“Previous engage. . . play. . . ! But I want to sleep!” she protested; then in more reasonable tones, “You can’t. . . I mean, where would we go, what would we do? The place is a wreck. Would I have to change?”
“The recreation level is still there,” Conway said, “and you look fine.” The regulation nurses uniform of blue, tight-fitting tunic and slacks- very tight-fitting so as to ease the problem of climbing in and out of protective suits-flattered Murchison, but she looked worn out. As she unhooked the broad white belt and instrument pouches and removed her cap and hairnet Conway growled deep in his throat, and immediately burst into a fit of coughing because it was still tender from making e-t noises.
Murchison laughed, shaking out her hair and rubbing her cheeks to put some color into them. She said brightly, “Promise you won’t keep me out too late ?”
On the way to the recreation level it was difficult not to talk shop. Many sections of the hospital had lost pressure so that in the habitable levels overcrowding was severe-there was scarcely an air-filled corridor which was not also filled with casualties. And this was a situation which none of them had foreseen. They had not expected the enemy to use limited warfare on them. Had atomic weapons been used there would not have been any overcrowding, or, possibly, any hospital. Most of the time Conway was not listening to Murchison, but she didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps because she wasn’t listening to him.
The recreation level was the same in detail as they remembered it, but the details had been dramatically changed around. With the hospital’s center of gravity being above the recreation level what little attraction there was upward, and all the loose material normally on the ground or in the bay had collected against the roof, where it made a translucent chaos of sand-veined water, air-pockets and trailing watery globes through which the submerged sun shone a deep, rich purple.
“Oh, this is nice!” said Murchison. “And restful, sort of.”
The lighting gave her skin a warm, dusky coloration that was wholly indescribable, Conway thought, but nice. Her lips-soft purple, verging on black-were parted slightly to reveal teeth which seemed almost iridescent, and her eyes were large and mysterious and glowing.
“The word,” he said, “is romantic.”
They launched themselves gently into the vast room in the direction of the restaurant. Below them the tree tops drifted past and they ran through a wisp of fog-cooling steam produced by the warm, underwater sun which beaded their faces and arms with moisture. Conway caught her hand and held it gently, but their velocities were not exactly matching and they began to spin around their center of gravity. Conway bent his elbow slowly, drawing her toward him, and their rate of spin increased. Then he slid his other arm around her waist and pulled her closer still.
She started to protest and then suddenly, gloriously, she was kissing him and clinging to him as fiercely as he was to her, and the empty bay, cliffs, and purple, watery sky was whirling madly around them.
In a calm, impersonal corner of his mind Conway thought that his head would have been spinning anyway even if his body hadn’t, it was that sort of kiss. Then they spun gently into the cliff-top at the other side of the bay and broke apart, laughing.
They used the artificial greenery to pull themselves toward the onetime restaurant. It was dim inside, and during its slow fall ceiling ward a lot of water had collected under the transparent roof and on the undersides of the table canopies. Like some fragile, alien fruit it hung in clusters which stirred gently at their passage or burst into hundreds of tiny silvery globes when they blundered against a table. With the low ceiling and dim light it was difficult to keep from knocking into things and soon the globes were all around them, seeming to crowd in, throwing back a hundred tiny, distorted reflections of Murchison and himself. It was like an alien dream world, Conway thought; and it was a wish-fulfillment dream. The dark, lovely shape of Murchison drifting beside him left no doubt about that.