Destiny's Lovers (30 page)

“I’ll go down,” Herne said to Tarik.

“I’m going, too.” Alla was out of her seat,
reaching for a bulky, sleeveless garment. With a quick motion she
pulled it over her treksuit and fastened it down the front. She
tossed a similar garment to Herne.

“Let me go along,” Janina begged.

“You don’t belong there,” Alla told her
rudely. “You’d be in the way.”

“Stay here, Janina,” Herne said more kindly.
“You are weaker than you think, and that’s a dangerous descent to a
slippery surface. We don’t want to have to rescue you a second time
in one day. You can see everything that happens on the viewscreen,
and you will be here waiting for Reid when we bring him up.”

Enthralled, she watched the viewscreen as
Herne and Alla were lowered from the shuttlecraft on what looked
like heavy ropes, while Tarik kept the craft steady high above the
rocks.

“Ordinarily, when they reach ground level,
they would disconnect themselves from the lines,” Tarik explained.
“But not here. If they fall into the sea we want to be able to pull
them back, and the vests they are wearing will keep them afloat
until we do.”

Osiyar asked a few questions about the
machinery used to lower Herne and Alla, but Janina wasn’t
listening. All her attention was on the viewscreen. Alla had
reached the rocks. Janina watched her fling herself onto Reid’s
body.

It should be me down there,
Janina
thought, and felt a surge of jealousy, until Herne’s voice crackled
through the shuttlecraft cabin.

“He’s still alive,” Herne reported. “Half
drowned and badly injured, but alive.”

Janina leaned back in her seat, tears of
relief overflowing.

“Janina, Osiyar, I will need your help,”
Tarik said.

Janina wiped her cheeks. Osiyar had released
his own safety harness and now helped Janina out of hers. Following
Tarik’s directions, they went through the hatch into the cargo
hold. Janina clutched at Osiyar, nearly upsetting his precarious,
one-legged balance, for there in the floor before her yawned the
open hatch through which Herne and Alla had been lowered. The ropes
holding them descended from what looked like a heavy beam that ran
from end to end of the shuttlecraft.

“Just step around the opening.” Osiyar showed
her the row of handgrips in the wall to which she could cling as
they made their way past the gaping hatch. They located a special
mesh stretcher and the release for a third rope. At Tarik’s
command, they attached the stretcher to the rope and sent both
through the hatch and down to the rocks below. Watching the rope
unreel, Janina saw that it was not the kind of plant-fiber rope she
had always known, but was made of a combination of metal and some
other flexible material.

Their next task was to unfold and set up a
stretcher-bed, which they secured to the wall by special hooks,
then added padding with a thick heating blanket. Janina began to
appreciate how cleverly the shuttlecraft had been designed. In a
way it reminded her of the broken boat on the rocks below. Like the
boat, the shuttlecraft had a compartment or a holder for every
object in it, so that while it was in motion, nothing could roll
around and cause damage or injury.

Herne came up from the rocks first, followed
by the unconscious Reid, who was tightly strapped into the
stretcher. Alla arrived last, but by that time Janina was not
watching the hatch any longer; she was helping Herne to secure the
folding stretcher to the stretcher-bed. Herne refused to allow Reid
to be moved any more than was absolutely necessary, so they cut off
his saturated garments and covered him with another heating
blanket.

“The one you put on the stretcher-bed will
warm his back,” Herne explained, adjusting the temperature gauge,
“and this one will warm the other side of him. He’s lost a lot of
body heat. That sea water is too cold for a human to survive very
long with the waves constantly washing over him.”

Janina heard the concern in Herne’s voice
with a clutch at her heart. She knelt beside Reid, smoothing his
hair back from his pale, cold face while Herne worked on him.

When Alla finally appeared through the hatch,
it was Osiyar who reached out a hand to pull her over so she could
stand, and Osiyar who pressed the button to close the hatch. Alla
held on to him for just a moment, to steady herself. Then, with the
hatch shut and latched, she removed her safety vest and went to
Reid.

“Get away from him,” she said, pushing Janina
aside so she could kneel at the stretcher-bed. “You’ve done enough
harm already. Don’t do any more.”

“She is assisting me, and she has been very
helpful,” Herne said in a loud voice. “You’ve had your moments
alone with him, now it’s Janina’s turn.”

“Alla, come forward, please, and make your
report.” That was Tarik’s voice, heard through a speaker near
Osiyar’s head. Though she plainly did not want to leave Reid, Alla
obeyed him, but not before sending a last angry look Janina’s
way.

“Did you open the communicator?” Herne
glanced up from his patient to Osiyar. When Osiyar nodded and
pushed the communicator button to closed position again, Herne
said, “Thank you. That woman is too possessive of her cousin. I’m
glad Tarik heard her. She will obey him.”

“I think,” Osiyar said, “that Alla ought to
be induced to change her mind about certain matters.”

“If you can make her change her mind about
anything, the rest of us will be grateful to you. She’s a difficult
woman at the best of times, but since Reid has been missing she’s
been impossible.”

“She was worried about him. I, for one, can’t
blame her for that.” Janina was still tenderly stroking Reid’s
forehead while she closely watched everything Herne was doing.
“Will he live?”

“I haven’t finished my examination yet,”
Herne said, his voice rough. “Move away now, Janina, and give me
more space. Go stand over there with Osiyar.”

Herne pulled the heat blanket back and waved
the silver instrument, which he had told Janina was a diagnostic
rod, up and down over Reid’s legs and feet.

“Where did he get these welts on his left
ankle and right knee? I’ve never seen anything exactly like them
before. You have the same kind of welt on your left wrist. What
caused it?”

“Two sea monsters attacked us,” Janina said,
and heard Osiyar gasp. At Herne’s insistence, she went on to
explain what the monsters looked like and how she and Reid had
fought them and won.

“You will have to tell Alla about this,”
Herne remarked absently, his attention mostly on the red marks on
Reid’s legs. “She’s the specialist in interplanetary zoology. I
wouldn’t be at all surprised if she decides she wants to mount an
expedition to capture one of your monsters so she can study it.
Perhaps we ought to let her try.”

Momentarily diverted from her concern over
Reid, Janina smothered a giggle at Herne’s dry tone of voice.

“No one,” Osiyar said with awe deepening his
voice, “has ever won a battle with a sea monster before.”

“How could you know that?” Janina asked
bitterly. “Except for my parents and one or two other unfortunates
who were caught near the village, the only people who meet the
monsters are those who are set adrift, and they are forbidden to
return, aren’t they?”

Herne refolded the heat blanket over Reid’s
legs and straightened, looking grim.

“Will he live?” Janina asked again, almost
afraid to hear the answer to her question.

“I’m not sure,” Herne said, watching her face
carefully. “Like yours, Reid’s lungs are congested with inhaled sea
water, and I have no doubt he swallowed a lot of it, too. He’s
suffering from severe exposure, his body temperature is well below
normal, and he has several broken bones. He also has some kind of
infection, though I don’t know yet exactly what it is. It could be
some toxic substance contracted from the sea monster through the
punctures in those welts. As soon as we reach headquarters, I want
to re-examine you, Janina, to find out if the infection you are
suffering from is the same as Reid’s.”

“Why don’t you put her in your hospital room
along with Reid?” Osiyar suggested. “I am healthy enough now to
move to an ordinary room. Janina will rest more easily knowing she
is next to Reid, and you can watch over both of them. You will also
be able to exert some control over Alla’s concern for her cousin
and prevent her from exhausting Janina with her accusations.”

“That’s a good idea,” Herne replied, sending
another sharp glance in Osiyar’s direction. “You do need medical
care, Janina. From what you have just said about your adventures,
it’s plain to me that you’ve both been through an ordeal that would
have destroyed many people.”

“Don’t let it destroy Reid,” Janina pleaded.
“He deserves to live, Herne. He fought so hard to be sure both of
us would live. I would not have lasted one day without him.”

* * * * *

When the shuttlecraft landed at the lake,
Reid was still unconscious. Two of Tarik’s colonists were waiting
for them with a hoverbed, which Osiyar explained was propelled on a
cushion of air. They laid Reid, still strapped to the foldable mesh
stretcher in which he had been removed from the rocks, onto this
floating bed and rushed him toward the headquarters building. Herne
stayed with Reid every step of the way, monitoring his condition
constantly. Alla ran with Herne. After rudely shouldering Janina
aside, she kept one possessive hand on Reid’s shoulder.

Feeling unable to face another confrontation
with Alla, knowing she could be of no help to Herne, and certain he
would tell her at once of any change in Reid’s status, Janina
followed more slowly, with a limping Osiyar as her guide. She
stopped when she saw the building to which they were going.

“It looks just like the temple,” she
said.

“The designs are identical,” Osiyar replied,
resting for a minute on his walking stick before moving on again,
“but this place is very different from Ruthlen, as you will see. I
should say, as you will feel, for it differs most in the
relationships among its inhabitants, who are remarkably
diverse.”

They were met at the entrance by a pretty,
brown-haired woman with a warm smile.

“I’m Narisa, Tank’s wife,” the woman said,
showing Janina into the central room. “We have been in constant
contact with Tarik, so I know your situation, and I am so glad he
found you. You will want a hot bath and some food.”

“I just want to be with Reid,” Janina said,
then stopped short at the sight of an obviously angry Alla.

“You aren’t allowed in there,” Alla said,
indicating a closed door. “No one is, except Suria. Herne ordered
me out of the room. If I can’t be with him, you certainly
can’t.”

“Alla, we both care about Reid,” Janina
responded. “We shouldn’t quarrel when we want the same thing -
Reid’s quick recovery.”

“If he dies,” Alla spat at her, “it will be
because of you.”

“It is true,” Janina said, “that if Reid and
I hadn’t loved each other, we never would have been set adrift.
Instead, we would have remained at Ruthlen, to die when the volcano
erupted. Would you have preferred that, Alla? At least Reid is
still alive, and he is here, where Herne can help him.”

Before Alla could answer that, Narisa spoke
to her.

“Would you take over the
computer-communicator for me? Gaidar has gone back to the Kalina to
monitor a new volcanic eruption, so we need someone here to be in
contact with him at all times.”

“I would be most interested,” Osiyar put in,
speaking to Alla, “if you would explain your communications system
to me. I would like to understand how you knew what was happening
in Ruthlen.”

“It’s really very simple,” Alla began,
sparing one last baleful glance for Janina before turning toward
the computer-communicator, taking Osiyar with her.

“Now,” Narisa said with a smile, “let me show
you our bathing room.”

If she had not been so concerned for Reid,
Janina would have enjoyed the next hour. The headquarters building
was so like the temple at Ruthlen that she felt perfectly familiar
with it. Yet, as Osiyar had said, there was a vital difference
between the two. Where she had been accustomed to severity, and in
some cases constant scorn, here she was treated with warm concern.
After a hot bath that soaked the last of the ocean’s chill from her
bones, Narisa brought her a soft, pale green robe to wear and then
fed her with vegetable stew and fresh, chewy bread. Tarik’s wife
spoke freely about the new colony, answered Janina’s questions
about the Chon, and explained how Osiyar had been found. Janina
knew it was all an attempt to divert her from her fears for Reid.
She was grateful, but nothing could dispel the knot in her stomach
that tightened each time she looked at the closed door behind which
her lover lay.

When the door finally opened, Herne stuck his
head out, saw Janina, and put one finger on his lips, signaling
silence. Alla had not seen the physician, since she was still at
the computer-communicator with her back to the door while she spoke
to Osiyar. Herne beckoned to Janina.

“Go on,” whispered Narisa with a
conspiratorial smile.

Janina slipped through the door as Herne
closed it.

“He’s conscious and lucid,” Herne said, “but
he is still very weak, and I can’t get a diagnosis on that
infection. He asked to see you. I think he wants to be certain you
are really alive. You may have a few moments with him, and that’s
all.” With that, Herne tactfully left them alone.

The door was hardly closed behind him before
Janina was at Reid’s side. Except for the spots of bright red on
each cheek, Reid’s face was pale, and his hand felt icy-cold when
she clasped it in both of hers.

“You are here,” he said in a weak voice. “I
thought Herne was just saying that to make me feel better.”