A squirrel chittered inquisitively from the limb of a towering tree, then flicked out of sight with a toss of its bushy tail. The breeze was warm and soothing, and Kimball Trent slept.
He awoke to sunlight again, stretching with the uneasy flexing of an animal, then snapped to awareness with a movement that almost brought him to his feet. Pain gushed through his body in red waves, and he sank back with a stifled groan.
And as though the pain had been a curtain before his brain, it parted, and he could think again.
He looked around, trying to adjust his memories to what he saw. He was in timber, great leafy trees towering over his head, the grass and bushes thick and green upon the ground. He saw the huge monolithic rock directly before him, and his mind could not comprehend what had happened.
Only yesterday there had been no trees; that rock had stood alone in the clearing he had made with axe and saw.
And even the rock had changed. Now the edges were not sharp and angular; now they were softened and worn, like a blocky cake of salt that had stood in the summer rain.
He rose to his feet, went to where the heavy metal door had been. It was gone, covered with soil, the earth matted with grass and flowers. He turned away, panic eating at his heart, walked to the earth fault through which he had burrowed like a worm.
Shuddering, he went into the hole, slipping, scrambling, stood upright in the darkness, adjusting his eyes to the lack of light. He saw the radi-flash on the stony floor, bent and clicked it on. The cone of yellow brilliance went twice about the chamber, came to the wheel that no longer turned before the surge of pressure from water rushing along its underground course.
He bent over it, marvelling at the wear that had come to the plastic hub, remembering how utterly indestructible it was. He allowed his gaze to travel along the refrigerating tubes that spider-webbed the ceiling and walls. They were dry, no longer coated with sheaths of hoar-frost. The air was still cold, though, and he shivered in his nakedness.
Then he saw the broken refrigerating pipe, and full knowledge of what had happened flooded his mind. He had been repairing the pipe, had just taken the first twist of the nut, when it had exploded in his face, cascading silvery liquid over his entire body---liquid so perfectly heat-absorbent it froze anything and everything within a split second after contact.