"But, sir--"

"Someone could easily come down while you go up."

"I know that, sir, but--"

"Then why do you disobey?" roared Phelps.

"Well, you see, sir, I know how this place is built and no one has ever
made it yet. Who could?" The guard looked mystified.

Phelps had to face that fact. He did not accept it gracefully. "My
orders are orders," he said stiffly. "You'll follow them. To the last
letter."

"Yes sir. I will."

"See that you do. Now, I'm going up. I'll ride and you walk. Meet me on
the fourth and bring the elevator down with you."

"Yessir."

I sloped upstairs like a scared rabbit. Up to the third again where I
moved down the corridor and slipped into the much-too-thin niche made by
a door. Stolidly the guard came up the stairs, crossed in front of the
elevator with his back to me, turned the far corner and went on up to
the fourth.

As his feet started up the stairs, I was behind him; by the time he
reached the top, I was half way up.

Phelps said, "Now, from this moment on, Waldron, you'll follow every
order to the absolute letter. And when I ring, don't make the error of
bringing the elevator. Send it. It'll come up and stop without a pilot."

"Yes sir. I'm sorry sir. But you understand, sir, there isn't really
much to guard, sir."

"Then guard nothing. But guard it well, because a man in your position
is gauged in success by the amount of boredom he creates for himself."

The guard started down and I darted up to poke my head out to see where
Phelps was going. As I neared the floor level, I had a shock like
someone hurling twenty gallons of ice water in my face. The top floor
was the end of the dead area, and I--

--pulled my head down into the murk like a diver taking a plunge.

So I stood there making like a guppy with my head, sounding out the
boundary of that deadness, ducking down as soon as the mental murk gave
me a faint perception of the wall and ceiling above me. Then I'd move
aside and sound it again. Eventually I found a little billowing furrow
that rose above the floor level and I crawled out along the floor, still
sounding and moving cautiously with my body hidden in the deadness that
rose and fell like a cloud of murky mental smoke to my sense of
perception.

I would have looked silly to any witness; wallowing along the floor like
a porpoise acting furtive in the bright lights.

But then I couldn't go any farther; the deadness sank below the floor
level and left me