"You are too clever a logician for me, Father. But I refuse."
"Do you indeed?" the Father said. "Then I must show you something. As you observe, the walls of the corridor are now rushing suddenly away from you, O'Hara—"
And instantly he was swallowed in space, a void, the ceiling and the walls vanishing toward infinity, miles, within a second, so that he felt impacted into himself, shrinking, yet knowing that the macro-cosmic city still contained him. And even as he clung to that shred of reason, the floor beneath him began to sink, so that once again walls were surrounding him as he descended. And presently far above him a metal surface closed darkly while the wall upon his left began receding and the segment of floor that bore him followed it at a speed so terrific that his senses could not bear up under it, and he blacked out.
He was lying face down when he recovered, and for a long while he remained there, unable to move, then at last he heard a faint, strangling cry, and lifting himself by driving his knuckles hard against the floor, he saw not ten feet from him, behind a translucent wall, Nedra and the child—Nedra holding the baby far above her head and swimming frantically in water that was rising rapidly around her throat.
Almost at once the water was above the level of her head, churning in from invisible sluices that must be somewhere across the translucent room, and Nedra turned a despairing face toward him and then sank beneath the surface, although continuing by her desperate struggle to keep the baby's head above the water. He could see her mouth open as if to scream to him. He could see the violent threshing of her legs and he knew instantly how long that could last, and he plunged his shoulder against the translucent wall, as if to smash it.
But the wall yielded back from his weight as if it were a jelly, pliable but impervious, for he could not get through it. With his giant's strength he could smash his fists within inches of her body, he could drive his fingers toward her and grasp for her thrashing arms and legs, but he could not quite feel them—he could not quite touch them. He could not save her.
She was kicking desperately again, the fur kirtle working loose from her body in the fury of her struggle, and once more she managed to drive her chin above the surface of the water, and continuing that frantic treading she was keeping the baby from drowning while O'Hara, ramming himself continuously into the pliable wall, slashed with both fists in futile efforts to reach her. Now suddenly he heard Nedra's choked voice, above the splashing of her body, as if the sound track of a movie had resumed after some minutes' silence:
"I can't, O'Hara—can't keep—going—"
And she sank once more. This time her sagging legs were not able to support the child above the surface, and her arms sank helplessly, the child revolving slowly in the water toward her, wide-eyed, grasping with its tiny fingers, and O'Hara saw them both drifting downward in that aimless, dying way that half-bouyant matter has.
"Father!" he screamed. "Stephen Bryce—"