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The survivors were nearly shaken from the island tops, had only one another to hold on to. Gloria Rand certainly would have been lost had Brydon not grabbed and held her to him.

The structure didn't settle back to its previous near-level position. Now it remained tipped at a twelve-degree angle, front higher. The slant affected everyone's equilibrium, lessened what little sense of security they had. It reminded Amy Javakian of the slanted doghouse she had built.

Brydon checked the mud-level marker.

If the rate of rise was a half inch an hour, as it had been all along, it would now be up to the five-foot mark. He found it was two inches higher than that. Because the building had tipped and redistributed the mud?

Five minutes later Brydon checked again. In only that short while the mud level had gone up another inch and a half. He got down, kept close watch on the marker, could actually see the mud climbing. At that rate it would reach and start to overflow the islands in half an hour.

Brydon kept his alarm to himself. The others would notice soon enough. He went to Island One, played the flashlight across the way onto the metal stairs that led up to the office. Fifteen feet away. He had already considered attempting a bridge to the stairs. If they could get up to the office, as Peter had pointed out, they would have easy access to the ceiling. He had rejected the idea because it meant having to take the same fatal chance the insurance man, Emory Swanson, had taken. Two of the eight-foot planks would have to be joined to span the fifteen feet and support as much as two hundred pounds. There was just no way that could be done. It seemed so much simpler than the scaffold and yet it was even more of a longshot.

Well, the time had come for a longshot.

Brydon examined the stairs in detail. They were obviously unreliable, had come loose from the wall in two places and partly broken away where they connected to the metal ramp above. The stairs might be just hanging there ready to give way with the first step anyone put upon them.

He focused his attention on how, makeshift, to securely join a pair of planks. His memory chose that moment to interject what seemed an extraneous image: the money bags. Brydon let it pass. Within seconds the image was again offered. The money bags on the surface of the mud — heavy enough to sink but, instead, flat and floating.

Brydon suddenly realized what his unconscious was suggesting.

A preposterous idea. But then — He examined the unsound stairs again and considered the problem of having to join two planks — perhaps it was no more preposterous than trying to walk on air.

He went quickly to Island Eight, to the pile of worthless things they had salvaged. Among them, the gardening claw he had retrieved when Dan dropped it at the last moment. He tucked it into his belt. He found the staple gun, felt the grit in its spring mechanism as he tried to work it. It was jammed with mud. He opened it and rinsed it thoroughly with club soda. One good thing: the stapler was almost fully loaded. He snapped it shut, gripped down on its handle. Still some gritting, but a staple shot out.

Next, he gathered up the plastic trash bags, both containers of those, along with the last three cans of diet soda and the box of No-Doz keep-awake tablets. He went to Island Five to Lois Stevens.

“Ever taken these?” he asked Lois, showing her the No-Doz.

Lois appeared perplexed, innocent. “No,” she replied without even looking at the box.

“They're just No-Doz.”

Lois smiled, as though someone had thrown something at her and missed. Her movements, especially those of her head and hands, were sharp. Brydon imagined tiny, nervous explosions going off inside her. No time, he had to be direct.

“What kind of pills are you taking?”

“I'm not.”

“I'm asking for your help.”

“All I've got is a prescription my doctor gave me to lose weight.”

“Let me see it.”

She wouldn't.

“Trust me.”

She looked away, glanced once back at Brydon to assess him. Still looking off, she took a vial from her pocket, handed it to him.

The vial wasn't labeled. Brydon emptied some of its contents into his palm. Coated yellow pills.

“What are they?”

“Vitamin B,” Lois said.

“Bullshit.”

She shrugged, take it or leave it.

“We're all tired,” he told her. “We've hardly slept or had much to eat and before we're done we may need more energy than any of us have left.”

“I don't understand.”

“It could help save us,” he said emphatically. He needed her cooperation, couldn't give anyone a pill not knowing what it was. It might have the wrong effect.

Lois fidgeted. She let her head hang so her long straight hair concealed most of her face. “It's speed,” she said. “Amphetamine.”

“Exactly.”

“Ambars, ten milligrams.”

“How long do they keep you up?”

“Eight hours, they're spansules.”

Brydon gave Lois a hug that surprised her.

Twenty minutes to go.

Brydon called everyone to Island Nine. He explained the situation. The rapid rise of the mud. Most of them were already more or less aware of it, solemnly awaited it.

“We have one last chance,” Brydon said, and as he told them what he proposed, he couldn't help but think how absurd it sounded.

First they had to take off their clothes, so the mud couldn't soak in and handicap them with extra weight. It was impossible for them to be self-conscious. They undressed quickly and stood there like a group of naked primitives. Except Spider. He gave no excuse, merely said he'd try it as he was. No one urged or questioned him.

Brydon told them to lay face up a yard apart crossways on the island. Marion next to Judith, Peter next to Amy, Lois next to Spider, Marsha begrudgingly next to Elliot. Gloria awaited Brydon.

First, he attended to Judith Ward. She raised her legs, inserted them into one of the plastic trash bags that he held open. Dark green, hefty bags, thirty inches wide, forty-eight inches deep. Her legs in as deep as they could go. The bag pulled up to above her waist. She spread her legs to put tension on the bag. Brydon stapled the plastic together as close as possible along the inside of both her legs — from toes to crotch. He used a crushed flat soft-drink can as a base underneath so the stapler wouldn't drive into the wooden surface of the island. He gathered the top of the bag in folds at each side, made it close-fitting and stapled it.

Only partly done. He had to hurry.

Two more plastic bags for her arms. With her arms straight out Brydon shot a seam of staples through the plastic along the line of her arms, from her underarms to her fingertips. He joined those two bags front and back, made sure they were snug around her neck. Then he stretched them down to connect them with the first bag all around.

He stood for a full view of her. She was completely enclosed except for her head. The plastic between her legs was like the webbing of a duck's or frog's foot, and the stretch of plastic from her extended arms down to her sides was bat-like.

Brydon kneeled to her. Her eyes asked and he gave her some confidence from his nearly depleted inner source. “It'll be okay,” he told her casually to make it sound true. She opened her mouth for one of the Ambars. He raised her head so she could wash it down with cherry soda.

One ready. Eight to go. He checked his watch, saw he'd taken too much time with Judith — but that was because she was the first. He became more efficient, faster at it as he went along, similarly suiting them in plastic, giving each ten milligrams of amphetamine. He got all nine of them ready with just two minutes to spare.

Two minutes for himself.

He used a few seconds to have a look at the mud. It was only about an inch below the edge now. He sat, shoved his feet into one of the plastic bags, made it taut and stapled it as he'd done for the others. But he couldn't do nearly as well for himself.

Gloria Rand saw his difficulty, wanted to help him. She couldn't reach. Her arms and hands weren't free. She tried to move, wiggle her way closer to him. He noticed and told her no. She kept trying until he ordered her sharply not to.

The bags for his arms were even more of a problem. Before getting into those he stapled them so they'd be connected behind down the center. He put the joined bags around his shoulders, inserted his left arm and lay back. He stapled along the line of that arm, confining it. From then on he had to work one-handed, do everything with only his right, and it was practically impossible for him to simultaneously stretch and gather in folds and overlap and hold the plastic so the two top bags could be attached to the bottom one. He just did manage to put in a couple of staples, connecting the plastic at his sides. The stapler began shooting blanks. All out.

He was by no means adequately enclosed. There was a critical opening underneath where the bags weren't joined top to bottom. He hadn't been able to staple the bag for his right arm at all. Or down the front or make a good snug fit around his neck. There were numerous openings the mud might take advantage of — invade and sink him. But he'd done as well as he could for himself. He placed the gardening claw on the flat of his chest, and the flashlight, turned on and aimed upward. He spread his legs, extended both arms just enough to create weblike tension on the plastic. Careful not to rip out the staples.

The mud was already overflowing, inching up.

Brydon first felt it cold as death on the back of his neck. He heard Gloria's breath catch as she had the same experience.

No one said anything.

The mud continued to rise.

Brydon felt it reach and enter his ears.

He realized then he was wrong. The mud was building up around them. If they stayed as they were it would soon cover them.

“Everyone!” he shouted. “Slowly roll over onto your left side. And keep your head up.”

They did. He did.

And when the depth of the mud was six inches higher, nearly up even with Brydon's spine, he told them, “Now, slowly, very slowly, roll over onto your backs again, same position as before, arms out, legs spread.”

They did. Brydon felt the mud squish and give when he rolled over. There was still the solidness of the island under him, but not as firm as before, cushioned now by mud. What Brydon hoped was some measure of mud would remain beneath them, the more the better, to act as a primer, buoy them enough to start them afloat. If they got enough initial support the mud might continue to lift them.

Was it asking too much?

Brydon silently said please.

The hardness of the island under him gradually became less distinct and soon he couldn't feel it at all.

They were rising.

Not a miracle — a matter of physics.

Nevertheless, Brydon was grateful to something more.

He asked the others to call out their names to signify they'd made it so far.

Everyone responded.

They had to keep their bodies rigid, their arms tensed straight out, their legs exerting pressure to the left and right. Otherwise the spread of plastic between their legs and from their arms to their sides would buckle, allowing mud to get above it. Even a small amount of mud would be dangerously heavy. It wouldn't take much to cause them to founder. That was what Brydon meant when he'd said they would need a lot of energy. The continuous strain of keeping their muscles flexed to keep afloat.

By now the amphetamine was having its effect. To Brydon it seemed as though there were countless streams in his body and all of them were racing courses and everything inside him was rushing to finishing lines but never finishing. He felt much stronger, more alert than he knew he actually was.

They took life second by second, so the first two hours went by slowly. During that time the mud under them rose four feet, putting them ten feet over the floor of the place. Floating like mere objects, impotent. They breathed cautiously, didn't dare talk. Felt as though they were just above death, horizontally ready for it, kept from it by only a layer of something as tenuous as their will to survive. They fought off fear with distraction, projecting fantasies, optimistic prospects on the screens of their minds.…

Judith Ward imagined a conversation.

With husband Fred.

Him saying: “You thought I'd be angry.”

“Aren't you?”

“It matters to me, naturally, but I'm not going to cry over it. Do you want to see me cry, is that it?”

“No.”

“If anything I suppose I should doubt myself. You would, wouldn't you — if I came home, sat you down and told you I was making it with some guy.”

“Marion isn't just someone.”

“Anyway, I don't, not at all. Actually, I feel relieved.”

“What are we going to do about Melanie?” Their daughter.

“You faked it with me all along?”

Don't answer.

“Must have been a bitch for you to come home spent and pretend to respond sexually to me. But women do have that edge, don't they?”

No need to answer.

“I'm not bitter,” he said. “Really.”

They were seated on the twin loveseat sofas in their den, opposite each other. The time was dusk, soft transitional light coming from the floor-to-ceiling sliding window doors.

Him saying: “I understand.” With a slight smile. “It's our mistake, not just yours.”

“Why not let it out? What you really feel. Don't ridicule me, Fred, please.”

“I'm not ridiculing. In a way I'm happy for you.”

“Honestly?”

“You've learned about yourself. Few people ever do.”

“I know what I am.”

“So will everyone —”

“I don't give a damn.”

“Not true. Face it.”

“What about Melanie?”

They were in their backyard on their white outdoor chaises. Mid-afternoon. Fred stripped to the waist. Both wearing wraparound aviator-type sunglasses that didn't block out her view of the black hair growing on his back.