He actually caught himself muttering under his breath as he descended the slope, but then he hit the beach and it was so stunning that it was impossible to stay upset. It looked like a brochure photo for visiting paradise, an impossibly perfect beach with soft white sand that the resort imported at tremendous expense. That it was located in the heart of genuinely communist nation whose name was synonymous in his mind with war and horror and Agent Orange was difficult to reconcile.
Anastasia flicked her eyes lazily over in their direction as they approached, holding up one hand to shade her eyes from the sun. Alex felt a stab of pity for the girl, who had never looked more like a child than she did in her prim little slip, and he could only hope that the sun behind him prevent her from seeing it in his face.
“Hello, various boys,” Anastasia said neutrally.
“Hello yourself,” Timor said cheerily. “I’m going in the water. You wanna come, Ana?”
Anastasia sighed reluctantly and stood up.
“I suppose,” she said, following along behind him. Renton stood there, his smile frozen, while Svetlana looked up at him hopefully. Alex vacillated for a moment, before deciding that anywhere was better than with those two, pulled his shirt off and hurried after at a discreet distance.
He had some ideas about diving directly in and swimming away from everyone, buying himself a couple of minutes in the surf to compose himself, but that didn’t happen — the water was colder and rougher than the day before, and he had to time the intervals in between the small but abrupt breakers to get into the water. He was only waist deep when Emily caught up to him.
“Hey,” Emily said, wading into the water after him.
“Hey,” Alex said weakly, willing himself to keep his eyes on her face, at least as long as she was looking at him.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Emily asked, waiting for a wave, the water lapping at and channeled between her trim thighs.
“Yeah,” Alex said emphatically. “And you… you look amazing, Emily.”
She seemed genuinely happy. He wasn’t sure, because right about that time, a wave hit and she lost her footing, ending up in water up to her neck and squealing in surprise. She was pulled back by the undertow, and Alex bent and lifted her back to her feet, catching her by her waist and setting her on her feet. That left her standing close to him, and as much as he intended to open his arms and let her go, that didn’t happen.
“Hey, cut that out,” Emily said, smiling as she shrugged out of his arms. “Do you want to swim?”
“Yeah,” Alex said with relief.
Emily was a strong swimmer, much more so than himself, and after the first few minutes she slowed her pace so he could keep up. They made it past where the swells started, out at the edge of the area protected by the cove. Ahead of them, deeper blue waters ran with the current south, away to the China Sea. They stopped at the edge of the cove by unspoken agreement, treading water and looking around. Alex was doubly nervous — he had only started swimming in the ocean a few days ago, and he still wasn’t a confident swimmer. Despite the clarity of the water he couldn’t see all the way to the bottom, and in the shadows there, he wondered if there were sharks and other shark-like things.
She smiled at him, and for once, it didn’t seem to be for his benefit. It could have been that she enjoyed swimming, or because she was happy to be there, on the island. Alex rolled onto his back, floating with his face pointed up at the late-afternoon blue of the skies, bobbing along with the swells. He glanced back in the direction of the shore, and saw Timor forcing his way through the break, pulling Anastasia along behind him. He was surprised to see that she was wearing a black bikini, and that she looked better in it than he could have ever expected. Then he realized what he was staring at, and decided to dive, more out of embarrassment than anything else. He bobbed up thirty seconds later, much closer to Emily than he’d intended. He went to swim away but she caught onto the upper part of his arm.
“You’re stronger now,” she said shyly, treading water with such ease that he felt like a child, splashing about beside her. “When you first came to the Academy you were so skinny.”
“Thanks,” Alex said, suddenly afflicted with cottonmouth. “You seem like you are in a good mood, today.”
“Oh,” she said, looking away and smiling cryptically. “Maybe something good happened.”
“Okay,” Alex said, uncertainly, wondering how long he could tread water before he drowned.
“Can I ask you something?” Emily asked, looking worried.
“Sure,” Alex panted, trying to suggest with his eyes that this was a conversation that they could have on land. Emily wasn’t biting.
“Are you having fun here? At all?”
“Sure!” Alex said, working hard to keep his head above the water. “No, this is awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever left California, you know?”
“That’s good,” Emily said, not looking too happy about it. “Anastasia told me about a path up to the top of the hill, where there is a good view of the stars. I wondered if you felt like going for a walk with me tonight.”
“Uh, yeah, sure, that would be great,” Alex said, with obvious strain.
“You don’t sound too happy about it…” Emily pouted.
“No,” Alex protested, “it’s just that I’m kind of starting to drown…”
Emily laughed and Alex tried, but he had already swallowed too much water. He hoped she couldn’t tell how desperate his swim back to shore was, but by the time he made it to the shallows where he could stand, his legs were shaking beneath him. Anastasia glided by, riding along the foam of a dwindling wave, and smirked at him.
“Poor Alex,” she said cheerfully. “Always in over his head.”
21
“I don’t get it.”
“What a total surprise,” Katya said tiredly. “I am starting to get the impression that the number of things you do understand can be counted on one hand. Now tell Auntie Kat what it is you don’t get.”
“Why are you suddenly acting like you’re older than me?” Alex asked, his arm extended self-consciously in front of him, as if he were a traffic cop gesturing for the foliage in front of him to stop. “Never mind. Why do I have to hold my arm out like this? I feel stupid.”
“You need to learn to gauge distance,” Katya said, reluctantly setting her rice paper-wrapped spring roll down on the table and walking over to where Alex stood. “Depth is the hardest part of aiming a protocol. It’s not like a gun; you don’t aim in two dimensions. Everybody can get the other two axis’s down, but the last one is a bitch. With your arm out — what’s your reach, anyway?”
“I think it’s, uh, like, seventy inches or something…”
“Right, so your arm is about half the distance to the glass,” Katya said, shrugging. “Near enough. Go ahead and try your protocol out up close, to get a sense of how it works. Activate your protocol a couple inches in front of your hand. Only a little, mind you. Don’t go freezing your arm off.”
Alex grumbled, but settled into the focusing routine Michael had taught him, staring hard at the point in space where he was focusing all of his efforts.
“Is this some sort of focusing exercise?” Katya asked doubtfully. “Because you look like you are having a really hard time going to the bathroom.”
Alex ignored her. Not that it mattered. It still took him the better part of a minute to activate his protocol at the end of his hand. Then he felt pain, and he jerked his hand back reflexively, like a child from a stovetop, the tiny breach into the Ether collapsing instantly.
Katya finished the last of her spring roll while cursed and jumped, clutching his frost-burnt hand, where round, white patches were forming on the pads of skin below his fingers, that would eventually bloom into hard, yellow blisters.