Lawrence had spent the rest of the afternoon watching her and sipping his margarita. There was a whole gang of kids messing about around the pool, from his own age down to about seven or eight. Conference kids, he guessed, left to themselves while the adults discussed the intricacies of bridge building. He didn't join in. For one thing he wasn't so hot on socializing. Never knew what to say to a complete stranger. And then there was his body. He wasn't self-conscious, of course. But out here in the open wearing just his swim trunks he was keenly aware how much heavier he was than the other seventeen-year-old boys. Despite his height and general size, which the school's coaches were convinced would be advantageous for football and field events, he had no interest in joining any of the teams and wasting valuable i-hours by training. That lack of exercise meant that unlike the rest of his year his puppy fat hadn't burned off. It was unusual in a world where most children had been given some degree of germline v-writing to improve their general physiology, as he could see around him. It wasn't just the girl who glowed with health. Even so, she stood out: the other girls having fun in the pool were attractive, but she was stunning. He couldn't say why he found her so irresistible, exactly. She had a narrow face, with wide lips and prominent cheekbones, features that were attractive, but not outstanding. And her gray eyes were never still, always taking in the world around her with wonder. In the end he decided that was her magic—she was so full of life. Others obviously agreed with him; she had a harem of boys longer than a comet's tail following her around.
He watched silently as she splashed about in the pool. Then the group were diving and jumping in. Chasing about around the side, throwing each other in. Lobbing a ball about. Rushing over to their sun lounger to grab a quick gulp of Coke before jumping back in. All the while she was laughing and shouting.
She levered herself up out of the water directly ahead of Lawrence, lean muscles taut, water glistening over her skin. His breath grew hot as he pictured that incredible body shivering in delight while he ran his hands over her, taking as much time as he wanted. Sweet Fate, he wanted to fuck her badly. Really badly. His cock was growing hard inside his trunks. He had to hurriedly activate the bracelet pearl, optronic membranes wiping out the sight of her behind a deluge of astronomical data.
Running away would have looked odd. And he'd seen Naomi Karamann using one of the sun loungers on the other side of the bar. She was—allegedly—his father's executive assistant. Lawrence didn't have to be told she was the same as all the assistant nannies who came and went on a near-monthly basis. A beautiful girl in her early twenties, with dark ebony skin and a very full figure. She walked about the side of the pool in a scarlet swimsuit designed for provocation rather than swimming. At no time had she shown any interest in the conference. The night before, Lawrence had seen his father and her join a big group of businessmen for dinner in the hotel's restaurant. She'd been dressed in some silver backless gown, her hair glittering with embedded gold.
No doubt if she saw him acting strangely his father would hear about it. So he stayed immersed in Halo Stars, gliding over the astonishingly detailed cityscapes of alien cultures. The i-media game was the new market leader. It was an import from Earth, where teams of designers and AS extrapolators must surely have spent years generating the concept. It featured a large band of inhabited stars wrapped around the center of the galaxy, where hundreds of alien races coexisted in a peaceful commonwealth. The first-person player was the pilot of a trade and exploration ship, the Ebris. Whatever settled world the ship landed on, there was some problem or requirement that could be solved by tracking down a resource that another world in the Halo possessed, be it technological, artistic, raw material, medical, or even spiritual. Lawrence was in the middle of a sequence where he was making his way toward a domain that had bred the methane-grazing botanical organisms that a species of sentient octopeds needed to complete their colonization of a new planet. But he could only get the botanicals by trading them for a specific mineral that formed on low-gravity planets with an argon atmosphere. To do that he first had to put together a survey and mining team. Once that was done he would fly scouting missions through a dozen likely star systems, hunting for the right class of planet. And this particular segment had already opened up several further opportunities for his ship.
The sheer wealth of detail, both economic and physical, was astounding. The stars, planets, stellar phenomena and species of the Halo were so real. They'd even got the quasar locations right. The whole thing interlocked perfectly; in the three months since he uploaded the base chapter he hadn't found a single continuity flaw. Flying his ship around the arc of the magnificent glow thrown off by the galactic heart he felt as if he were on a genuine training mission at McArthur's starship officer academy—as it should have been if the company wasn't so stupid. Small wonder the import company with the license was making a fortune.
After scanning three star systems with swarms of micro-satellites he finally found one that had the kind of planet he was looking for. He landed the Ebris at the end of a valley cloaked in a turquoise grass, where a binary of yellow and green dwarf stars were setting in the saddle of the hills. Tomorrow he would supervise the mineral extraction. He noted several potentially dangerous-looking animals slinking through the long grass, loaded their profile into the ship's computer, then saved and exited.
On the opposite side of the pool, the girl was lying on her sun lounger, big gold-orange glasses over her eyes. Several of the younger kids were clustered around, laughing and giggling together. Three of the more persistent boys were sitting on the edge of the sun lounger next to hers, squashed together uncomfortably. Each was doing his best to be charming, witty, knowledgeable and casual. She occasionally laughed at their jokes and joshing. From where Lawrence was it looked as if she was just being polite rather than genuinely amused.
His margarita ice had melted in the bottom of the glass, producing an undrinkable slush. Naomi Karamann had disappeared. Several adults were in the pool and more were walking across the lawn from the hotel. The day's conference had obviously finished. Lawrence picked up his towel and went back inside to order another room-service meal.
That was yesterday. Today, he'd come down early, by his standards, before ten o'clock. His reward was the well-positioned sun lounger and the girl's prompt appearance. This morning she was in a white bikini, but she was just as lively as she had been before. He found himself smiling at the way she enjoyed herself so effortlessly. Two of the smaller girls arrived with her, chattering excitedly, one no more than eleven while the younger was about six or seven. He realized the three of them were all sisters, sharing roughly the same facial features. That explained why the older boys of the wishful harem had been so tolerant of them yesterday.
It wasn't long before the whole group was gathered together again. Laughs and shrieks carried across the humid landscape as they began pushing each other into the water.