It was darker here, in the shadows of the hills, and Scan stopped the snocle.
"We have to walk in," he said. "There's no way to get back there by snocle or sled, but it's an easy walk."
She nodded and followed, thinking she could use the crisp air to clear her head of cough-medicine fumes and the leaden emotional aftertaste of Bremport. She could taste the gas on her tongue again and smell it deep inside herself.
The air here was not as cold as that at the village. Stunted trees and brush grew along the man-made walkway fashioned of carefully pieced bits of flattened machine hulls and suspended over the snow and humped mounds of undergrowth.
Sean had been taking the lead, and now he reached back for her and pulled her forward.
"Look," he said, pointing to a large animal watching them from the shadows.
"It looks just like I do in this getup," she said of the burly furry form.
"That's because you look like a bear," he said, his voice husky, whether from whispering and cold or emotion she couldn't tell. "This is all muskeg underneath here, spongy, swampy. You'll soon see why. Berries stay on the bushes much later than elsewhere, which is what interests him." He nodded at the bear. "Come, we're almost there."
And around the next bend she saw the rising steam, curling above the snow-laden tops of larger trees, and two steps farther she saw the pools and the falls.
"Sean, it's beautiful," she said, taking in the upper pool, closest to them, where water bubbled up from the center in a fountain and formed a deep wide well reflecting the moons and stars in its ripples. Some hidden current sent the water cascading into a second pool and a third. A narrow path, almost free of snow, ran alongside the banks, leading in steps down to the lowest pool. Scan was already shucking his clothing. He turned and grinned at her.
"You'll dry out better if you only get your hide wet. If you can't swim, there's a lot of places where it's shallow enough to wade, but you'll prefer total immersion."
She had already begun to unfasten her outer clothing. He jumped into the water with a flash of moonlight on his pale muscular backside. She caught a shadow-darkened glimpse of him sliding over the falls and heard him laugh.
Hoping this wasn't another of those instances where everybody else was freezing their butt off while Shongili was warm and under-or in this case un-dressed, she quickly finished stripping and much more quickly waded into the pool, then glided into the water. The pool by the fountain was indeed warm, almost uncomfortably so, and it unknotted her chilled muscles and soaked her through and through with its heat until she felt lazy and languorous. The water carried a hint of sulfur and mint. She kept as much of her under the surface as possible, diving repeatedly.
The diving caused a ringing in her ears that sounded almost like music. She swam underwater as long as possible, listening to it, hoping to remember which tunes it called to mind.
She surfaced long enough to catch her breath before approaching the waterfall. It wasn't a long one, a drop of just a few feet, and the lip of the fall was smooth beneath the tumbling water. If Shongili could do it, so could she, she thought, but she flipped over and went down feet first, her knees, belly, breasts, and face momentarily tweaked with the bite of the icy air.
The water in the lower pool was a little cooler, a little easier to swim in without falling asleep, but as she was surfacing, something flashed between her legs and up behind her.
She flipped around and grabbed, thinking to find Shongili, but her hand touched wet fur instead of wet skin and she found herself looking down into the laughing silvery eyes of a large gray seal.
She hadn't thought seals liked fresh water, especially not warm fresh water, and especially not inland streams, but perhaps this was another of Petaybee's permutations that Scan wanted her to see.
The seal flipped up and back under her and dived down into the lower pool. Where the hell was Scan? She felt a cold droplet on her face, and another, and looked up to see that light snow was floating down from a sky now only partially clear. She shivered and dove under, hearing the music again. This time, perhaps because of the closeness of the falls, she could almost hear the singing of lyrics as well.
The seal somehow or other had propelled itself back into this upper pool and now came up under her, as if inviting her to hold on to it while it swam around and around.
Yes! She did hear words, not lyrics after all, but spoken words, low and murmured. She thought perhaps Scan might have returned and was talking to her from the land. When she raised her head, however, he was nowhere near, though the murmurous words continued to the soft water music. She glimpsed the seal under the falls for a moment, and she decided she would get out of the pool. But first, she'd warm up beneath the water pouring from the hot pool above.
There was a narrow ledge under the pool, and as she climbed up on it, she saw the flash of gray fur again as the seal darted in and out. Ignoring the creature, she stood and let the deliciously warm water play over her face and hair, cascading down her shoulders, back, hips, and calves, caressing her face, throat, breasts,
belly, and thighs. The water continued its tune, and listening for the rhythm, she realized suddenly that the air pressure had changed around her. It wasn't water alone that was caressing her, stroking her abdomen, counting her ribs with splayed fingers, cupping her breasts…
"By the powers that be, I welcome you home," Scan's voice said, as if reciting a line from a song or a poem. His lips slid beneath her ear and kissed her throat, and she turned in his arms, knowing full well that this was probably going to mean no end of trouble at some point but not caring at all.
His skin was slick with water but almost as well furred as the seal's. She turned in his arms and threw her own arms around his neck, kissing him hungrily. When the kiss was done, he held her for a moment, then looked down at her with silver eyes confusingly like those of the seal. She blinked and retreated a half step. The laughter in his eyes saddened briefly into wistfulness, then brusqueness as he held her away from him and said, "We'd better go now. You get out and get dressed. I'll be right behind you."
As if now was a time to be formal? She pulled away from him and dove back into the cooler pool, swimming briskly out and deliberately letting the cold touch her bare skin before dressing again.
Frag, what was it, anyway? Had her revelations been too much for him after all? Or had he really meant this little swim to be therapeutic and just gotten momentarily carried away when it became erotic instead? Maybe he had a serious interest elsewhere. Maybe he didn't like women. No, she had had definite evidence to the contrary. Angry and baffled, she pulled half-frozen clothing over her wet body and began walking very briskly indeed back down the pathway.
Halfway back to the snocle, he joined her, resting his hand lightly on her shoulder, the thumb of his glove brushing her cheek.
"I think you'll find you can write that song, now," he said.
She wanted to hit him but satisfied herself with pulling away and riding in silence all the way back to her cabin. But, after he left and her frustration died down, she realized he was right.
The frustration didn't stay with her. He had wanted her as much as she wanted him, she knew, and there had to be some reason why he had insisted they restrain themselves. When she thought back on it, she could see the cold snowflakes falling into the steaming water and hear the music beneath the falls again. She activated the recorder and spoke into it.