital early this morning; which was something he found distasteful, something he felt beneath them both.
 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.