Blade had just finished this mental summary when he saw movement between two trees just above the beach. He swung the binoculars for a closer look, pressing the focusing adjustment. The trees sprang out sharply, and so did the tall woman standing between them, looking out at the lake. For a moment she was half lost in the forest shadows, so that Blade could not recognize her. Then she came down the slope toward the beach, moving with a powerful but graceful stride. The sunlight caught her dark red hair so that it seemed to glow. Now Blade had no trouble at all in recognizing the woman he sought.
Rilla Haran would have looked like a stocky peasant girl if she'd been any shorter than her actual five feet ten. As it was, her broad-boned, well-fleshed body had a regal quality, particularly when she moved. There was nothing dainty or fragile about her-she was lushly, impressively female. The brilliance and the skill she showed in her work seemed to be reflected in the perfection of her body and the grace of her movements.
Blade hoped his judgement of her was correct. Ever since he'd learned he was bringing out a woman, he'd hoped she was the sort who could hold her own on any journey or in any fight. Rilla Haran certainly looked like a woman who could react intelligently and handle herself well in a wide range of situations outside her laboratory.
Blade pulled a small signal light out of one pocket and clipped it to the binoculars. The light was activated by the same switch that controlled the infrared viewer, and threw a tightly focused beam of light wherever Blade looked. At night it was difficult and by day it was almost impossible for anyone not directly in line with the beam to see it. It was one of the handiest devices for field signaling that Blade had ever used.
As he finished clipping the signal light in place, Rilla reached the water's edge. She wore baggy brown slacks, a dark blue blouse, and sandals. She carried a ragged gray blanket and a green sweater folded over one arm, and a small canteen slung on one hip.
She kicked off her sandals with two neat jerks of her long legs, spread the blanket on the gravel, and put the sweater on top of it. She walked down for a few more steps, until the chill clear waters of the lake washed around her ankles. An almost blissful smile crossed her round, freckled face, making it look even more cheerful than before. Then she stepped back up onto the dry gravel and began stripping off her clothes.
She undressed so swiftly that to Blade she seemed to go from fully clothed to totally nude in a moment. The last thing she did was to undo the ribbon that held up her hair. Unbound, her hair flowed down over her shoulders and halfway down her back. It did not conceal the fine lines of her neck, the faint dusting of freckles on the evenly tanned skin of her shoulders, or the magnificent breasts that swelled so superbly. On a woman with smaller bones, those breasts would have made her seem almost top-heavy. On Rilla Haran they were perfectly in proportion, part of her robust beauty. Blade found himself wondering how all this solid, well-shaped flesh would feel in his arms.
Now Rilla threw her head back and raised her arms toward the sky, as if she were worshiping the sun. She bent backward with a grace that would have made an ugly woman seem sensuously desirable. It made Rilla Haran positively breathtaking. Her skin held the same even tan and light dusting of freckles all over. Some of the hair in the dark bush cradled between her round thighs had been bleached to a lighter shade by the sun. That subtle highlight somehow added still more to the erotic effect.
Blade carefully put aside all the sensuous visions that kept chasing one another through his mind. He raised the binoculars again, aimed them at Rilla, and pressed the switch for the signal light. He wanted to make contact as fast as possible, before the woman got too relaxed and lazy in the sun to be alert or before any unwanted visitors showed up.
The light flicked on. Blade watched Rilla, saw a little circle of light appear on her left breast, and raised the binoculars until he saw the light flicker across her face. She blinked and started to back out of the beam. Then Blade could almost see memory awaken in her. She stopped in mid-stride and stood motionless, her arms dropping to her sides, her eyes very wide, and her lips drawn into a tight, pale line.
He had her attention now. Blade began pressing the switch to transmit the letters of the recognition code. Each letter was a sequence of dots and dashes.
B-U-K-E
— and then the numbers:
1-5-9-7
Blade went through the sequence twice. He was starting it a third time when Rilla suddenly raised her hands and pressed both palms against the sides of her neck. That was the acknowledgment signal. Then she began to reply with the agreed-upon sequence of hand signals, keeping her hands in front of her body so that Blade and no one else could see their movements.
She went through her reply twice. Then she made the signal-hands folded across the stomach-that there was more to come. After that she pointed along the southern edge of the cove, clenched her fist twice, and repeated that sequence as well. Blade flashed the code for «acknowledged and understood,» then put the binoculars away. Rilla stepped into the water, waded out until it was up to her waist, then plunged forward.
Blade sprang to his feet, picked up his gear, and began to move, keeping Rilla in sight as much as possible. Sometimes trees or bushes cut off his view of her, but each time he saw her again she was still swimming strongly. Her steady movements gave him the impression she could go on swimming like that for hours or even the whole day if she had to.
At last Blade broke out into the open and saw what must have been Rilla's intended rendezvous just ahead of him. A spur of bare gray rock curved out into the lake from the shore. Rilla was swimming strongly for the sheltered patch of water between the spur and the shore. There she and Blade would be completely invisible. No one watching from any other part of the cove would see anything more suspicious than Rilla swimming along the shore, disappearing briefly, then swimming back the way she came.
Blade crawled forward on his hands and knees, taking advantage of every rock, bush, and fold in the ground. He reached the water's edge to find the surface before him blank and empty. He was just beginning to worry about this when. Rilla's water-sleek head popped up from the surface like a seal's.
She grinned. «It is good to know that you are real. I was beginning to wonder.» The grin faded. «It is not a good situation at the resort.» Her English was almost unaccented, but so precise that no one would mistake her for a native speaker.
«How is it not good?» said Blade.
«They have six uniformed Security men in since three days ago, instead of only two.»
That was not as bad as Blade had feared. Six Security men-one section-could not do a very good job of covering a resort area that spread over a mile of shore and several miles of forest. On the other hand, there was no way to know how many more Security people had come in disguised as dishwashers, masseurs, or truck drivers.
«Do they seem to be investigating anything in particular? Or are they just wandering around waiting for something to turn up?»
Rilla took so long to answer that question that Blade began to wonder if she hadn't understood. When she did answer, he realized she'd merely been trying to give as precise an answer as she could. Nude, treading the cold waters of the lake, and confronting an Imperial secret agent, she was still determined to give a scientist's precise answer to any question. Blade's respect for her went up another notch.