Proteus gulped. If he was right, he should be in one of the infrequently used atomic-powered skylevators on the underside of the floating city, with nothing between him and Earth but seven miles of empty space! He looked around at the small globular room in which he stood. He’d made it—the dials on the wall console told him he was in a skylevator. But suppose he couldn’t run it?

Suddenly a whirring noise began; an odd droning. Proteus held his breath. His entrance must have activated the mechanism. Even now his weight and dimensions were probably being fed into the minicomputers in charge of descent. A red light flashed on. At the same time, three signs glowed into life: automatic drop, pause for instructions, and hold on wait.

The room itself began to vibrate softly. Proteus gulped again, pressed the button marked automatic drop, and closed his eyes as tightly as he could. His stomach lurched. His head snapped back. The skylevator dropped out of its nest beneath the city, and began its descent.

Proteus’ eyes flew open. Inside, the lights dimmed. A dial flashed: 35,000 ft. The sight of it almost made him sick as he realized that plans were one thing, and their realization was something quite different. Here he was, 35,000 feet up in space, alone, falling steadily away from the only world he knew. One side of the skylevator was a transparent window. He looked out, hardly believing what he saw.

Bright emptiness stretched all around him, an endless blue sky through which he was descending. Then he looked down—in terror—for below there were mountains of black-gray clouds, heavy and threatening, like an ever-moving uneven floor upon which the skylevator must surely crash. Despairingly he looked up, to see the dark undersides of the city disappearing as he plunged further down. Could he make the skylevator reverse itself in mid-air? He eyed the dials. No, he thought, even with the little he knew, he was sure that reversal was impossible.

Now the dial read: 30,000 ft. He looked down again, astonished, for as he approached the clouds, holes appeared in them as if by magic. He’d never seen clouds before—not natural ones—only the three tamed ones that went past with each fifteen-minute rain, but he knew about them academically. No film or account could begin to describe what they were really like, though, and involuntarily he shouted out with wonder as the skylevator dropped through one of the cloud-holes. He gasped—the clouds gave way, as if on purpose. The clouds knew. They’re alive, he thought, like sky creatures. It seemed to him that they were rushing from all over the open sky, to watch.