Page 6 of Prima
He takes another step toward the stern. The ridged musculature of his midsection, the way his loose-fitting trousers hang dangerously low across his narrow hips—she’s never thought of herself as particularly lascivious but she is suddenly keen to run her fingertips along his waistband.
“If you’re not a mermaid,” he says with deadpan severity, “then you’re an unauthorized trespasser in Dawani waters.”
She gathers her hair to twist it into a knot atop her head. “Now I am, maybe. But when you started following me we were more than twenty klicks south of Dawan, in Risshva.”
His boat didn’t figure into the shadowing until they were inside Dawani waters. Which indicates that the boy is either a Risshvai agent with backers inside Dawan, or a Dawani agent up to no good in Risshva who picked up her trail and decided to see what she was up to.
He glances down again—her arms, in elevating to restyle her hair, have also lifted her breasts until her nipples are barely concealed.
“I have not followed you; I’m on my patrol route.”
She glances at the multihull craft, which is unlike any patrol boats she’s ever seen—with its sails down, it resembles a dragonfly, its two much smaller stabilizing floats attached to the central hull by winglike beams. But the confidence he exudes—she’s beginning to think that he must be Dawani and that he might, in fact, have some connection to Dawan’s naval forces, or at least its coastal watch. Which is unfortunate: It would be easier for her to negotiate with a Risshvai agent, a fellow trespasser, than someone who could have her arrested.
At least the way he looks at her is not that of a man with the law on his mind.
She smiles again. “Will you hand me to the authorities if I board your vessel?”
“Of course,” he says. “There are usually bounties on fugitives.”
“I’m not a fugitive, either.”
“In which case you must be a madwoman. Madwomen are also not allowed in Dawani territorial waters.”
She bursts out laughing.
He points the harpoon’s deadly end blade directly at her. “This is your official warning to depart Dawan.”
She is not alarmed: That isn’t how one launches a harpoon. But the gesture does emphasize the perfectly cut muscles of his arm. She rubs a thumb across her lower lip. “What’s your name, o conscientious guardian of the integrity of Dawani territorial waters?”
He switches his handhold on the shaft of the harpoon and pulls it back—thatishow one launches a harpoon. Instantly she dives under and does not stop until she reaches a depth of twenty-five meters. The next time she surfaces, she’s more than a kilometer away. She glances back toward the patrol boat, laughs again, and shakes her head, a strange but pleasurable unrest in her heart.
* * *
The next night, the moon is an even fainter sliver. The stars burn from horizon to horizon.
The girl gazes up. She’s not one to be nostalgic for life before the End, except in one respect: The greater universe is more out of reach than ever. Had people back then managed to accelerate a gram-scale probe to 1% of the speed of light, that tiny spacecraft would have reached Proxima Centauri hundreds of years ago. Yet Earthlings know little more of the cosmos now than they did at the dawn of the millennium, and what new insights they did gain were thanks to the space telescopes in stable orbits at L4 and L5 that lasted miraculous centuries, instead of the decades they were originally designed to serve.
But it is not the saddest thing not to reach the stars. If she can live a worthy life, if she?—
She groans and turns over onto her stomach. It’s so hot.
Objectively, it’s been growing cooler as she heads away from the equator. But tonight she is unable to sleep, meditate, or even remain still for long.
She yanks off her dress. She shouldn’t have fallen for the boy’s feint. Not that it was wrong to be cautious, but she should have stayed where she was to see what he’d do next when his upgraded threat still failed to remove her.
Today all day they played the same game: He remained invisible; she leaped into the water an absurd number of times to make sure that he was still there, just beyond the horizon. After sunset she was tempted nearly beyond endurance to swim up to his boat again. Only her desire not to appear too predictable restrained her in the end.
So here she is, suffering from the lack of stimulation that resulted from her stupidly sensible decision.
She drops a hand overboard—immersing her whole body makes it easier to detect underwater movements, but any contact is better than nothing. A moment later she jerks upright. Two creatures are coming toward her, one much more sizable than the other. The boy and his orca?
She needs to get in the water right away to be sure.
But if itishim, and he senses her motion and realizes that she knows he’s coming, how will she be able to pretend, when he gets here, that she’s asleep and has no idea that she has a gentleman caller?
She agonizes for a full five seconds before she slips off the raft. Safety first. And if he has half a brain, he’ll pretend that he doesn’t know she’s pretending.
Itishim. Or rather, the larger creature is his companion orca, whose motion she now recognizes easily. This is the first time she’s had the chance to observe the boy underwater. He is a blazingly fast swimmer. She luxuriates in the elegance and power of his movement, until she must clamber back onto her raft or risk being caught in the water, waiting for him.
