No Other Love (8 page)

He could not begin to comprehend what
motivated Merin. Each time he thought they might be approaching a
more friendly relationship she withdrew into that invisible
emotional fortress of hers. And the more she withdrew, the more
Herne wanted to know what she was really like beneath her
unemotional surface. He could not look at her without aching to put
his arms around her and kiss her sweet, unresponsive mouth. He knew
if he tried, she would only rebuff him once more. Damnation! How
could a usually sensible, well-educated man be such a fool?
Dreading the time he would have to spend alone with her, he tossed
his softbag aboard the shuttlecraft and strapped himself into his
seat.

The voyage skyward was accomplished in
silence except for the necessary comments pertaining to navigation
of their vessel. When they brought the shuttlecraft into the
docking deck of the larger ship, Gaidar and Suria were waiting for
them, ready to help unload supplies before they boarded the second
shuttlecraft to return to the planet.

“There is something unusual to report this
time,” Suria told them. “A slight fluctuation in the planet’s
magnetic field, the result of electromagnetic storms caused by
violent solar flares. There has also been occasional disruption of
our communications with Home. It’s nothing dangerous yet; just
something to be aware of and to watch carefully. We on the surface
will probably have interesting aurora to observe over the next few
nights. Other than that, the ship is functioning normally.”

“Let me help you stow this cargo before we
leave,” Gaidar offered, lifting a large water tank to his shoulder.
“Bring the other one, Herne.”

Suria saw the men out of hearing distance
before she spoke again to Merin.

“You don’t look well.”

“It’s the shuttlecraft.” Deeply distressed by
the need to tell yet another untruth, Merin gave the first excuse
that came into her mind. “Riding in it always makes me feel
ill.”

She wished it were not necessary to dissemble
so much, but she could not tell Suria that the real cause of her
queasiness was the pat followed by a gentle caress that she had
seen Gaidar administer to Suria’s buttocks before he went off with
Herne to stow the water tanks. But Suria had good eyes and a
well-trained memory. She was a midwife as well as a navigator, and
was therefore accustomed to asking intimate questions without
seeming to pry.

“You don’t like to see men touch women in a
familiar way,” she said. “I’ve noticed your reactions before. Why
is that?’

“I cannot speak of it.”

“Did a man hurt you sometime in the
past?”

“What you suggest would never happen on
Oressia. There, no one harms another.”

“It must be an unusual planet.”

Merin could not see Suria’s expression
because her eyes were directed to Suria’s feet, but she heard the
sarcasm in Suria’s voice.

“The men have returned,” Merin said, hoping
to change the unpleasant subject.

“If you really don’t feel well,” Suria said,
putting out one hand but not quite touching Merin, “speak to Herne
about it. That’s an order. We can’t afford to have our people
falling ill.”

After Suria and Gaidar had gone, and Herne
and Merin were in the shiny black passageway that led to the
bridge, Herne stopped walking.

“I heard what Suria said. If you are ill, you
should have mentioned it before we left Home. Someone else could
have taken your place here.”

“I am not ill.” She would have continued on
her way, but Herne stopped her, catching her by the shoulders and
holding her still beneath one of the recessed ceiling lights so he
could examine her features more closely.

“Look at me, woman. I’ve told you before how
much I dislike it when you won’t look at me while we talk.”

“And I have told you before not to touch me.
What made me ill was the way Gaidar touched Suria. Sickening.
Disgusting.”

Her voice was quiet, but so compelling that
he lifted his hands from her shoulders and stood there looking into
her eyes, his hands still raised, until she feared he would catch
her face instead of her shoulders and kiss her. He did not. His
hands fell to his sides, but his eyes remained locked on hers.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “you flinch every time
you see anyone touch another person. It isn’t just men touching
women, as Suria thinks; it’s anyone at all showing affection or
emotional concern. Why? What’s in your past? What kind of
conditioning did you undergo on Oressia?”

“You know I cannot answer any questions about
my home planet,” she said. “I ask only that you respect the customs
I am compelled to observe.”

“How can I respect them when I don’t know
what they are?” Herne asked.

“I have told you,” she replied with forced
patience. “Do not look directly into my eyes. Do not touch me. And
do not, ever again, put your lips on mine.”

“But I want to,” he said, a barely suppressed
smile quirking one corner of his mouth. “I want to do all of those
things, along with other things that would doubtless shock you to
the depths of your Oressian soul. The human psyche is so
constituted that if you forbid a person to do something, you only
make him want to do it more.”

“Herne,” she said sternly, “we have a large
amount of work to accomplish before we return to headquarters. I
must insist that we concentrate on it, and that you behave in a
professional manner toward me. If you do not, I will complain about
you to Tarik.”

“Merin.” But her eyelids were lowered again,
the glory of her brown and purple eyes hidden from him. Her face
was carefully blank, every feature sharp and tight, revealing
nothing of her feelings.

Herne’s own strongest feeling at the moment
was despair. He had seen hints of another woman behind her
controlled façade, a woman of strength and spirit. A woman he
wanted to know. He had to find a way to convince her to reveal her
true self to him and to talk freely about her mysterious past.

“As you wish,” he said, looking for some sign
of relaxation in her. He saw nothing. The real Merin was gone
again, hidden behind the mask, and he could think of no way to make
her return. He gave up the attempt to reach her – for the moment.
“Let’s get to work.”

* * * * *

The rule for those serving aboard the
Kalina
was an eight-hour watch, the last hour overlapping
with that of one’s partner. During this overlap meals were eaten
together and reports were made. Merin had chosen the first watch,
so it was Herne who prepared their meal and carried it into the
conference room just off the bridge.

“Another large storm is moving across the
northern hemisphere. There will be heavy snow at Home,” Merin
reported. “There have been two more major solar flares, and a
series of large sunspots has appeared. A message has been received
from Capital. I relayed it to Tarik at once.”

“From Capital?” Herne looked up from his
soup. “Anything serious?”

“Commander Tarik’s mother wishes him a happy
birthday. The lady Kalina’s timing is accurate, if not her wisdom
or sense of propriety.”

“I assume from your tone of voice that you
don’t think Kalina should be using official communication bands for
personal messages,” Herne noted.

“Tarik may well be embarrassed by the
contents. In any case, only the most urgent messages should be sent
to us,” Merin said. “Each transmission makes Cetan detection of our
settlement more likely and thus jeopardizes our mission here. Were
the Cetans to discover that we are monitoring their activities,
they might decide to abrogate their treaty with the
Jurisdiction.”

“Oh, come on, Merin; that’s taking one short
message too seriously. Hasn’t your mother ever done something
affectionate that embarrassed you? Even my mother, much as she
disapproved of me, embraced me in public once or twice and smoothed
down my hair in front of my friends. When I was still very young,
of course. Never after I reached the age of six.” Herne’s amusement
faded as he watched Merin freeze. He decided he was not going to
let her get away with that old routine. Not this time. He was going
to push at her reticence until he learned something more about her.
“Tell the truth, now. What did your mother do that embarrassed
you?”

The uncomfortable silence stretched on and on
until Herne thought she would never answer. But, eventually, she
did, in a small, strangled voice.

“I have no mother.”

Damnation! Every time he opened his mouth
with her, he made another mistake. Almost at once he realized it
hadn’t been a mistake at all. He had hurt her by bringing up sad
memories, but he had also succeeded in opening the door to her past
by just a crack. He knew from his work with patients that if he
wanted more information, he had better continue asking questions
right now, while she was still upset.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Were you very young
when she died?”

“I have never had a mother.” Still that same,
pinched voice. She pushed back her tray and rose from the table.
“Thank you for the food, but I find I am not at all hungry.”

She was gone, leaving Herne cursing himself
for his clumsiness and his stupidity. Merin wasn’t a patient,
compelled to answer his questions in order to procure the best
medical treatment he could give; she was someone he wanted for a
friend, and for more than a friend. He thought he understood what
his prying had done to her. He had reopened an old wound.

Death in childbirth was rare, but it did
occur now and then, and when it did it was a terrible tragedy that
left its scars on the entire family. The one most hurt was always
the child whose birth had caused the loss. The death of her mother
when Merin was born could explain a great deal about her character,
especially if Oressian fathers were distant and unloving, like
Sibirnan fathers.

Believing this was what had happened to her,
Herne thought it was no wonder that Merin found it difficult to
give or accept affection. She had probably never received it as a
small child. Yet he had seen her begin to unbend toward others,
particularly toward Osiyar. It was possible that she would
eventually learn to trust Herne, too, and even to care for him.
That sweet reward would be worth any amount of patience on his
part.

* * * * *

Merin sealed the entrance to her cabin and
turned off every light, even the red emergency bulb that was
supposed to be lit at all times. She stood in the middle of the
blackened room, taking deep breaths, willing herself into a
peaceful state, the condition she had known in First Cubicles and
had seldom achieved again since. Advancement to Second Cubicles had
brought light, stimulation, order, and rules. From then on it had
been one rule or law after another, all of them to be memorized and
obeyed. Failure had meant instant extermination. She had seen
others moved out of Cubicles, never to return. But she had a mind
well suited to detail, and memorization was easy for her. She had
advanced faultlessly through the milestones of her tenth year, her
fifteenth, her twentieth. At twenty she had learned her fate, had
taken her oath of silence, and then had left Oressia. And now,
every day, she broke another rule, violated another Oressian
law.

She should never have spoken those words to
Herne. They had been the truth, yet they would mislead him, would
make him believe something other than the truth. Nor would he stop
asking questions. Just as his touches and his kisses would continue
and increase with the passage of time, so would his questions
besiege her mind and her heart. The advice she had been given just
before leaving Oressia was correct. The slightest opening, the
least breach of secrecy, would lead others to pry more and more
deeply, would make those others eager for the truth.

So it would be with Herne. He would not stop
until he knew everything. And when he knew, he would never again
look at her with tenderness, or take her face in his hands, or put
his mouth on hers. To him, she would be an abomination.

Merin stood in the dark, fighting the tears
that ran down her cheeks in salty betrayal of all she ought to be,
searching for the peace she had known as a Young One, a peace that
could never more be hers.

* * * * *

During the next few days the solar flares
increased in size and frequency. As the electrified particles
emitted by the flares streamed toward Dulan’s Planet, the upper
atmosphere began to glow. The resulting auroral displays were
visible from the
Kalina.
When her duties permitted, Merin
left as many bridge lights off as she could and sat watching the
curtains of light sway and change color from green or blue to
pearly white and back to green again. So entranced was she by the
show that she was only momentarily distracted when Herne slid into
the seat next to hers.

“Magnificent,” he breathed, his face glowing
with reflected light. “Look there. And there.”

“It is tempting to forget one’s duties,”
Merin agreed. “You are early, Herne. You aren’t required to be on
the bridge for another half hour.”

“I couldn’t sleep. Perhaps I sensed what is
going on out here.” He waved a hand toward the rippling curtains of
light.

“I have noticed some minor instrument
malfunctions, which are to be expected under the circumstances,”
she told him. “Tarik is growing a bit concerned about the increased
solar activity.”

“The atmosphere will protect the planet,”
Herne said, “and the
Kalina
is well shielded. We should be
safe enough.”

“But not in the shuttlecraft, which has less
shielding. We may have to remain on board for more than the usual
four days.” Merin’s distaste for that possibility sounded in her
voice. “Tarik has also suggested that if there is a chance of the
more sensitive instruments here being damaged, we ought to take the
Kalina
out of orbit and travel elsewhere for a while until
the sun calms down.”