Geri smiled. “Even if he is, Professor Leoh took care of him.”
“Umm.” Hector leaned back again and saw that he nd Geri had somehow moved slightly apart. He pushed over toward her.
“My foot!” Geri leaped up from the bench.
“Oh, I’m sony. Did I step on …” Hector jumped up too.
Geri was hopping on one foot in the tiny cockpit, making the skimmer rock with each bounce. Hector reached out to hold her, but she pushed him away. The effort toppled her over backward. The cockpit gunwale caught her behind the knees and she flipped backward, howhng, into the water with a good-sized splash.
Hector, appalled, never hesitated a second. He leaped right into the sea from the point where he stood, narrowly missing Geri as he hit the water, head first, arms and legs flailing.
He came up spouting, blurry-eyed, gasping. Geri was treading water beside him.
“I … I … I….”
She laughed. “It’s all right. Hector. It’s my own fault. I lost my temper when you stepped on my foot.”
“But … I … are you .. . ?”
“It’s a lovely night,” she said”As long as we’re in the water anyway, why don’t we have a swim?”
“Uh … fine, except, well, that is … I can’t swim,” Hector said, and slowly he sank under.
As he stepped from the ramp of the spaceship to the shdeway that led into the terminal building, Odal felt a strange sense of exhilaration.
He was in Acquatainia again! The warm sunlight, the bustling throngs of people, the gleaming towers of the city—he almost felt Dulaq’s sense of joy about being here. Of course, Odal told himself, it’s probably just a reaction to being free of Kor’s dreary Ministry of Intelligence. But the Kerak major had to admit to himself—as he moved toward the spaceport terminal, escorted by four of Kor’s men—that Acquatainia had a rhythm, a reshness, a sense of freedom and gaiety that he had never found on Kerak.