When he surfaced there was no sign of the girl. He swam out a hundred yards, cutting effortlessly through the wavelets, noting that the coaster's flag of smoke had nearly vanished. He did not worry. Such a girl, Diana, could surely handle herself in the water.

There was a frothing explosion near him. She shot out of the water like a porpoise, in a rainbow of spray, laughing at him. Water sequins sparkled as the sun caught her breasts. She splashed water at him, treading easily, tossing her sodden hair behind her shoulders.

«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.