Farr tried to find something to say.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the girl. Her face was broad, intelligent, vividly alive, her perfect nostrils shining. She was still breathing deeply after her exertions, and her chest and shoulders were rising and falling smoothly. The capillary pores across her chest and between her small breasts were wide and dark.

Cris was staring at him strangely, and Ray was watching him, interested, amused. He had to find something to say. “It’s okay. Parz is fine. Interesting.” Interesting. What a stupid thing to say. His voice sounded booming and uncontrolled, and he was aware of his bulky, overmuscled body, his hands huge and useless at his side.

She let herself drift a little closer to him. He tried to keep his eyes on her face. Her nakedness was spectacular. But that didn’t make sense; the Human Beings had always gone naked, save for occasional toolbelts or ponchos, so why should he be so disturbed now? He must have become accustomed to bodies hidden by City clothes, like the light coveralls he and Cris were wearing; Ray’s sudden nudity by contrast was impossible to ignore. Yes, that must be it…

But now he felt a deep warmth in his lower belly. Oh, blood of the Xeelee, help me. Like an independent creature — utterly without his volition — his penis was trying to push out of its cache. He leaned forward, hoping that folds in the cloth of his coveralls would hide him. But the girl’s eyes were wide and appraising, and he could see a smile forming on her small mouth. She knew. She knew all about him.

” ‘Interesting,’ ” she repeated. “Maybe, if you haven’t had to grow up in it.”

“We saw you practicing,” Cris said. “You’re looking good.”

“Thanks.” She looked at Cris awkwardly. “I’ve been selected for the Games. Had you heard that?”

“Already?” Farr could see envy battling with affection for the girl on Cris’s face. “No, I — I mean, I’m pleased for you. Really, I am.”

She brushed Cris’s shoulder with her fingertips. “I know. And it’s not too late for you.” She took her board from the net. “Come on, let’s practice.”

Cris glanced at Farr. “Yes, soon. But first…” He held out his board to Farr. “Would you like to try it?”

Farr took the board hesitantly. He ran the palm of his hand across its surface. The wood was more finely worked than any object he’d ever held, and the inlaid strips of Corestuff were cold and smooth. “Don’t you mind?”

Cris laughed easily. “As long as you bring it back whole, no. Go with Ray — she’s a better Surfer than me, and a better teacher. I’ll wait here until you’re done.”

Farr looked at Ray. She smiled at him. “Come on, it’ll be fun.” She took the board from him — her fingers brushed the back of his hand, lightly, sending a thrill through him which caused his penis to stir again — and laid the board along the Magfield, flat. She patted its surface with its crisscross inlay of Corestuff strips. “Surfing’s easy. It’s just like Waving, but with your feet and your board instead of your legs. All you have to remember is to keep contact with your board, to keep pushing against the Magfield…”

With Ray’s help, and Cris’s, Farr clambered onto the board and learned how to rock it with his toes and heels. At first it seemed impossible — he kept kicking the board away, clumsily — and he was aware of the eyes of Ray on every galumphing movement. But each time he fell away he retrieved the board and climbed back on.

Then, suddenly, he had it. The secret was not strength, really, but gentleness, suppleness, a sensitivity to the soft resistance of the Magfield. It was enough to rock the board steadily and evenly across the Magfield flux paths, to keep the pressure of his feet less than the counterpressure of the Magfield so that the board stayed attached to the soles of his bare feet. When a downstroke with one foot was completed, he bent his legs slowly and pushed the other end of the board down in its turn. Gradually he learned to build up the tempo of this rocking motion, and wisps of electron gas curled about his toes as induced current began to flow in the Corestuff inlays.

The board — Waving just as the girl had said — carried him gracefully, effortlessly across the flux lines.

He learned to slow, to turn, to accelerate. He learned when to stop rocking the board, simply to allow his momentum to carry him arcing across the Magfield.

He had no idea how long it took him to learn the basics of Surfing. He was only peripherally aware of Cris’s continuing patience, and he even forgot, for quite long periods, the nearness of Ray’s bare, lithe body. He sailed across the sky. It was, he thought, like learning to Wave for the first time. The board felt natural beneath his feet, as if it had always been there, and he suspected that a small, inner part of him — no matter what he did or where he went — would always cling to the memory of this experience, utterly addicted.

Ray swooped down before him, inverted and with hands on bare hips. “All right,” she said. “You’ve got the basics. Now let’s really Surf. Come on!”

High over the Pole, Farr surged along the corridors of light marked out by hexagonal arrays of vortex lines. The lines surged past him with immense, unimaginable speed. The soft bodies of floating spin-spider eggs padded at his face and legs as he flew, and the Air brushed at his cheeks, the tiny viscosity of its non-superfluid component resisting him feebly. The Quantum Sea was a purple floor far below him, delimiting the yellow Air; and the City was a vast, complex block of wood and light, hanging over the Pole, huge yet dwarfed by the Mantlescape.

Ahead of him the girl Ray looped around vortex lines with unconscious skill, electron light shimmering from her calves and buttocks.

His face was stretched into a fierce grin. He knew the grin was there, he knew Ray must be able to see it, and yet he couldn’t keep it from his face. Surfing was glorious. His head rattled with the elements of complex, unrealistic schemes by which he might acquire his own board, join this odd, irregular little troupe of Skin-based Surfers, maybe even enter some future Games himself.

Ray turned and swept close to him. “You’re doing fine,” she shouted.

“I still feel as if I might fall off any moment.”

She laughed. “But you’re strong. That makes up for a lot. Come on. Try a spiral.”

She showed him how to angle his body back and push the board across the Magfield, so that he moved in slow, uneven, sweeping curves around a vortex line. Still he was hurtling forward through the sky, but now the huge panorama wheeled steadily around him. He stared down at his body, at the board; blue highlights from the corridors of vortex lines and the soft purple glow of the Sea cast complex shadows across his board.

He pushed at the Air harder, trying like Ray to tighten his spirals around the vortex lines. This was the most difficult maneuver he’d attempted, and he was forced to concentrate, to think about each motion of his arms and legs.

His foot slipped on the board’s ridges. He stumbled through the Air, upward toward the vortex line at the axis of his spiral. The board fell away from his feet. As he came within a mansheight of the vortex line he felt the Air thicken, drag at his chest and limbs. He was picked up and hurled around the vortex singularity, and sent tumbling away into the Air.

He rolled on his back and kicked easily at the Air, Waving himself to a stop. He lay against the soft resistance of the Magfield, laughing softly, his chest dragging at the Air.

Ray came slithering across the Magfield on her board; she carried Cris’s board under her arm. “I bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried.”

He took the board from her. “I guess I should take this back to Cris. He’s been very patient.”