"Don't underestimate what I dare, O'Hara. Nor overestimate your value to me. I could decide, if I must, to work with lesser tools if necessary. But as for your scruples, if I had wished to destroy Anstruther, he would be dissolved by now. I can do it at this moment, simply by touching the key beneath my finger. No, you would not be destroying him by bringing him to me. You would in fact relieve me of the possible necessity of eliminating him." "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.