Harle finally managed to gasp, “You’re a builder.”
“Fuck you say,” Stryker retorted in knee-jerk response, alarm zinging through him.
“S’right, fuck I say,” Harle said and burst into another gale of laughter, holding his sides and sliding down the wall.
Stryker watched him for a long moment then muttered something derogatory under his breath before making his careful way across the floor to the bottle of alcohol. Gingerly, he pushed it far out of Harle’s reach. “I’m cuttin’ you off, man.” That was apparently the funniest thing Stryker had ever said. “Get a grip. You’re gigglin’ like a girl,” he complained, sliding down the wall to sit some distance from the victim of alcohol poisoning.
Harle hiccupped and managed to stop snickering, his cheek pressed against the stone floor of the observatory. He gave Stryker a smooshed grin and said, “You’re a builder. Don’t gimme that kill-you look, either. I took you on the tour, ‘member? I watched you look at supports, joists, and struts. You eyeballed layouts and materials and poked your head in closets, for shit’s sake. At first, I thought you were casing, scopin’ for a smash and grab, but you never even looked at the stuff. Then we got up top the house, you looked down, and I swear you came in your pants. You had drool on your face. I had t’damn near crack you on the head to get you to come down outta orbit.”
Stryker tried to glare him down, but Harle just grinned so he looked away. “Does Nade know her mate’s a head case?”
“Sure. S’why she likes me so much.” Harle began the arduous task of pushing himself upright. It took a while, but Stryker didn’t help. When the big man was more or less seated against the wall again, he sighed in drunken contentment. “You hurt her. Maybe you scare her. You can try flowers and chocolate. Or—you can try that,” the big man said, gesturing at the playground.
Stryker turned slowly to stare out at the playground, the idea exploding like a sunburst in his head. You can try that. Maybe it was just a damn drunken fantasy, but he could see it, could see how the pieces fit, how it might look as a finished design, how Keza would look dancing with her selkies in and around something he’d created for her. He took a shaky breath and let it out slowly, muttering, “You’re just drunk.”
“Yeah, and so am I,” Harle snorted, proving he knew exactly who Stryker had been talking to. “What d’you got to lose?”
“My sanity,” he said without conviction. Turning his head, he met Harle’s heavy-lidded gaze. “I don’t even know how to fuckin’ swim.”
Apparently, this was the second funniest thing Stryker had ever said. After a few minutes, Stryker started thinking it was, too.
The hangover on the other hand was not so funny. Even worse, it wasn’t a morning-after, but a later-that-afternoon. They dragged themselves to the courtyard for dinner, but neither had much appetite beyond hunks of bread and ginger-water. Harle tried a bite of soup then had to excuse himself in a hurry, his face tinged green. Stryker had the good sense to push the soup far away. He was flat miserable, but he wasn’t too hung over to notice that neither the Mater nor her children were present. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.
A young kitchen assistant hurried by with an aromatic dish and Stryker’s stomach lurched in a horrible way that made him groan under his breath. That was enough masochism for one day. Deciding not to wait for Harle’s return, he left the courtyard and headed into the main house, trying to find the small room he’d been given. He hadn’t seen it last night—most of the night he’d brooded in the library until Keza had paid him a visit and rocked his world. Remembering her short nightshirt made him groan again with sick lust. That was bad—she could make him hard even when he was hung over.
He found the little Spartan room, kicked his shoes off, and gingerly reclined on the bed. When his body settled into a kind of low-grade, grumbling sulk, he sighed, relaxed, and fell deeply asleep.
Chapter 13
Stryker woke up clear-eyed, hungry, and obsessed.
After a shower and change of clothes to get the alcohol stink off, he strode with purpose to the kitchens which were empty in the pre-dawn gloom. He scrounged the cooling units until he found some fruit, rolls, and a drink. Munching on his bounty, he stalked through the halls to the stairway leading to the grotto. At the top he hesitated, wondering if he’d already lost his mind. Then the obsession struck again and he plunged down into darkness.
The lights were still on in the underwater grotto. He paced along the clear barrier, muttering to himself while he finished his makeshift meal and studied the playground. Then he raised his voice and said, “House? You open for business down here?” There was a faint chime that he took to be an affirmative. “I need design prints for the selkie playground, architectural, structural, whatever you got.”
An image materialized against one wall, and he squinted at it. “Brighter.” The house system obliged. He studied the image, a design print and specs of the playground. “Okay, I need an interactive holo of that.” A slightly transparent replica of the playground appeared in the air just in front of the clear barrier and Stryker made a gratified sound in his throat. “Perfect,” he muttered.
Then he went to work. He moved pieces as he’d seen them in his dreams, shifting, stacking, bracing, and it all seemed to fall into place just as he’d imagined. But when he tried to expand on what was already there, he ran into trouble after trouble. Finally, he snarled a curse and stepped back from the display. “Save that under Stryker One and close it down,” he told the system.
The problem wasn’t his design ideas. The problem was his lack of knowledge about the materials they’d used and about how water affected constructs. He needed to put his hands on what was already there. He needed to get in the water.
Stryker turned and bounded back up the stairs. The kitchen was just starting to come alive and when he asked nicely a young girl with a shy smile warmed up a sweet roll for him. Wolfing down his prize, he marched through the main house until he reached Nade and Harle’s suite of rooms. He pounded on the door, waiting impatiently until a blond head poked out. Nade looked fuzzy and cute when she squinted like that.
“Chase?”
“Yeah, I need to borrow your mate for a second.”
“M’kay,” she mumbled, disappearing into the interior. A moment later, Harle poked his head out, but he didn’t look nearly as cute when he squinted.
“Chase?”
“Yeah,” he said again wryly. “Where are the diving suits?”
“The…what?”
“Diving suits. Wetsuits. The things you put on when you’re going under water.”
Harle blinked at him for a long moment until his brain seemed to catch up with his vertical body. “You’re really gonna do it, aren’t you?”
“Do you know where they are or not?” Stryker asked with barely restrained impatience.
“Yeah, but I tell you and you’ll just be back here in five askin’ how to put it on. Gimme a sec.”
Harle disappeared and Stryker paced. He couldn’t seem to get the images out of his head, the lines and angles, the possibilities. He needed to get in the water and see if any of it would work. Harle appeared a moment later wearing loose-fitting clothing and bare feet. The big man led him back to the stone staircase and to the grotto then took Stryker through a passage leading to the beach. On that side, there was a recessed entryway into restrooms, changing areas, and storage.
Getting changed into a wetsuit was an experience. Standing there in the skin-hugging material, he thought he should feel uncomfortable or strange, but the thing actually felt natural. He bounced on his heels and shrugged his shoulders once, but the suit still seemed to settle against him like it had always been made to do so.
“Feel weird?” Harle asked, watching him with a critical eye.
“Nope.”
“Good. How long you gonna be in?”
“Long as it takes.”
“You’ll need these, then.” Harle handed him a hood and bootie
s, donning the same articles himself.
“You coming in with me?”
“First time dive? Hell, yes. Only an expert should dive alone and only in shallow water. You can’t even swim,” Harle gave him a look of mild contempt.
Stryker couldn’t resist. “How’s your head?”
Harle scowled. “Fine.”
“Stomach?”
“Just move your ass.”
Standing at the edge of the grotto’s stone ledge, Harle gave him terse instructions on the use of the air tube and the basics of swimming. His movements would pump water in and across the fabric of the suit, which would convert the fluid into breathable oxygen for him. Since breathing pure oxygen was a no-no, there were small reserves of other necessary gases in the suit, but it wasn’t made for extended use underwater. He needed to resurface every few minutes for the suit to rejuvenate its supplies.
“What’s the damned use, then?” he asked impatiently.
Harle sighed. “It’s a play suit, not a long-dive suit.”
Stryker turned towards the passage again. “Then let’s get me a long-dive one instead.”
Harle caught him by the shoulder and steered him back to the edge of the ledge. “Not on your first time. For getting in the water, you might wanna lower yourself—”
Stryker gave him a look, pulled his goggles on, clamped his mouth around the tube, and stepped off the ledge. He expected to sink and that’s what he did. What he didn’t expect was for the water to go up his nose and sting like blue bloody blazes. He flailed, trying to reach the surface, but the water seemed to be working against him. After a moment, he felt Harle grab hold and hoist him topside.
“You got more balls than brains,” Harle commented mildly, but Stryker was too busy clearing his nose and gasping air to listen. “Kick your legs. Put your arms out and move ‘em like this. That’s it.”
When his nose finally stopped stinging as if a thousand bees had set up camp in there, Stryker found himself treading water. He took a moment to absorb this development then said, “You didn’t tell me the shit would go up my nose.”
“That’s ‘cause you need to breath out through your snoot, knobhead.” Harle looked more cheerful in the water, his sandy hair turned brown when wet and slicked back. “Can’t expect to get it right first time. You’re doing better than I did, though. Thrashed around like a ‘lectrocuted whale my first time, ‘til Nade dragged me to ground. She’s got pictures, the evil wench.”
Stryker’s mouth twitched with humor. “Those I gotta see.”
Hale gave him a sour look. “Sure, long as you don’t drown yourself first. Practice a minute with the tube. Remember in through the mouth out through the nose. Then stick your face in the water and see what happens.”
Stryker followed this plan, which worked pretty well. If he made sure bubbles came out of his nose, the water would cease its sly efforts to invade up in there. With his face in the water and the goggles on, he had a much clearer picture of the playground, so close and tantalizing, but he needed to conquer the water to reach it.
When he was confident that he’d mastered the breathing technique, he pushed himself awkwardly under water. Harle slipped down with him, looking much more agile than Stryker’s current movements. He watched the big man, trying to figure out how he did that so naturally. It took him a few moments, but he finally realized why he was having trouble—he was trying to move as if he was in zero-G. But unlike space, the water had substance, causing friction and torque against his movements. In space, if he pushed off a solid object he would keep going forever. Water loosened gravity’s hold, but instead of having to wait for the next solid object to break his momentum, the fluid offered him a constant force to work against.
Once he understood this, movement became easier. He still had to practice to discover how much effort it took to cleave through the substance, how much friction it would apply to his body to slow him down, and what his limitations were, but his experience with zero-G helped speed things along. He had almost reached the point when he could focus on his real goal when Harle caught his arm and tugged him to the surface.
Dropping the tube from his mouth, he snapped, “What?”
Harle grinned. “Figures you’d be a natural. Take a pause for the suit. You’re givin’ it a workout.” Harle swam to the edge of the ledge and hoisted himself out with easy power. Stryker followed, disdaining Harle’s helping hand to pull himself up on the edge. Sitting on the ledge with his feet in the water, he watched the morning sun cast golden glimmers on the rolling waves as they moved to shore.
“So what’s your plan down there, anyway?” Harle asked.
“Been working on a design, but it won’t come out like I want. I need to get my hands on what’s down there, figure out why it won’t work. Just being in the water helped—there’s torque I didn’t take into account, constant flux. I could use it though…” he finished in a mutter, staring down at the rippling water around his calves while ideas flicked through his mind with the speed of light.
Harle snorted. “Damn, when you get a bug it bites you hard. Where’s the design?”
“House system,” he answered, sending a narrow glance around the grotto. “This place wired for it?”
“Not out here, but I can get you a portable. Be right back,” Harle said, rising to his feet more nimbly than such a large man had a right to move.
“Make it IH,” Stryker called over his shoulder, waiting until Harle disappeared from sight before putting the tube back in his mouth and shoving off the edge. His second introduction to the water went much smoother and he took only a moment to adjust before arrowing toward his goal.
He inspected the objects in the playground with single-minded intensity, picking at the detritus on the outside to discover the material below, pushing and pulling at them to see how well they were attached and constructed, learning how they joined and fused together. His mind was on fire with possibilities, the potential problems like puzzle boxes he was itching to open. Harle caught up with him as he was discovering that the heavy material used to form the looping vine was hollow, which would make it lighter and more flexible.
The big man gave him a close-up view of his middle finger and yanked him toward the surface. “Jackass!” Harle snarled when they were in air. “I told you, no diving alone!”
“You bring the IH?”
Harle ran an exasperated hand down his wet face before pointing towards the ledge. “On the edge. It ain’t waterproof, so no diving with it, but it won’t mind a little damp.”
Stryker hadn’t thought of that. He gave his companion a lopsided smile. “Thanks.”
Harle rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Shit, what are friends for?” while they swam for the ledge.
Friends? With a badge? The man was nuts. Strangely, though, Stryker didn’t feel like disabusing him of the crazy-ass notion.
Reaching the stone, he found the palm-sized machine, moved it to what he judged to be the most convenient location on the ledge, and activated the interactive holographic system. When he called up the design he’d been working on that morning, Harle whistled long and low at his side. “I take it back. You ain’t a builder—you’re a damned artist.”
“Don’t piss me off. I haven’t had a real breakfast yet,” Stryker retorted.
Harle chuckled then fell silent while Stryker made a few adjustments in the design from the information he’d accumulated on his dive. So far so good.
“I don’t get it,” Harle said. “Seemed simpler the other way.”
So Stryker started explaining it to him, showing him what he had in mind and describing the problems they’d encounter to get there. By his third sentence, Harle seemed to catch the same bug that had bitten Stryker so hard. After that, he was a willing and able accomplice while they dove down to get hands-on information, then rose to the surface to apply that knowledge to the growing design.
It was on their third dive that Stryker realized they weren’t alone. He was wrenching at a chunk
of coral, trying to get it to come loose from a critical joint, when a dark shape flickered at the edge of his vision. He glanced up and saw the sinuous form of a selkie floating half-concealed behind one of the playground structures. He paused and stared at it. It stared back, its large dark eyes unblinking. When it did nothing else, he shrugged and went back to work.
A moment later, Harle gripped his arm and pointed excitedly. The selkie had two friends. Stryker gave Harle a disgusted look for the interruption and went back to work. The coral was being stubborn, resisting the wrenching efforts of his chisel, but after some determined cranking he managed to crack a chunk of it off. When he did, a dark shape appeared at his elbow. He looked around and discovered that he had an audience, sans Harle. The big man had moved several yards away, floating with a huge grin on his face and no bubbles coming out of his nose. He appeared to have stopped breathing.
Stryker considered the half dozen selkies surrounding him. They were looking from his work to his face with the curious intensity of small children. He could almost hear them asking, “Whatcha doin’?” in innocent, piping voices. One even wiggled closer to pick at the edge of the coral with a dark claw. Stryker hefted the chunk of coral he’d liberated then held it out to the creature at his elbow.
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