No Other Love (24 page)

“So, variations appear as you are trained.
Interesting.” Herne stopped, aghast at his own words. “What about
those who are not needed on Oressia but do not rate placement
elsewhere? What happens to them?”

“They are exterminated.”

“But they are sentient beings!” This was too
much. Herne was furious. “Willful destruction of intelligent life
forms is forbidden by all the worlds in the Jurisdiction, and by
overriding Jurisdiction laws!”

“There are those who believe that life forms,
sentient or not, that are produced by methods other than the
natural manner for their species, have no souls and therefore are
not protected by those laws,” Merin said quietly. “Which is one of
many reasons why Oressians are bound to secrecy when they leave
their own world. It is for our protection, Herne.”

More likely, it was for the protection of the
Oressian authorities, who certainly knew how many laws they were
breaking.

Herne staggered to the bench beside the tub.
There he sat down and put his head in his hands. He could not blame
Merin for what she was. The way she had been born – or, rather,
created in a laboratory – was not her fault. Nor could she be
blamed for her acceptance of one way of life when she had never
been given the opportunity to know another. None of this was her
fault.
None of it,
he told himself again. She was a victim
of the Oressian system.

His reaction to what she had revealed was
physical. His head ached from the awfulness of it. He wanted to
vomit. He wanted to leave her and never see her again.

He loved her. He had repeatedly made love to
her. To a clone.

But she was a normal human female in every
respect. His diagnostic rod had told him so each time he had
examined her. His body had told him the same thing whenever he held
her in his arms, when he had made her his while they made love. She
was human, real, a courageous companion in their strange
predicament. He admired her intelligence and her learning. She was
a valuable contributing member of Tarik’s colony.

She was a clone.

He loved her.

“I’ll need some time to digest all of this,”
he said, his face still in his hands. He heard a movement, then saw
her feet in front of him, delicate bones covered by creamy skin,
with opalescent nails. She knelt and he saw her hands, slender and
beautiful. He felt like crying. She took his hands in hers, pulling
them away from his face.

“Please look at me,” she said.

“How many times have I begged you to do the
same thing?” he countered, unable to meet her eyes.

“Herne, I know I have shocked you beyond your
ability to accept what I am. I wish it had not been necessary, but
I could not agree to marry you and then live a lie. I love you too
much to lie to you about something so important. If there is
anything I can do to make acceptance easier for you, please tell
me.”

“Easy?” He gave a bitter laugh. “Nothing in
my life has been easy, but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had
to deal with. I’m not angry with you; I want you to know that. But
I do need to be left alone until I think through everything you
have said.”

“I understand. I know my revelations have
made it impossible for you to continue our intimate relationship.”
Her voice was amazingly cool, perfectly calm, like the Merin he had
first known. And every word she said tore at his heart. He wondered
how she could speak without breaking into tears.

“Thank you for freeing my emotions, Herne. I
will cherish the memory of our lovemaking for the rest of my life,
though I know those same memories must disgust you.

Nevertheless, I hope we will still be able to
work together to achieve our mutual goal of a safe return to our
own time.”

Mutual goal? Cherish the memory?
Herne
nodded, unable to speak for the emotion that was choking him. She
left him, going into the bedchamber, where he heard her moving
about. After a few minutes he heard the door open and close. He
assumed she had gone out, perhaps to walk along the path by the
salt marsh, to breathe in the salty air that reminded her of her
homeworld – her home!

What kind of home was it that could treat its
children so impersonally, so brutally? Though his own childhood had
been anything but happy, still Sibirnan parents did see their
children into the teen years with some show of concern for their
welfare. It hurt him to think of Merin as a small, delicate-boned
girl with dark curls, not running free and playing as children
ought to do, but confined in a miserable, isolated cubicle, being
fed information and food at predetermined intervals, by a computer.
No human contact, no loving mother’s arms no brothers or sisters or
playmates. Nothing but a machine to tend to her needs. No machine
could be programmed to care if a little girl cried.

That thought broke him. The picture in his
mind of a tiny Merin, alone and weeping with no one to comfort her,
brought him to the first real tears he had shed in more than thirty
years. He wept for what had been done to her, for her loveless
childhood and her lonely life since leaving Oressia. And he wept
for himself, because no matter how much he loved her, he was not
sure he could ever accept what she was.

While Merin and Herne were talking, night had
faded into misty dawn. The dull red of the sun’s disk moved
steadily higher until a bank of heavy clouds obscured its heat and
much of its light. The scene across the salt marsh matched Merin’s
mood as she watched the fog roll in from the ocean beyond the
dunes.

“For one who is not a telepath, there is
little to see,” said a quiet, scratchy voice.

“I find the fog comforting,” she said, not
needing to look around to know who the speaker was. “On my
homeworld it is often foggy and there are many marshes at the edge
of the sea.”

“From what I know of Oressia,” said Dulan,
falling into step with her on the path, “there is little on that
world to comfort its citizens.”

“Little?” Merin gave a harsh laugh. “There’s
no comfort at all, Dulan, nor on any other world, either. Not for
an Oressian.”

“It takes no telepathy to recognize a
troubled heart,” Dulan said. “Would it help you to confide in me? I
keep secrets well and you may find it easier to speak where there
is no visible face to show emotion in response to your words.”

“I have already said to Herne every word that
I can bear to speak,” Merin replied. “He is struggling now with my
terrible truth.”

They walked a little farther along the path,
not talking.

“I wish,” Merin began, then stopped. They
walked a few paces more. “If only –“ She stopped again, uncertain
how to ask for what she wanted. Dulan paused, waiting. Merin went
on a step or two, then turned, looking hard at the blue-robed
figure.

“Speak freely and without fear,” Dulan
said.

“You have heard Herne mention Osiyar, the
telepath who lived – who will live – in our own time,” Merin said.
“Osiyar found it necessary to enter my mind. Thus, he was the first
non-Oressian to learn the truth about my origin. He knew everything
about me and still accepted me. He was my first friend.”

A profound silence lay between Merin and
Dulan. The incoming fog bank had covered the marsh as far as the
path, and pale grey scarves of mist drifted around them. Merin felt
moisture on her face and brushed it away, unsure if it was fog or
her own tears.

“Do you want me also to enter your mind?”
Dulan’s voice was so soft it might have been a verbal extension of
the fog surrounding them.

“Please.” Merin’s own voice, not much louder
than Dulan’s, cracked on the single word. The rest of her voice
came out in a whispered rush. “Herne knows now, so there’s no point
in hiding it from you or anyone else. And, oh, how I need someone
to understand the truth, yet not turn from me in disgust as Herne
has done. I thought if Osiyar could manage to be so tolerant,
perhaps you could, too.”

“Give me your hands,” said Dulan.

“Don’t you have to look into my eyes?” For
all she had asked for this, Merin was as frightened as she had been
when Osiyar had touched her mind.

“Not all telepaths must do so,” said Dulan.
“I require only your consent. I will hold your hands to steady you
should you grow faint, and because I sense a debilitating change in
you. Physical contact will make recognition of any ailment
easier.”

Perhaps it was telepathy already working in
her mind, but at Dulan’s softly spoken words Merin became
absolutely calm and fearless, certain that whatever Dulan might
learn of her, she would not be left without friendship. She put out
both her hands and felt those pale, slender fingers fold around
them.

She experienced once again the unique
prickling in her mind, but far more gentle, far more subtle than
Osiyar’s entrance. Because she was unafraid this time she was fully
aware of the instant when Dulan’s thoughts merged completely with
her own. Trusting Dulan without reservation, she willingly allowed
the blurring of her own self, until she knew Dulan as Dulan knew
her. She sensed a power far beyond her comprehension, a power
disciplined and channeled for the benefit of others, as great power
ought always to be used. She touched memories of unbearable
physical pain and emotional loss, followed by recollections of a
broken life courageously rebuilt into dignity and usefulness. For
one second of heart-stopping joy she saw what Dulan really was, and
her heart and mind both overflowed with gratitude for the honor
that had been granted to her with that revelation. Then, slowly and
delicately, the connection between them was broken.

“Thank you,” she whispered, knowing full well
that words were unnecessary, and in her thoughts Dulan smiled at
her.

“There was a time in the history of mankind,”
said Dulan, still holding her hands, “when men believed the females
of their species had no souls, and therefore women were not people
as men were. They know better now, but the learning was not an easy
process. Telepaths have more recently been called soulless monsters
and persecuted because of their abilities. You tell me that in your
time the laws against telepathy have been repealed. Like women in
ancient times, like telepaths in my own lifetime, clones are called
by many pejorative terms; soulless, abominations, monstrosities,
hideous aberrations. But you have a mind, a heart, and a spirit.
You have a well-trained intelligence that you have placed at the
service of others. I observed you closely in the Gathering Hall
last night and saw how you respect other life forms. You have
courage, you love, you fear, you hope. If all of those qualities do
not make you a true human, then what will?”

“A natural birth,” said Merin, knowing it was
the one thing she could never claim.

“No. Humanity lies here.” Dulan’s hand
touched Merin’s bosom, then moved on to rest upon her bowed head.
“And here.”

“Herne does not think so.”

“Ah, Herne.” Dulan sighed. “Sibirnans have
their own problems in accepting unsimilar others, though Herne is
more advanced than most. He will need time.”

“Time.” Merin shook her head.

“Time is not an enemy,” said Dulan, “but a
healer, as I have learned.”

They began walking back along the path,
heading toward Dulan’s house.

“My friend,” said Dulan, the simple words
touching Merin deeply, “I ought to meet with Jidak and Imra. We
have a large computer system installed underground, and they are
searching through the files there for any data that might be of
help to you. I want to consult with them on a puzzle that has only
now become clear to me, and I believe you would benefit from a
little time spent alone while you consider what we have done here.
Can you find your way to my house through the fog?”

“Of course.” Merin lifted her head, smiling,
watching as Dulan vanished into the mist.

She found Herne lying naked on the bed, with
his eyes closed. When she touched his cheek he did not respond. She
decided he was either asleep, or he did not want to speak to
her.

“Oh, Herne,” she whispered, looking down at
his pale, harsh features, “you said you would always love me no
matter what, and I believed you. I broke every law of Oressia for
your sake. Because of you I learned to trust and, finally, to love.
I could accept anything you might tell me about yourself. I
wouldn’t care if you were a clone, or an android, or a Jugarian
crab in disguise, or even a Styxian! If I could go on loving you no
matter what your outward form or origin, why can’t you love me? If
Osiyar and Dulan can know me and still be my friends, why can’t
you?”

There was no answer. Herne slept on. Watching
him, Merin became aware of her own fatigue. Between lovemaking and
her confession to Herne, she had not slept at all the previous
night. She was emotionally drained and physically exhausted.
Without removing her treksuit or coif, she lay down on the opposite
side of the bed from Herne. When she found her thoughts running
over and over everything she had said to him, she made herself
think instead about the communion with Dulan and what she had
learned when their thoughts joined. If that kind and wise telepath
could rebuild a useful life after dreadful torture and forcible
separation from home and family, after the ruin of health and
reputation, then Merin of Oressia ought to find in Dulan’s example
the inspiration to go on with her own life. With thoughts of Dulan
on her mind, and the fresh memory of friendship freely offered, she
fell asleep.

She wakened at midday to find Herne gone.
When she sat up she discovered she was almost too weak to get out
of bed. It was hunger that drove her upright, that sent her to the
bathing room to splash cold water on her face, then lured her to
Dulan’s kitchen. She had to find something to eat.