The night sky of Acquatainia was a blaze of stars twinkling, shimmering, dazzling so brightly that there was no real darkness in the city, only a silvery twilight brighter than full moonlight on Earth.
Hector sat at the controls of the skimmer and raced it down the river that cut through the city, heading toward the harbor and the open ocean. He could smeU the salt air already. He glanced across the skimmer’s tiny cockpit at Geri, sitting in the swivel seat beside him and hunched slightly forward to keep the spray off her face. The sight of her almost made it impossible for him to concentrate on steering the high-speed skimmer.
He snaked the little vessel through the other pleasure boats on the river, trailing a plume of slightly luminous sprayOut in the harbor there were huge freighters anchored massively in the main channel. Hector ran the skimmer over to shallower water, between the channel and the docks, as Geri stared up at the vast ocean-going ships.
Finally they were out on the deep swells of the seaHector cut the engine and the skimmer slowed, dug its prow into an oncoming billow, and settled its hull in the water.
“The rocking isn’t going to . . . uh, bother you, is it?” he asked, turning to Geri.
Shaking her head, she said, “Oh no, I love it here on the sea.” Now that they were resting easily on the water, Geri reached up and unpinned her hair. It fell around her shoulders with a softness that made Hector quiver.
“The cooker should be finished by now,” she said. “Are you hungry?”