"Maybe tomorrow. Dad," Little Chaka said softly. "Let's get out of here."
Big Chaka nodded. "Yes, I must prepare for my presentation this evening."
"Need us?" Justin asked.
"Thank you, but my son will be more than sufficient help."
Justin and Jessica followed the Chakas back to Shangri-La and watched them land safely. Tau Ceti beat on them through the windshield. The air whipping through the vents seemed to have flowed over a blast furnace first. Jessica wiped her sleeve across her forehead. "Polite, wasn't he?" Jessica said. "My son will be more than sufficient—" she giggled.
"I noticed that," Justin said. "Imagine, he's embarrassed to say he wants some time alone with his son. So what do we do now?"
"We could go find Carlos and Katya," Jessica said with amiable malice.
"Dad and Sylvia. Aaron's taking them up to the lake." He banked and headed off northwest.
"I'm roasting," Jessica said. She uncorked a thermos and gulped water, then handed it over to Justin.
He drank gratefully. Even the water was warm. "Pretty fierce," he said.
She nodded, and looked back down at the terrain below them. It was broken by rock and trees, sloping up toward the mountains still to the west.
"You know what we could do?" she asked. Suddenly, her voice sparkled.
"What?"
"Let's go to the swimming hole for a dip."
"If we can find it." He thought for a moment. "Cassandra, did we tell you to label any place near Shangri-La as a swimming hole?"
"Yes. A meadow in the woods eleven kilometers northwest of your present position is designated ‘The Old Swimming Hole.' " A red circle appeared on the skeeter's map display.
"That's it. Scan the area—"
"Done," Cassandra said. "No dangers detected. The area is designated safe from grendels. You are reminded to scan the meadow before landing."
"Yeah, yeah," Justin said.
The meadow was an oval a hundred meters by sixty. A sluggish stream ran through it, deep as a shoe top, and in the exact center was a circular pond ten meters in diameter.
They flew around the perimeter of the meadow. "Nothing there," Justin said. "Cassandra, you agree?"
"Affirmative."
He dropped the skeeter onto the thick grass about twenty meters from the pond that was all that remained of the lake from which the meadow formed. The meadow grass was about knee high, and not very thick.
"Race you!"
"Last one in is a rotten Scribe belch!"
Justin reached the hole only two steps ahead of Jessica, but his momentum, belly-flopped him into the water.
He glared down at the dripping muck on his shirt.
"Yerch," he said. Jessica could hardly restrain herself, and finally collapsed to the shore, holding her sides and bellowing with laughter.
"You should... see yourself," she gasped, red-faced.
"Hah hah," he said.
He began to shuck himself out of the clothes. Wrung his shirt out and tossed it up onto the dry ground. Followed with his shorts. "This is great," he called out to her. "Come on in."
She hesitated for a moment, and then said a silent what-the-hell, and shucked herself out of her clothes and dove in.
Justin hurled a shoe, then another, then his balled-up underwear. Nice grouping.
Jessica swam with powerful strokes. The hole was only ten meters across, two meters deep at its deepest. The water was crystal clear, right down to the rocky floor. No nasty surprises lurked in the darkness.
With an uncomfortable bit of self-awareness Justin noted that Jessica's strokes were actually more masculine than his. He tended to be more fluid, almost elegant. Aaron had both qualities, and it was one of the things that let him swim rings around—
Dammit, he refused to let things get complicated. Right now life was good. The sky was very blue, and the clouds were very white. The twisted trees framed the swimming hole beautifully. "Race you," she said. "Ten laps."
He sighed, but gritted his teeth. All right. He was faster on the land, but swimming was a toss-up.
Justin bore down, blanked his mind, and began to cleave the water. In the effort, in the struggle, both of them forgot everything but the effort, and it was a glorious day. Jessica slid up next to him in the water, and shoveled a wave into his face. He splashed back, the race completely forgotten.
For the moment, both of them were completely content.
They swam twice more, and on the last attempt, he beat her. She gasped for one more race, and he declined. He was completely drained. His breath came in great sobbing gulps, but he dragged himself up onto a rock, and looked down at her.
She looked up at him, and laughed, and suddenly something in her eyes changed. "Justin," she said. "Look at your side."
Something nestled against his ribs that looked like a mass of plastic blood. It was pale, almost transparent, but was shot through with veiny structures. As he watched, the veins pulsed and engorged with blood.
"Jesus," he moaned. "More of these jellyfish things?"
She climbed out of the water. "Stop complaining. At least they're not toxic. They just want a little blood. You're being childish and inhospitable."
"Hah hah. Why don't you come up here and help me be even more inhospitable still?"
"At your service," she said, and climbed up.
The leech-things were fairly harmless, transparent, not much thicker than leaves. They only became visible when engorged with blood. Many of the rivers and lakes had them—in fact, the entire continent was generously supplied with parasites—but none had transmitted any amoeboids or other bacteria. They just stole blood.
Jessica went for her backpack, opened it, and took out a saltshaker.
She sprinkled salt on the leech.
There was no pain, and Justin had time to look at her. Dammit, he wished his mind would stop that. Somehow, it just seemed as if her face had changed, or as if he hadn't ever really looked at her before.
She tucked her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them.
"Now we wait for a minute," she said.
They had been close like this many times before, ever since childhood.
Nudity was nothing new or unusual for them. But now...
Now the curve of her back, the shape of her smile, even the dampness of her hair seemed so inviting, so...
Before he knew exactly what he was doing, he leaned over and kissed her. He held it for a moment. Her eyes went very wide, and then she drew back, startled.
Her eyes narrowed. "What was that for?"
"Just a passing thought."
"Uh-huh." He couldn't tell, but he thought that her mouth, that tanned, pouting mouth, had curled into the slightest of smiles.
The silence between them grew strained. Justin's body had several map-shaped red splotches where the parasites had fallen away. Antiseptic was swabbed on, and he felt fine now. But somehow, neither of them had remembered to put their clothes back on.
"You need to take better care of yourself," Jessica said. She ran her finger along the horseshoe ridge of muscle on his upper arm, and then, as if a sudden thought had interrupted the first, she leaned back, and turned away.
Justin leaned forward, and kissed her shoulder. Then softly, he rubbed his cheek against it. A day's stubble gave a sandpapery edge to the motion.
Then he kissed it again, and pulled back.
Their eyes met, and it was one of those moments where the rest of the world drops away into nothing, where the rest of the sights and sounds and smells of the universe simply vanish. There was nothing in the entire world but her eyes, and then her lips, and the fresh, salty taste of her mouth, and her hands whisper-soft upon his shoulders.