“Wow!” she cried again in triumph. “Sand we can use as an abrasive just don’t rub too hard,” she shouted at him through torrent and thunder.
They scrubbed themselves and each other, occasionally half-choked by the water as it streamed out of the heavens and bathed them. Except for his lingering feeling that it was ridiculous to be jumping about in a rain storm on a cliff to get clean, Kai would have thoroughly enjoyed the improvisation. There was some truth in Varian’s accusation that he had been sheltered in ship life.
Before the mutiny, he had not been so exposed to elemental Ireta. There’d always been the sled or the compound and the safety of the force screen. Today he was naked before the onslaught of a violent phenomenon on a primitive planet.
“Unless we’ve slept through a magnetic field slip,” Varian yelled at him, the sun ought to be out soon. Our overalls will dry in zero elapsed! I hope before we fry in our bare skins.”
She was giving her suit one last rinsing when the shower passed, and the sun streamed through the cloud cover. Wringing their suits, they flapped them out as they splashed back toward the thick forest verge. They laid the suits out on the vines, just beyond the shade.
“Oh, I feel much better, Kai, much better,” Varian said. She squeezed water from her hair and stroked it from her body with her hands. Then she reached up to her hair again. “You know, I think it’s longer. If we only knew the rate of growth of hair during cryogenic sleep,” she said, examining a lock carefully. “Well …” She shook her head again, droplets falling on him as she turned, head back and eyes closed against the brilliant sunlight.
“We can’t tolerate that sun long, girl,” he said as he guided her into the shade.
She caught at his hand, her fingers moving to his wrist, prodding the site of the break.
“Even that fracture isn’t telling any tales. If you’d been an animal patient, I’d say the break was old enough for the extra calcium to have been reabsorbed.” Suddenly her face looked bleak in the filtered light of the sun Arretan. “Kai, haven’t we got something to gauge time against?”
He put both arms about her and held her tightly against him, kissing her cheek and stroking the wet spikes of her hair.
“We’re alive, Varian, and we survived a mutiny. Help, however uncommunicative, has arrived.
Meanwhile …”
He gathered her against him positioning his hips against her pelvic bones, making his hands gentle in caress. She responded with soft movements of encouragement. Her kisses were sweet and Kai began to wonder why nothing was happening to certain reflexes. He wasn’t surprised, or offended, when he felt her shoulders begin to shake with amusement.
“Bones have healed,” Varian said in what was almost a wail against his cheek, “muscles are great, but why aren’t we in complete working order? We’re only ancient objectively, not subjectively!”
Her utter dismay announced in laughter made Kai hug her more tightly, half in apology, half to steady himself because he, too, had to laugh at their situation.
“If you only knew how often I’ve wanted you all alone to myself, young woman …”
“Oh, Kai, I do know. I’ve felt the same way. It’s bloody frustrating … Ooooh, that wind is mean!” She reached hurriedly for her blanket to wrap around them. The vegetation had sharp edges 13
Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors which the wind lashed against their bare skins. “And we’d better turn our clothes over. I think they’re done on that side.”
She darted out but instead of just turning the clothing, she gave each a quick snap and returned with them, handing Kai his.
“If we don’t wear ’em, something else’ll crawl inside,” she said, giving a little shudder at the tiny insects she had just shaken out of their suits.
As Kai inserted a leg into a damp trouser, he muttered about the durability of the wrong things.
“Let’s start foraging, Kai. And I’d like to secure our vines to the cliff top some way. Ah, what do I spy here?”