"We have to wait until Anotine has finished lowering us close enough so that we can get a good look at the surface of the ocean."

He sat down on the floor of the compartment, and I did the same. I thought that he might question me as Nunnly had, but instead he closed his eyes and rested against the wall. I looked up to see how far we had descended from the island, and as I craned my head back, my vision was obscured by an airy white substance that seemed suddenly to be everywhere.

"Doctor," I shouted.

Hellman never opened his eyes. He simply smiled, and said, "A cloud, Cley, a cloud."

The white vapor passed over us, leaving my clothes damp. When the last wisps of it had cleared, I looked up again, and there was the island, flying at a great distance like a kite on a string. For some reason, I cannot say why, that sight made me reach up and touch the breast pocket of my coat. Since the beginning of my mnemonic journey, I had forgotten about the green veil. Never really expecting it to be there, I patted the pocket and, to my surprise, found a thickness to it. I reached in and pulled out the scrap of cloth. The feel of the material against my fingers offered some solace as though it were a kind of rope itself, connecting me to my own place and time.

As the novelty of the adventure began to diminish, I realized that the thick, rolling sound of the ocean grew more distinct. The force of the wind also increased, causing the gondola to sway to and fro with a pleasant rhythm. Just as I was about to rise and check our progress, the basket came to a jarring halt. The Doctor's eyes opened; he reached up to get a hold on the edge of the basket and pulled himself to a standing position.

"Cley," he called over his shoulder, "you'll never see anything like this in Wenau."

I stood up, adjusted my balance to the rocking of the basket, and inched my way across the wicker floor to stand next to him. The initial sight of it made me slightly dizzy, for as we moved the sea had its own motion, and the whole world seemed, for a moment, a silver spinning top. We dangled no more than fifteen feet above the crests of the largest waves. I stared in awe at the lazy creation of thick, liquid mountains that curled at their peaks back into themselves and diminished. The swells in between were as deep as canyons, and the sight of them worked like a magnet, drawing my leaning body farther over the side.

Hellman laughed and clutched me by my shirt. "This pool is closed to bathers" he said, pulling me back. "How does it make you feel?"

"Insignificant," I said, "but not in a negative way."

"I know what you mean," he said, shouting over a particularly fierce gale.

"Why are we here?" I asked.

"You've got to get over the majesty of it," he said. "Only then will you notice the phenomenon. Keep staring for a minute or two and it will become clear to you. Look closely at the moment when the wave, in its descent, reaches a certain flatness."

I could not help but continue to stare. Then, slowly, my perception of the ocean began to change. I started to notice that everywhere, not only when it passed through an instant of flatness, there appeared to be designs that swirled across the surface of the mercury. I covered my eyes for a second and looked more intently, only to see that these were not merely designs but actual scenes involving people and places. When the scope of what I was witnessing struck me, I stepped

back away from the edge of the basket. The entire ocean was an ever-changing collage of animated tableaux that mixed into each other, then separated out into fresh revelations.

The Doctor turned and looked at me. "Dreams" he said. "The ocean is dreaming."

I moved back to the edge and looked down again to see a clear image of Below, sitting in his office back in the Well-Built City, injecting himself in the neck with a syringe of sheer beauty. The sight of this made me realize that the Doctor had been close in his diagnosis. What we witnessed, though, was not an ocean of dreams, but instead, true memories from the Master's life.

"I am convinced there is meaning to all of this," said Hell-man. "All I need do is interpret it. The same characters keep appearing as if it is a vast, continuous story, that I, unfortunately, have come to in the middle of its telling."

"What do you think it means?" I asked.

"All I can tell you is that I am certain it is a love story. Recently, something about it has been nagging me. It is as if there is a connection I am missing that lies right before my eyes, but I cannot put it together."

"When you have interpreted the entire thing, what do you hope to discover?" I asked.

"It's what we all want, Cley. I want to know why I am here," he said.

The Doctor had somehow come very close to the truth, and I was torn between explaining to him what I knew and saving my secret knowledge as an advantage that might be useful later. I nearly spoke, but then I realized that he would never believe me, and if he did, what would my truths say to him about his existence?

"Snap out of it, man," he said.

When I looked up, I saw that he had gone to the black bag he had brought with him. From within, he pulled a long glass cylinder with a glass jar attached to the end.

"Nunnly designed this for me," he said. "You see, it's retractable. He began pulling concentric cylindrical stems out of the main unit until he had an exceptionally long glass rod at the end of which was the jar. The contraption extended out over the sides of the basket on either end.

"This process would be much easier if I could use wire or string, but the nature of the liquid mercury is such that it would eat right through them. I've discovered glass will hold the stuff. Not even Nunnly could spin thread from glass."

"I think you are going to be short a foot or two," I said, seeing that the long-handled jar was no more than ten or eleven feet.

"Well, this is as big as he could make it without danger of it snapping under the weight of the sample I bring up."

"But what good is it?" I asked. "You will still be two or three feet short."

"That, Cley, is where you come in. You will hold me firmly by the ankles and lower me over the side of the basket, where I will scoop up a portion of the ocean."

"That's mad," I said.

"Quite," he replied. "Let's get on with it." Holding the unwieldy rod in one hand, he struggled up onto the edge of the basket, placing his free hand on the rope that connected us to the island above. He stood there unsteadily, balancing.

"What if I drop you?" I said.

"That would be unfortunate, but if you do, I want you to watch and notice if I appear as part of the story." Just then a huge gust of wind blasted the side of the basket. The Doctor began to lose his balance, and I lunged forward and grabbed him by the ankles.

Luckily he was a small man; otherwise, I never would have been able to hold his weight back. He hung down under our carriage where I could not see what was going on.

"The view is even better down here," he yelled.

I was grunting and straining merely trying to hold him in place, and wasn't about to start a conversation.

Just when I thought I was going to lose him, he finally called, "Heave ho, Cley. Don't jostle me too much, or we'll have to do it again."

I began to back up across the basket as slowly and steadily as I could. When his waist was even with the edge, the Doctor straightened his body, bringing the jar end of the glass device up in both hands, taking great care not to spill a drop. As his feet touched down on the floor, he said, "Cley, come quickly now and unscrew the arm."

The glass rod had threads in the end that attached it to the jar. I worked quickly to remove it and release the Doctor from its drag.

"Just let it fall into the ocean," he said. "This is my last expedition. The rim of the island will soon be too unsteady to support the winch."