Part 16 (2/2)

Cora frowned at him. ”I thought that we three con- st.i.tuted all the imported help.”

”You do, but we'll be a.s.sisted by a couple of local

specialists.”

Cora was so upset she failed to notice his wink.

”What is this? Hwos.h.i.+en told us they were all tied up with other projects and didn't have any more time to devote to this problem, or that they'd exhausted their

own ideas.”

”Not these two.” He grinned at her. ”Don't worry,

Cora. They won't intrude on your work. They're com- ing along more to help me than to help you.”

More security people, she thought. Yet Hwos.h.i.+en had told them Sam would be their only escort. She looked down the gangway into the bowels of the

s.h.i.+p.

”Where are they, then?”

”Waiting for us outside the reef.” Before she could question him further, he had turned and bounded up toward the bridge.

75.

”Nice day, Ms. Xamantina.” Mereed was standing next to her.

”So far,” she replied noncommittally. ”Listen, you might as well call me Cora. We're going to be living and working in first-name proximity to each other, so we might as well identify each other the same way.”

No point in offending this man, she was thinking.

After all, he was a colleague, though of unproven abil- ity. Like it or not, she was going to be working with him.

”Sure thing . . . Cora.” He strolled over to Rachael.

Cora moved forward, away from them. If she re- mained she would overhear their conversation, some- thing she preferred to avoid.

A waking noise was coming from inside the stem.

The suprafoil slipped free of the anchorage. Once out in the lagoon, they turned to port. The waking sound became a steady, rich growl. The wind blew Cora's hair back free of her shoulders and the salt air com- menced its gentle ma.s.sage.

Raised out of the water on four foils, the Caribe was skating across the surface at sixty kilometers an hour, heading northwest. Cora walked to within a cou- ple of meters of the bow, enjoying the smooth ride while at the same time mentally decrying the wasteful- ness. They could have managed efficiently with a s.h.i.+p half the size. She had to admit, though, that having her own cabin would be nice.

The foil was traveling too fast for her to make out anything beneath the blurred surface. A small cloud of icthyomiths, their water-holding sacs fully distended, shot out of the water ahead and curved away to star- board. Following them, her gaze was intercepted by the sight of Sam standing alone up in the enclosed bridge, his huge shoulders blocking out any view of the overhead instruments, pareu rippling in the slight breeze, eyes straight ahead.

For the first time since she had touched down on

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