"Pity those that can't read," he said, moving to the large oval tub. Krysty watched him, admiring the lean body, with the ridged walls of muscles across the stomach, the tightness of the thighs and the hardness of the chest and shoulders.
"You need a shave as well," she said.
"Mebbe later."
"You know that Quint can't read."
"What?" he straightened up, unable to hide his surprise. "He's the Keeper."
"Yeah." She stopped pedaling and leaned forward, breathing hard. "This bastard machine's not up to some real action. It's fallin' apart."
"Not that amazin', love. It must be as old as everythin' else in this redoubt."
Following the printed instructions, Ryan turned on the Jacuzzi and started filling it with hot water. "You sure Quint can't read?" he asked.
"Certain."
"How?"
"He told me."
"When?"
"Turn that tap farther. The water's not coming fast enough."
Ryan did as she suggested. As he knelt, he was aware of Krysty moving behind him. He didn't turn his head, knowing that she was on his blind side.
There was the breath of material falling softly to the floor. She leaned over him, her long rich crimson hair brushing against his nakedness, caressing him with infinitely soft movements. The touch was enough to arouse him, and she giggled in his ear, reaching over his shoulder with a long arm, her fingers rubbing his chest.
"Krysty," Ryan closed his good eye for a moment, relishing the contact. He swallowed hard, fighting to control his breathing.
"Yeah?"
"When did Quint say he couldn't read?"
"Yesterday. He took me to see that door to the outside. Said there was a whole mess of fuckin' wicked mutie dwarfs out there. That's what he said. They wait. Been waitin' for a hundred years. He talked about being the Keeper. Said that everythin' he knew, he'd learned from his father, who was Keeper before him."
The bath was three-quarters full. The woman knelt behind Ryan, her arms around him, her breasts pressed against his muscular back so that he could feel her hard nipples. She was holding him with one hand, rubbing slowly up and down while, with her other hand, she traced the delicate lace of scars across his shoulders. And all the time her sentient hair was stroking him.
"His father?"
"Yeah, Ryan. Keeper before him. And his father's father was Keeper before that."
"But why's there only three of 'em left? The muties get 'em?"
"Didn't say. Ryan?"
There was a change in her voice, and he finally turned around to look into her face, feeling for a split second as if he might drown in the green depths of her eyes.
"What, Krysty?"
"Muties, Ryan."
He nodded. "I'm not goin' to fuck around, Krysty, and pretend I don't know what you mean. I do know."
She sat back, drawing her long legs up, folding her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees. Her marvelous hair tumbled across her shoulders, coyly covering her breasts.
"Now's the time for this, Ryan. We've known each other a short while. We made love or we fucked. I thought it was makin' love. You?"
"Yeah, Krysty. I didn't think we were fuckin'. I thought we..."
"That's good. Now, you know I'm a mutie."
"Not..." But she interrupted him.
"Turn off the tap, or we'll flood the bastard redoubt in hot water."
"There. Look, there's somethin' funny about your hair. Like it moves some."
"Some. My mother was Mother Sonja, and the good and bad things about me come from her. She had the power, Ryan. Real power. Gave some to me some by birthing me, some by teaching me."
"Was she... a mutie?"
"More than me. She could make her hair grow long and lift things with it. I saw her do it when I was little. She got older and didn't or couldn't do it anymore. My hair moves a little. Mainly when I'm happy or when I'm..." She grinned suddenly, lifting her face, dazzling him with her beauty. "I guess you noticed that, Ryan. And my hair hurts when it's pulled or caught. Or cut."
"That all?"
The washer on one of the taps in the whirlpool bath had rotted, and the water dripped steadily. Ryan watched it, conscious that he was beginning to feel cold.
"No. You know that I've escaped twice with my wrists tied?"
"And you damn near broke the handle on the main door to the redoubt in the Darks."
"Yeah, I did. That's kind of a mutation. But it's more what I meant by Mother Sonja's teaching me things. She taught me how to do that."
"What?"
She looked down again. "It's a sort of focusing, a concentrating on how I feel. It's hard and it tires me some. I call on the Earth Mother, and she comes to help me."
"Just how strong are you?" asked Ryan, still naked, standing and moving around the exercise room, conscious that his erection had vanished and that his penis now slapped limply against his thigh as he walked.
"I don't know. I tried all I could on that door. Our lives were in danger. The effort nearly killed me. I nearly puked my guts up."
In one corner, stacked on a chrome steel rack, there was a bar and a pile of weights. Ryan removed the collars and slid on some of the heavy discs, then replaced the collars and tightened the butterfly screws.
"There are now one hundred and fifty pounds on each side. I figure it's about my top. Can you lift that?"
"Not now." She rose and moved gracefully toward him. Her body was in marvelous condition, like a top fighter.
"But, if you called... on the Earth Mother, could you then?"
"Yes." There wasn't a hint of doubt in her voice as she looked at the equivalent of the weight of two grown men on the smooth bar. "But you first, Ryan. Press that above your head and..."
"And what?"
"Do it and see."
"I don't usually lift things with my cock sticking out like this," he muttered, stooping in front of the weights.
"Hanging out, Ryan," she corrected, with a wicked smile.
Ryan waited, gathering his concentration, flexing his fingers around the cool metal. He closed his eye, focusing all his energy on lifting the bar. Six deep, slow breaths, then the explosive whoosh of effort. Feeling the strain at the small of his back and across his chest and shoulders, he lifted the bar from the rack. Ryan Cawdor didn't look that heavily muscled, but his wiry body was in excellent condition. A man didn't get to ride and fight with the Trader for ten years by being soft and flabby.
"Very good," she said, clapping as the weights rose slowly but steadily to chest level, then with an extra boost, above Ryan's head. The tendons in his arms stood out like cords as he held it there, his face suffused with blood. He managed a wink at the girl before he lowered the bar to the floor with a thump.
"Now you," he panted.
"Give me a minute to ready myself."
Krysty began to take deep breaths, her breasts rising and falling as Ryan watched with interest. Her legs were slightly apart, the triangle of brilliant scarlet pubic hair masking her sex. The muscles across the front of her thighs rippled and danced, and he could see the fluttering of her stomach. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved. In the silence he heard her whisper.
"Now, Mother of Earth, give me, I beg, the power to do that which is right. Let me render no evil. Give your daughter the power, the power, the power..." she chanted, the sound barely carrying to Ryan, three paces away. He stared at her face, seeing it transformed into a mask of carved bone, the planes of her cheeks shifted by an almost unbearable tension.
Krysty stepped to the bar and bent in front of it, her tumbling hair hiding the weights for a moment. She gripped the bar with both hands and then straightened, hefting it above her head in a single, flowing motion.
Ryan's jaw dropped. He'd seen some amazing sights before, but nothing to compare with the way the three-hundred-pound set of weights floatedup. There was no other word for it. Nor did the girl show any strain now that the deed was done. She held it above her head, her eyes half-open, her mouth sagging, a thread of spittle hanging from the corner of her lips, almost as if she'd fallen into a trance.