Nicola Tesla was standing
over him, concerned.

"Are you all right, son?"

Chet stood, dusted himself off and looked at the floor. "Sorry, I didn't want to
disturb you. . ."

"But you wanted to come back and see more. Marvelous! I applaud your curiosity,
young sir. I have just taken the waters -- perhaps you would like to try?" He
gestured at the ocean.

"You mean, swim in it?"

"If you like. Myself, I find a snorkel and mask far superior. My set is up on
the rim, you're welcome to them, but I would ask you to chew a stick of this
before you get in." He tossed Chet a pack of gum. "It's an invention of my own
-- chew a stick of that, and you can_not_ transmit any nasty bugs in your saliva
for forty-eight hours. I hold a patent for it, of course, but my agents report
that it has been met with crashing indifference in the Great Beyond."

Chet had been swimming before, in the urinary communal pools on the tenth and
fifteenth levels, horsing around naked with his mates. Nudity was not a big deal
for the kids of the bat-house -- the kind of adult who you wouldn't trust in
such circumstances didn't end up in bat-houses -- the bugouts had a different
place for them.

"Go on, lad, give it a try. It's simply marvelous, I tell you!"

Unsteadily, Chet climbed the spiral stairs leading up to the tank, clutching the
handrail, chewing the gum, which fizzed and sparked in his mouth. At the top,
there was a small platform. Self-consciously, he stripped, then pulled on the
mask and snorkel that hung from a peg.

"Tighten the straps, boy!" the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla shouted, from
far, far below. "If water gets into the mask, just push at the top and blow out
through your nose!"

Chet awkwardly lowered himself into the water. It was warm -- blood temperature
-- and salty, and it fizzled a little on his skin, as though it, too, were
electric.

He kept one hand on the snorkel, afraid that it would tip and fill with water,
and then, slowly, slowly, relaxed on his belly, mask in the water, arms by his
side.

My god! It was like I was flying! It was like all the dreams I'd ever had, of
flying, of hovering over an alien world, of my consciousness taking flight from
my body and sailing through the galaxy.

My hands were by my sides, out of view of the mask, and my legs were behind me.
I couldn't see any of my body. My view stretched 8m down, an impossible,
dizzying height. A narrow, elegant angelfish swam directly ben