His spirits soared with his imagined ascent and he could visualize himself traveling faster and faster until, with a pop, he would be thrust into the air and fall back to float on the surface. Regan wanted most desperately to be able to look at the sky again. It would be kind to see land, too, but a ship or a plane would do temporarily. * * * * * He was half lost in this reverie when he had to make a second adjustment. Remember, he thought he was going up, as from the bottom of a well. Therefore he was puzzled, as the radiance increased to daylight strength, to see one wall of his tubular, water-filled prison darken to deep green while the other turned a sort of blue-white-pink. He was moving in the same swift rush of current, his body positioned so that he was facing the green half. He twisted as if to face the opposite way in an elevator and then became giddy when the entire concept of his surroundings did a ninety-degree flop. In that split second, Regan realized that he wasn't traveling vertically, but horizontally. The well he had pictured himself in now took on the aspect of a river, with the bright blend of colors the sky, and the deep green the river bed. The banks of the river were above him. Regan gave himself a tiny rocket assist to rise. He wasn't at all prepared for what he saw. Far away beyond the green plain through which the river was racing was a city. Unmistakably it was a metropolis of Man, not towering or turreted, but massive and with a relative newness which spoke of life. And as he had this thought, he could see other, smaller dwellings closer by, one-storied and circular, in a variety of colors. He noted then that the level of the river was higher than that of the land, that the marblelike banks which channeled the racing water had become a transparent, glasslike substance which rose and curved in a seemingly endless archway. The torrent completely filled the half-transparent tube, flowing smoothly so that he almost had the sensation of flying above the ground. Regan maneuvered toward the top and from there he saw the road. It paralleled the river and ran in a straight line as far as he could see. While he watched, a vehicle sped along it from behind, paced beside him and then pulled ahead. The driver was only vaguely visible, but he had a reassuringly human appearance. The man in the car, which was a three-wheeled, boxlike affair of brilliant yellow, looked neither left nor right. Regan yelled instinctively and waved. The cumbersome motion turned him over on his back. Opportunistically, he studied the sky from his new position, but could make nothing of it. There were no clouds, only the blue-white-pink brightness that seemed to extend to infinity. * * * * *