Then the fluid came. Are you a good swimmer, Alex? It was cold. It was too cold, it was cold as death, cold as the red Laredo clay. A great rippling belch burst out of his lungs. He heaved for air, eyes bulging in panic, and felt a great interior tide of the stuff slide through his tubercles, a deadly, crazy, cold amoeba. His teeth clamped on the hose, he panicked, he sat upright. Liquid shifted inside him like a strong kick to a half-empty beer keg, and he began coughing convulsively.