And again. And again.
Eventually, there was no ice above his hand to grab, and he flailed a little. Hand moved to one side. A rock projection. Rock? Such as no more waterfall?
No more waterfall.
Sten pulled himself to blessedly level ground, and rested. Then he tied off, and shouted down to Cind.
First came the packs, tied to the rope and hand-over-handed up. More wheezing. Not only getting old, but old and weak, Sten thought
Now for Cind. He waited—in spite of an impatient shout— until he'd gotten all his wind back. He wouldn't mind losing a pack, but...
Cind tied on.
"I've never done this before," she shouted.
"All the girls say that."
Cind started climbing. Naturally, Sten thought in some disgust, she's a natural. She swarmed up the waterfall as if it were liquid and she an Earth salmon in spawning season. Nor was she breathing very hard at the top.
"I didn't know you could even do that."
"All the girls say that, too."
Sten shouldered his pack. Helped Cind on with hers. They were next to a frozen pool, rocks sticking through the ice. Sten noticed the ice looked hazy the further back it got.
Just ahead of them—not more than fifty vertical feet—a cloud drifted toward them of a draw. Wonderful.
Now they'd be climbing in a fog.
Sten was wrong: the rest of the climb—a gentle walk on level ground—took only four minutes.
They moved through the draw, into a winter paradise. The draw opened into a tiny valley. Shrubs. Grass. Wildflowers.
"Well, I'll be go to hell," Sten marveled. To one side of the valley a hot spring bubbled, its water flowing across the minimeadow and joining the larger river, still hot enough to melt the ice. Pools dotted the course of the spring's flow, and they were anywhere from boiling to frigid, the farther away they were from the spring.
Sten thought it was almost worth the climb.
The steaming springs drew them—but both of them knew the unchangeable rituaclass="underline" first shelter, then fire, then food, then fun. Shelter was easy—snap three sets of shock-corded wands together, sh'de them through slots, and their tiny dome tent was up. They staked it down for security. Fire was also not a problem— their stove was a Mantis-issue item no larger than Sten's palm. But it was AM2-fueled and could run at full blast for at least a year without a recharge. Sten took it from his pack and set it near the tent, between a circle of small rocks that his small fold-up grill would sit on. Food? They skated on that one for the moment—their muscles were sorer man their bellies empty.
Or at least that was the pretext.
"Damn, but these rocks are cold."
"Of course they're cold. Get in here where it's warm."
Sten, naked, slid into the pool near Cind.
"What," she asked, "is in that bottle?"
"You will observe what appears to be a standard alloy campflask, which disgusting people who espouse clean living and good thoughts probably fill with some sort of healthy soyagunk. But some subversive clot happened to dump the organic glop, and fill it up with stregg."
Sten uncapped it, whoooed, put the cap back on, and tossed the flask to Cind.
"There are three more like it in my pack."
"Oh, boy. I brought two myself," Cind said. "So much for the clean life." She drank.
Sten eyed her lasciviously.
"They float!"
"Brilliant observation. You're only just noticing, and we've been together how long? Is that why they made you an admiral?"
"Yup."
"What a guy to go Empire-toppling with," Cind said. She rolled over and kicked against the rocky wall of the pool, sealing out into its center.
"Hey, you can almost swim out here in the middle."
"Uh-huh."
Sten had no interest in swimming. He lay on his back in shallow water, parbroilingly close to where a stream of water bubbled into the pool. Years of trouble and blood seemed to wash out of his body and mind.
"I think," he managed, "every muscle in my body just turned to rubber."
"Oh dear."
"Not quite. Come here, wiseass."
"Observant, romantic, and complimentary to boot. Well, here I am. Now what?"
"There... like that. Now. Down a little."
Cind gasped as Sten arched his body. He moved his hands up, across her breasts and moved her up, into a sitting position across his body.
And then neither of them had any words.
Dinner, somehow, never was prepared.
The only light in the world was the tiny candle hanging from the tent's ceiling, glowing through the tent's thin red-synth walls.
"I... think," Cind managed, "that I am dishrag city for the rest of the night."
"I didn't suggest anything."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Just... sort of stretching."
"Yeah. Right."
"I read someplace once that you didn't need to do any moving. That you could focus your attention, concentrate, and whambo."
"I don't believe it."
"I never lie. It was called Tantric or Tentric or something," Sten argued.
"At least you're trying it in the right place. Hey. You're moving."
"No, I'm not. You are."
"I... am not. Would you... at least slow down? Hey! If you try to put my leg up there, I'm... liable to get burnt!"
Sten blew the candle out.
Neither Cind nor Sten woke the next day until very late in the afternoon.
"How long do we wait, Mister Kilgour?"
"A min. An hour. A lifetime," Alex said with complete indifference. "Intel's noo frae th‘ impatient."
The com tech, Marl, shifted. Perhaps she was impatient, perhaps she felt a bit strange, stuffed into the gravsled's shell rear between the beefy Scotsman and an equally looming Bhor police constable. The amount of room available was further decreased with the jam of electronics.
But she didn't say anything—Alex had handpicked her as being the most likely candidate for intelligence training of all the Bennington's com crew.
Kilgour already had an extensive spookery section as part of Sten's embassy team, plus some likelies he had spotted among the Victory's crew and trained on the Altaics. But he needed more. Marl was a good candidate, he thought. Enough time in life and the service so she wasn't still a mewling infant. And built proper, not like the wisps Sten seemed to favor. Not that Kilgour would consider doing anything—romancing a subordinate under your command was about as unethical to him as, say, inviting a Campbell up to your castle for a drink. But he could look.
A box clicked. A needle swung. A screen lit. A sweep swept. The gravsled was a disguised mobile locator.
"Ah-hoo," Kilgour said in satisfaction. "See whae Ah said aboot patience? Oh whistle an‘ I'll come't' y‘, m'lad. Right on schedule."
"First lesson. I‘ y're't' be a spy, Technician, dinna be stickin't‘t' any schedule. Nae y'rs, an‘ 'specially nae y'r control's. He/she's more worried‘! aboot niakin' dinner than whether you're blown. One a‘ y'r few real weapons i' bein‘ unpredict'ble. Yon lad's signalin' away like a clockwork mouse."
Quite suddenly all the gadgetry went to respective zeros.
"Nae quick enough," Kilgour mourned. "Ah'll say third floor, back. Whae's your call, Paan?"
The policeman keyed his com, linked to a second locator. "Right."
"Ah," Kilgour said. "Jus' th‘ lad we thought. Human,'t‘ boot. Another lesson. F y're runnin' field agents, ne'er use your own people i‘ y' can recruit locals. They're nae as easy to spot."
"And," the technician-in-training said, "if they get blown, you don't lay awake as if it were one of your own."