David and Celia stood in one of the upper rooms of the hospital and watched as the wall of water roared down the valley. It was like a jet takeoff; a crowd furious with an umpire's decision; an express train out of control; a roar like nothing he had ever heard, or like everything he had ever heard, recombined to make this noise that shook the building, that vibrated in his bones. A wall of water, fifteen feet high, twenty feet high, raced down the valley, accelerating as it came, smashing, destroying everything in its path.

When the roar was gone and the water stood high on the land, swirling, thick with debris, Celia said in a faint voice, "Is it worth this, David?"

He tightened his arm about her shoulders. "We had to do it," he said.

"I know. But it seems so futile sometimes. We're all dead, fighting right down the line, but dead. As dead as those men must be by now."

"We're making it work, honey. You know that. You've been working right there. Thirty new lives!"

She shook her head. "Thirty more dead people. Do you remember Sunday school, David? They took me every week. Did you go?"

He nodded.

"And Wednesdaynight Bible school? I keep thinking of it now. And I wonder if this isn't God's doing after all. I can't help it. I keep wondering. And I had become an atheist." She laughed and suddenly spun around. "Let's go to bed, now. Here in the hospital. Let's pick a fancy room, a suite.…"

He reached for her, but suddenly a violent gust of wind drove a hard blast of rain against the window. It came like that, without preliminary, just a sudden deluge. Celia shuddered. "God's will," she said dully. "We have to get back to the cave, don't we?"

They walked through the empty hospital, through the long, dimly lighted passage, through the large chamber where the people were trying to find comfortable positions on the cots and benches, through the smaller passages and finally into the lab office.

"How many people did we kill?" Celia asked, stepping out of her jeans. She turned her back to put her clothes on the foot of her cot. Her buttocks were nearly as flat as an adolescent boy's. When she faced him again, her ribs seemed to be straining against her skin. She looked at him for a moment, and then came to him and held his head tight against her chest as he sat on his cot and she stood naked before him. He could feel her tears as they fell onto his cheek.