"Please," said Olduk's clearly audible radio voice, "do not touch water. If things strange happen to water, do not touch, please?"

Pedro Morestes began his dazzling drop downward, twisting, twining, going through all the intricate convolutions that four hundred feet would allow him.

Now! A loop, a twist, straighten out for the last fifty feet, cut the water as clean as an arrow cutting the air.

Pedro Morestes eyes popped. A hoarse scream escaped his lips.

Where was the flat surface that should receive him?

Where were the little wavelets that usually betokened the presence of water?

Why did the entire pool bulge up in the middle, and drop at the sides?

Why was it that the whole pool had been replaced by an immense hemisphere of glass?

Pedro Morestes screamed, squirmed, twisted, came down with a bone crushing shock on the bulging surface, his posterior foremost.

He bounced upward for fifty feet, fell again, bounced again, fell, bounced, fell—and was locked, flat on his back, by an invisible vise that not only held him rigid, but threatened to crush him from all sides.

The crowd stared in pure fright. The pool of water had become—a hemisphere of glass? And Pedro Morestes, world's diving champion, lay atop that gleaming sphere, ribs and one leg broken, unable to move a muscle....

"Damn that kid," said Sam, throwing his newspaper to the floor.

"I wanna drink," wailed the damned kid, from the bedroom.

"All right, keep your pants on," growled Sam surlily. He went out to the kitchen, leaving the radio on. It had been jabbering for some time, something about Olduk.

"Please," said the radio voice of Olduk, "do not touch water. Tell your friends, my friends, not to touch water...."

Sam got a glass out of the cupboard, held it under the faucet, turned the faucet on.

The water came out, well enough, but it wasn't water.

"What the hell," Sam said incredulously.

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