only that pale, smiling face and those
great dark eyes. Then, strangling, I tore myself from her embrace and
shot to the surface.

Coughing, I cleared my lungs of the water I had inhaled. I was weak and
shaking when I finished, but my head was clear. The grip of the strange
fantasy that had gripped me was shaken off.

Mercer was bending over me; speaking softly.

"I was watching, old man," he said gently. "I can imagine what happened.
A momentary, psychic fusing of an ancient, long since broken link. You,
together with all mankind, came up out of the sea. But there is no
retracing the way."

* * * * *

I nodded, my head bowed on my streaming chest.

"Sorry, Mercer," I muttered. "Something got into me. Those big eyes of
hers seemed to tug at threads of memory ... buried.... I can't describe
it...."

He slapped me on my naked shoulder, a blow that stung, as he had
intended it to. It helped jerk me back to the normal.

"You've got your feet on the ground again, Taylor," he commented
soothingly. "I think there's no danger of you losing your grip on terra
firma again. Shall we carry on?"

"There's more you'd like to learn? That you think she can give us?" I
asked hesitantly.

"I believe," replied Mercer, "that she can give us the history of her
people, if we can only make her understand what we wish. God! If we only
could!" The name of the Deity was a prayer as Mercer uttered it.

"We can try, old-timer," I said, a bit shakenly.

Mercer hurried back to the other side of the pool, and I adjusted my
head-set again, smiling down at the girl. If only Mercer could make her
understand, and if only she knew what we wanted to learn!

I was conscious of the little click that told me the switch had been
moved. Mercer was ready to get his message to her.

Fixing my eyes on the girl pleadingly, I settled myself by the edge of
the pool to await the second and more momentous part of our experiment.

* * * * *

The vision was vague, for Mercer was picturing his thoughts with
difficulty. But I seemed to see again the floor of the ocean, with the
vague light filtering down from above, and soft, monstrous growths
waving their branches lazily in the flood.

From the left came a band of men and women, looking around as though in
search of some particular spot. They stopped, and one of the older men
pointed, the others gathering around him as though in council.