«This is marvelous. I haven't been in the water since I got back from the south of France. I think I must be part mermaid. I love the water so.»

Blade, also treading water, kept his distance. He frowned. «I much prefer that you remain Diana. From the pictures I have seen of mermaids there seems to be an essential~part missing. And no merman ever shouted, `vfve la difference.' In fact I have always felt sorry for mermen-they must get some very nasty shocks'.»

She moved a little closer to him. Her eyes widened and she caught her lower lip in her teeth. «You know, Hercules, there is something about you, At first I thought you were just a big beautiful muscle-bound oaf, but I was wrong about that.»

«Hercules,» Blade said smugly, «was always underrated.»

«Be serious for a minute. I almost wish we weren't playing the game. So we could tell our real names andand maybe see each other again sometime.»

«The times are out of joint,» he said. Tomorrow he'd go through the computer into Dimension X. The future, his private future, consisted of the hours between this moment and the time he sat down in the chair in Lord L's laboratory. Beyond that there were no certainties. That he had always come back meant nothing. The time would come when he, or, if his luck held, another man in his place would not come back.

Diana moved a bit closer. «What does that mean? The times are out of joint? Don't you, wouldn't you, want to see me again? If we could, I mean?»

Blade smiled at her. Stop the glooming. Helll He had come back six times. He would come back this time.

«Hercules' mother raised no fools,» he told her. «And it is only a game, you know. Shall we stop playing it and get to know each other?»

For a moment he was certain she would agree. The look in her eyes, colored a darker green and warmed by the sapphire water, told him that. Then she shook her head. «No. We can't: I was just thinking crazy for a momenf. We're still playing the game.»

Blade was put out. He ached for her. «Then let's get on with it.» He was gruff. «That bird and bottle is still waiting at my cottage.»

Again she shook her head. «I think not. I've changed my mind about that.»

Blade scowled, not altogether in jest. «I never read that Diana was a tease.»

She laughed, eyes green slits, and splashed at him. «Oh, but she wasl She was a terrible woman, in many ways. Cruel, when she wanted to be. When she was angry, Didn't she change some poor man into a stag and have her dogs tear him to pieces? Just because he watched her bathing?»

«I don't know.» He sounded sulky, and was. The whole bit was becoming jejune. She was putting him on, this strange little bitch from nowhere, and he had been cooperating all too readily in making a fool of himself.

She moved closer. «Hercules is losing his temper,» she gibed. «We don't want that. I suppose I had better relax the rules a bit.»

Her body was against his. She put her arms about his neck and her mouth close to his ear. Her breasts, buoyant in the sea water, flattened against his chest.

She whispered in his ear. «Hercules may kiss Diana if he wishes»

«He wishes.»

They clung together, half-floating, half-treading water, their mouths together. «Let's swim out a little farther. There might be someone watching from the cliffs.»

Blade saw no point in this, but did not demur. At the moment he could not have cared less about peepers. His massive body was crammed with lust for her. He towed her along, feeling her sleek wet thighs against his, caressing her sleek tan hide, watching her rosebud nipples turn into pink needles. He swam out another hundred yards, then a hundred more. Neither was in the least winded or tired. She might, he thought, be nearly as good in the water as he was. Blade could swim twenty miles without breathing hard.

«This is far enough,» she breathed. They kissed. She put her hand down into his breech cloth. «Hercules,» she murmured. «Hercules indeed.»

Still holding him in a firm grip, squeezing and stroking, she arched her back and bowed a little away from him. Mischief danced in the narrowed green eyes and in the little smile.

«People have told me that this is impossible. You know-that you can't really do anything underwater.»

He was finished with nonsense. He tugged at the black pants. He said, «People tell you anything. Now, Diana, will you please shut upl»

«You shut me up. Fill me up.»

He closed her lips with his own and she stopped his mouth with her tongue. She kept her eyes tightly closed as she twisted and helped him strip off her pants.

«Don't lose them. I-«

«Be quiet. Too late, anyway. They're gone.»

«I don't care. To hell with them. Where are you, darling?»

Blade thrust stongly between her welcoming thighs. Her hand found and guided him. «Oh, yes. Yes. I thought I had misplaced you. Oh, yes. There. Just there.»

Without taking her mouth from his she gave a little leap and pinioned his waist in her long thighs. Blade slid easily, deeply, into that moist undersea cavern. She locked her ankles behind him, squeezing and tugging with amazing strength. After a moment she bit his ear and whispered, «I want every bit of you. Every bit!»

A minute passed in which they did not speak. Their bodies spoke, and her sighs and Blade's breathing, but no Words came.

Then she said: «I hope you can tread water for both of us, my love. I shan't be much help. Oh, dear God!»

Blade, frantically exploring the long and narrow grotto that clasped him, that was at once victor and captive, longing to surrender, to be subjected, felt himself near to climax.

As was she. She murmured in his ear. «I shan't be long. Not long.»

He somehow managed the words, «Breathe deep,» barely coherent above the tortured rasp of his breathing. She nodded and clung to him in a fast-rushing last frenzy. They sank beneath the pale blue water.

Downward. Slowly. Turning and twisting and drifting. Through liquid luminescence into growing darkness. Her eyes were closed, her hair a trail of brown kelp, her nose and mouth pinched shut and pressed close to Blade's face. Down and down, both shuddering, convulsing, two intertwined coral statues, two drowned and yet living things. And then not two creatures, but one. Fused. Welded. Sharing the volcanic experience.

The floated upward in gentleness, limbs locked. They surfaced and saw the sun with surprise. Nothing had changed. Eternity had lasted less than a minute.

For a minute or two they floated lazily side by side, silent, each content and harboring secret thoughts that would remain secret. Blade held her hand, small and cold, and at last said, «There is always the killjoy, the practical character, who must drag the balloon down to earth; I guess I'm elected. We are.in something of a pickle, Diana. We have lost your pants.»

Somehow he had expected her to laugh. When she did not, when she said nothing, he swirled in the water to see her face better. She was regarding him with languor, her misty eyes still remembering ecstasy. Blade put his cheek against one of her breasts. She stroked his sleek damp head, but after a moment pulled away from him.

«No matter,» she said. «I still have my frock. And my car is.parked in a lane near the cliffs. I'll be all right.»

Blade saw a solution. «I'll go in first and bring your frock out to you. I don't suppose water will ruin it?»

She did smile then, and traced her fingers over his face. «No. I have hundreds of frocks. You're making too much of it. There is something else-l must go. Now. This instant.»

He was not surprised. Had been half expecting it. He glanced at the beach. They were at least a quarter of a mile out.

She read his look «I'll be fine. The distance is nothing.

You you won't try to follow me? To find out who I am-or anything?»