"Snow—" I said, and couldn't go on. The vision of Snow was moving back from me, or I was moving backward, or both. But the gap between us widened by the second. Then I was back in the rocky red tunnel, the parabolite sphincter narrowing swiftly before my face.
"Be—be careful, Snow!" I called, like an imbecile.
The wall was solid again.
17
Simultaneous with that parabolite wall shutting in my face, three disturbing thoughts occurred to me: One, Baxter didn't have the Amnesty; Snow did! Probably in that catch-all handbag of hers. Two, if the Ancients could float me and Snow and the Space Scouts about like so much helium, why the hell didn't they just de-localize Baxter into a snake pit or something? And three, if physical contact was impossible between the races, how in heaven's name did they gimmick the Brain back on Earth? Which was also, come to think of it, moving awfully fast in relation to their liaison-point with the geocentric point of the universe!
A very baffled man, I began feeling my way down the tunnel toward that mighty roar of underground waters. The light paled and grew gray as I moved away from the parabolite wall. Then I was in darkness, feeling the bare stone with my fingers as I stepped carefully toward the increasing volume of ragged sound.
Then the wall curved away from my outstretched fingertips, and I knew I stood at the brink of that precarious arch of rock. There was nothing but blackness there, now.
"Clatclit!" I hollered over the boom of the river waters. "Clatclit, it's me, Jery!"
The rush of the boiling rapids was too great, however. It thundered by and swept the faint vibration of my voice along with it into that enormous well to my right.