his arms, her silver hair floating out over the dull glassy sheen of the water. He treaded easily, looking about. They could see a few hundred metres but beyond that narrow radius, the cloud blankets became an impenetrable fog. Patches of seaweed, lichen and rotting debris floated silently by on the torpid water, giving off a phosphorescent glow that reflected weirdly against the backdrop of mist.

Nature seemed to have stopped breathing. The air was heavy, oppressive. And the high humidity and heat, unrelieved by any wind, was weighty and pressed on them.

"Can you swim?" he asked.

"Quite well." Her hands were on his shoulders. They clung a moment, then shoved away.

Treading water now as easily as he, she asked, "How long do you give us to live? Not that it matters."

"The future is a mystery to me," he said. "Maybe a second. Maybe a hundred years."

"But you'll admit we've no chance now! Soon hordes of sea monsters will scent us out. Surely you'll not deny that this time you will go to meet your barbaric gods!"

"Who knows?"

She cursed him thoroughly. "You're mad!"

"I am Moljar."

She sighed resignedly. "You say that like omnipotence would say, 'I'm God'."

"It is enough for me. Who can say they know of more than themselves? I simply know I am Moljar. I live. I have purpose. The pelt of Alhone. A pledge I must keep. Beyond that—nothing."

She tossed wet hair from her eyes. "Maybe your barbaric code is best after all. The System's returned to barbarism. Decay, ruin. Why not a philosophy to fit it? I rather like you. If you only weren't a half-breed."

He grinned. "If you only were not a mutant." His eyes caught a dark, flat floating object some distance away. A blurred, indistinct outline. He pointed.

"Looks like something large enough to float us," she said. Then she cried out suddenly and pointed over his shoulder.

His knife was in his hands as his legs churned him around in the brackish water. The sea-serpent's flat head arched high above them, dripping an avalanche of weed and water upon their upturned faces. Its sleek, sinuous body shot upward, a monster with fanged 

 Prev. P 11/28 next