"How graceful," he said.
"And cold."
She was right. The suns had set as Twisp and Bushka departed. Already there was a stiff chill in the air. It wasn't the hardness of the deck that bothered him, but the sudden shock of cold metal against his sweaty skin. When they sat up he heard the strange unpeeling sound of damp skin. It was the sound that sheets of skin made when a friend had unpeeled his sunburned back as a boy.
Brett wanted to loll with Scudi forever, but Scudi was already trying to get up amid the unsteady rocking of the foil. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. He didn't let go.
"It's nearly dark," he said. "Won't we have trouble finding the base? I mean, it's always a lot darker underwater."
"I know the way," she said. "And you have a night vision that could see for us both. We should go now ..."
This time he kissed her. She leaned against him for a blink, soft and good-feeling, then pulled back. She still held his hand, but there was an uneasiness in her eyes that Brett translated as fear.
"What?" he asked.
"If we stay here we will, you know ... we'll do what we want to do."
Brett's throat was dry and he knew he couldn't talk without his voice cracking. He remained quiet, wanting to hear her out. He didn't know much about what it was that they wanted to do, and if she could give him a few clues, he was ready. He did not want her to be disappointed and he did not know what she expected of him. Most important, he did not know how much experience she'd had in these matters and now it was important for him to find out.
She squeezed his hand. "I like you," she said. "I like you very much. If there's anyone I'd like to ... to get that close with, it's you. But there is the matter of a child."
He blushed. But it was not out of embarrassment. It was out of anger at himself for not thinking of the obvious thing, for not considering that the step from child to parent could very well happen all at once and he, too, was not ready.
"My mother was sixteen, too," she went on. "She cared for me, so she was never free. She never knew the free movement that others knew. She made the best of it, and I saw much through her. But I didn't see other children except occasionally."
"So she lost an adulthood and you lost a childhood?"
"Yes. It is not to be regretted. It is the only life I know and it is a good one. It is twice good now that I have met you. But it is not a life to repeat. Not for me."
He nodded, took her by the shoulders and kissed her again. This time their chests did not touch but their hands held tight to each other and Brett at least felt relief.
"You are not angry?" she asked.
"I don't think it's possible for me to be mad at you," he said. "Besides, we're going to know each other for a good long time. I want to be with you when the answer is 'yes.'"
... self has somewhat the character of a result, of a goal attained, something that has come to pass very gradually and is experienced with much travail.
Vata dreamed that something tangled her hair. Something crawled the back of her neck, tickling her in a legless way, and settled over her right ear. The thing was black, slick and shelled like an insect.
She heard the sounds of pain in her dream, as she had in so many dreams past, and projected all of this into Duque, where it took on more the character of consciousness. Now she recognized some of the voices as leftovers from other dreams. She had made many excursions into this void. Someone named Scudi Wang was there and the thing that slithered through Vata's hair snapped cruel jaws at Scudi's voice.
Duque realized that Vata did not like the thing. She twisted and tossed her head to get rid of it. The thing dug in, set its jaws into her hair and pulled up clumps of hair by the roots. Vata groaned a deep-throated groan, half-cough. She snatched the wet little bug out of her hair and crushed it in her palm.
The pieces slipped from her fingers and a few muffled screams faded into the dark. Duque experienced the sudden awareness that the dream-thing might be real. He had sensed other thoughts in it for just an instant - terrified human thoughts. Vata settled herself into a comfortable position and put her mind to changing the dream into something pleasant. As always, she drifted back to those first days in the valley her people had called "the Nest." Within a few blinks she was lost in the lush vegetation of that holy place where she had been born. It was all the best that Pandora's land had to offer, and it was now under many cold meters of unquiet sea. But things could be otherwise in dreams, and dreams were all the geography that Vata retained. She thought how good it felt to walk again, not letting herself know it was only in a dream. But Duque knew - he had heard those terrified thoughts in a moment of death and Vata's dreaming was no longer the same for him.
The distresses of choice are our chance to be blessed.
In that fading moment before the last of the twilight settled below the horizon, like a dimmed torch quenched in a cold sea, Brett saw the launch tower. Its gray bulk bridged a low cloud layer and the sea. He pointed.
"That's it?"
Scudi leaned forward to peer through the fading light.
"I don't see it," she said, "but by the instruments it's about twenty klicks away."
"We used up some time with Twisp and that Bushka character. What did you think of him?"
"Of your Twisp?"
"No, the other one."
"We have Mermen like that," she hedged.
"You didn't like him, either."
"He's a whiner, maybe a killer," she said. "It's not easy to like someone like that."
"What did you think of his story?" Brett asked.
"I don't know," she said. "What if he did it all on his own and the crew threw him overboard? We can't believe him or disbelieve him on the little we've heard - and all of it from him."
The foil skidded across the edge of a kelp bed, slowing then recovering as its sharp-edged supports cut through the tangled growth.
"I didn't see that kelp," Scudi said. "The light is so bad ... that was clumsy of me!"
"Will it hurt the foil?" Brett asked.
She shook her head. "No, I have hurt the kelp. We will have to come off the foils."
"Hurt the kelp?" Brett was mystified. "How can you hurt a plant?"
"The kelp is not just a plant," she said. "It's in a sensitive stage of development ... it's difficult to explain. You'll think me as crazy as Bushka if I tell you all that I know about the kelp."
Scudi reduced the throttle. The hissing roar subsided and the wallowing boat slipped down onto its hull, gently lifting with the heave of the waves. The rams subsided to a low murmur behind them.
"It is more dangerous for us to come in at night," she said. The red instrument lights had come on automatically as the light dimmed outside and she looked at Brett, his face under-lighted by the red illumination.
"Should we wait out here for daylight?" he asked.
"We could submerge and sit on the bottom," she said. "It's only about sixty fathoms."
When Brett did not respond, she said, "You don't prefer it down under, do you?"
He shrugged.
"It's too deep to anchor," she said, "but it is safe to drift if we watch. Nothing can harm us in here."