Skeen's Leap Read Online Free Page B

Skeen's Leap
Book: Skeen's Leap Read Online Free
Author: Jo Clayton
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more like late afternoon than morning, time would tell about that. Her throat felt like something with lots of quills had died there; the watermusic was cruelly lovely, enticing, but she didn’t move. Nothing happened. She waited several breaths then moved a short way into the glade. There was neither dust nor moss on that shining tile. Hmm, who was the local char? Tongue between her teeth she frowned at the water, then she shrugged and walked to the fountain.
    She touched the lip-tiles with a fingertip (little finger on her left hand, her least useful digit). No burn. Nothing jumped out at her. She straightened, touched that expendable finger to the falling water. Cool. Wet. Hah! of course wet. Touched her finger to her tongue. A hint of that wild green flavor that mountain water often had. She shrugged again. If it was poison, well, it’d be a quicker death than dessication.
    After pulling off her boots, discarding toolbelt and backpack, with a joyful whoop she let herself fall back into the pool. A marvelous splash. Heavenly coolness. She pulled herself up so she could breathe, braced her head against the pipe, and lay languidly moving her hands in the crystalline water. After a moment she pushed away from the pipe, sat with her head tilted back so she could catch the falling water. She drank and drank until she was near foundering.
    The clear blue of the sky acquired a faint violet tinge as she splashed happily about, stripping off her tunic and trousers, peeling off the filthy underpants and undershirt, scrubbing at them, getting the tough translucent cloth as clean as she could without soap. There was soap in her backpack but she was caught in the grip of an immense lethargy. She didn’t want to get out of the basin. She tossed the underwear onto the grass beside the tunic and trousers and went back to paddling about in the water.
    The darkening sky brought a cool wind with it and she started to shiver. Reluctantly she pulled herself out of the basin and stood dripping, her stomach cramping a little, the grass very soft under her bare feet. She wrung out her hair (short and straight, like a cat’s fur), ran her fingers through it. Euphoria still bubbling in her blood, she kicked her clothing onto a dry patch of grass, stretched and laughed, danced wheeling about the glade, the exercise warming away the chills. She couldn’t quite believe all this was true, but peeling off those underpants brought the realness close. She stopped dancing. So did hungerpains.
    She dug a tube of hiprots out of her pack, about as tasty as eating rope, but adequate in providing energy and sustenance. After eating she got dressed again, feeling too vulnerable to stay naked though the underwear wasn’t close to dry, then she curled up in what was left of the sunlight, intending only to doze a while as her head dried. But that lingering warmth was seductive and the drain from the stimtabs overwhelmed her and she plummeted into a heavy sleep.

DAY ONE ON THE FAR SIDE OF FANTASY.
    Skeen woke stiff and sore with nausea threatening at the back of her throat. Creaky as an old board, she thought, and groaned up onto her feet. She hobbled to the fountain and eased down on the basin’s lip. Blinking slowly she wiggled her toes, pushed her feet back and forth in the dew-wet grass. Here I am. Where’s here? Good question. No good answers. She yawned, blinked some more. Where do I go from here? No answer to that either. Pick a direction. She lifted a foot, bent her leg, rested her ankle on her knee and scratched lazily at her instep and between her toes. She stopped thinking about much of anything and sat slumped, relaxed, soaking up the fine morning.
    After luxuriating in laziness a while longer, she sighed and reached for her boots.
    She moved through the mountains all morning, going up around down, up around down, until she was dizzy with it, eating more of the hiprots paste as she moved so she wouldn’t have to stop

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