straight into the air, shooting up a good ten meters before it unfolded its wings with the sound of a parasol suddenly opening. It caught a good updraft and began to rise.
Then I noticed the wrecks. Hulks of abandoned vehicles awash in the breakers, all kinds, some with Terran Maze markings. More of them up and down the beach half sunk in the sand, some so covered-over and sprouting with beach grass mat I'd mistaken them for dunes. Apparently this planet had been a dead end for some time. Those without flying vehicles had been stranded here, left either to swim for it, bum a ride, or die. Surely there was some way off now. Or was there?
I let my head fall back. Of course there is. What's all this traffic about then? Everybody doomed? Stop thinking.
But I didn't stop thinking, and wondered about Sam. He was an hour behind us, at least. Would he shoot the potluck portal? Did he know I had? We might have been well out of scanner range, but then he must have tracked us to the Ryxx Maze cutoff and seen us go beyond it. I lifted my head again. I could see the ingress causeway from Goliath. We'd wait and see. I lay back again. I had fussed over everything of immediate concern, seen all there was to see, and right then I didn't care about Reticulans or cops or treasure hunts or even Teelies. Not at the moment, because a breeze was carrying cool salt air to lift some of the heat from my baking skin, Darla was beside me, things were quiet, and I didn't give a merte.
A shadow fell over my face, and I opened my eyes. It was Darla, looking at me. She smiled, and I smiled. Then she giggled, and I did too.
'Let George do it,' she said. It was like repeating the punchline to a very funny joke. We couldn't stop giggling.
'Sic 'im, Fido,' I managed to say between waves of mirth.
We broke out laughing, all the tension exploding away in an instant. Darla collapsed over me, helpless as I was, convulsed, two complete idiots on the shore. We were like that for five minutes. It was overreaction, an undertone of hysteria to it, the terror of it all hitting us, tearing out shrieks of laughter.
And when it was all gone it left us spent, breathless, and sober. We looked at each other, and for the first time I saw a hairline crack in that smooth, cool shell, saw vulnerability in Darla's face. Her mourn was half open, her lower lip quivering the slightest bit, eyes widened and searching for something in mine, looking for a cue. I'm afraid. Is it okay? Will you let me? I wanted to say. Yes, love, it's okay, you can let go, don't be afraid to feel fear when it's justified, and. yes, I'll be strong for you, just so that next time you let me have a turn… but suddenly she was wrapped up safe in my arms and there was nothing more to say.
Very quickly we were naked, her briefs and halter materializing in my hand somehow. Flimsy things they were, scraps of soft cloth, and the next thing I knew we were making love without a thought as to who was around. It was sudden, a little desperate, and more than a physical bonding. We needed to tell each other that we were still alive, still here, still able to feel, to touch, needed proof that we still had bodies all of a piece, warm and pulsing, bodies that lived and moved and tingled and glowed, that could feel pleasure and pain, exhilaration and fatigue. We had to convince ourselves that we weren't bits of lifeless stuff squashed up against some unimaginable object, that we weren't plain dead. And as it is after all brushes with death, there was a sense of the precious-ness of every moment, of every sensation, an awareness of the miraculous nature of life. We celebrated that, and celebrated ourselves.
Afterward, there was deep calm. Birdfish croaked their soaring song above. With my head on Darla's breast, I watched little crustacean things scuttle across the sand ? didn't look anything like crabs, more like tiny pink mushroom caps up on tripods. Not far from us, an animal with a brightly colored spiral shell popped partway out of the sand, shot a stream of water into the air in a neat arc once ? spritz! ? and screwed itself back into the beach. I noticed for the first time that the white sand under us had sparkling elements in it, millions of little glassy beads. Pure silicon tektites, probably, products of meteor hits long ago. Or maybe not so long ago. Something had altered the geology of this planet since the Roadbuilders had laid their highway here.
I heard a hum and looked up. An alien aircraft, climbing from its takeoff from the northern spur. Lucky bastard. Then I hoped for him that he knew where the egress portal was, and that the road to it was landable. Otherwise, he'd have to double back all the way here and go slumming among the ground-suckers. He probably wouldn't run out of fuel. With fusion, it's a rarity, but you do see some very primitive equipment on the Skyway now and then, belonging to races that you'd have to call overachievers.
After a long while I got up and stood over Darla, looking at her slim golden body. She opened her eyes and smiled. Then I looked up the knoll. The man in the loud blue jumpsuit was looking down at us, standing far enough away so that I couldn't tell if the curl tollis lip was a smirk or a friendly grin. I didn't care if he'd been there for the whole performance. Glad to oblige.
'How's the water?' I yelled up at him. 'Safe?'
'Yeah, sure!' he shouted back. 'Go ahead!'
Darla stood up, unashamed. I took her hand and we ran down to the surf, splashed in on foot a ways, then dove into the first breaker. The water was piss-warm but it was good to wash the sweat and sand off. My first bath in ? how long? Darla's too, I supposed, unless she managed to get one while I was.. -but of course she had ? at the Teelies' motel. Wait a minute. Had she gone there? She hadn't said. In fact, she hadn't gone into what had happened after she avoided getting fried out in the bush. I had assumed she went into town with the Teelies after the cops left with me, but I didn't know. She would tell me sooner or later, I guess. I ducked my head, came up sputtering, and rubbed myself down briskly, trying to get the jail smell off me. Institutional stink. The water was a buoyant, rich saline solution with a slightly slimy quality. It was like swimming in thin chicken broth. Darla was out beyond me in deeper water, backstroking lazily. Behind her and out a good distance, another birdfish rocketed from the water and took wing.
All right, let's face the question. Exactly how the hell did Darla wind up in the Militia station with Petrovsky? Did they come and get her? Did she come down to try to arrange my release? She said that Petrovsky wanted her for questioning, but Petrovsky said…
Something large and dark was moving in the deep water behind Darla. I stood up and peered out. I didn't like it, and Darla was out too far. I called to her and told her to come in. She asked why with a questioning grin.
'Wow, Darla.'
She got the message and shot forward into an Australian crawl, making it to shallow water in no time. Her stroke was very strong. Then a breaker took her straight in to me. I pulled her to her feet and pointed seaward. Just then something broke water out there with a boiling splash. I saw only a huge dark mass and a gaping mouth stuffed with more teeth than could possibly fit. Then the mouth sank, closing on something below the surface. The sea churned with the struggle, fins and flipperlike appendages thrashing up from the water over a wide area. Two very large animals were going at it.
Darla hadn't really been in danger, but had she been out a bit farther…
'That bastard!' Darla said bitterly, turning toward the beach. 'He said it was?'
I looked. The man was gone.
She turned to me and wrapped her arms around her ribcage, suddenly chilled. 'Weird,' she muttered with a sour look. God preserve us from smirking weird bastards.
11
When we got back to the car, John was sitting in the front seat with his legs hanging out the door, grinning at us. Winnie was playing in the sand very near, drawing figures with a piece of shell. I grinned back, welcoming his change of mood.
'Where're your two
He pointed to the nearby tree, in the shade of which Roland and Susan lay wrapped up into a ball.
'They seemed to've patched things up,' I said.
'Yes, they have,' he said approvingly. There wasn't the least hint of jealousy. 'How was the water?'
'Fine, but the sea life is a little too interesting.'
'Trouble?'
'No, not really.' I sat down on the front seat, wishing I had a cigarette. I tried to forget about it, looked up
