No Other Love (25 page)

There were two large round loaves of bread on
the table. Merin tore at one, breaking it into pieces and chewing
on the crust. With half a loaf in her stomach, the relentless,
empty gnawing eased. She looked around for some other food.

“Would you like batreen, or just water?”

“Dulan, I’m sorry I demolished your bread.
It’s just that I’m so hungry.”

“I understand.” Dulan handed her a pitcher of
foaming, freshly brewed batreen. “I left the food for you and
Herne.”

“No matter how much I eat, I’m never filled.”
The batreen smelled of the grain used to make it. Her hunger
returning, not caring what effect the intoxicating drink had upon
her, Merin filled a cup and drained it with greedy relish. “Where
is Herne?”

“He has gone to try to convince Saray to take
him to Ananka,” Dulan said, refilling Merin’s cup. “Since Saray is
still with Hotan, who is intensely jealous of other men, I doubt if
Herne will be successful.”

“You’re right about that.” Herne walked into
the kitchen looking wan and tired. With his eyes on the bread, he
added, “Saray says perhaps tomorrow Ananka will see me.”

“Eat,” said Dulan. “I know you are
hungry.”

Herne snatched up the half loaf Merin had
left and began to chew on it.

“Do you think we could find Ananka by
ourselves, without waiting for Saray?” Merin asked him. “I’ll
search with you if you want.”

“No thanks.” Without looking at her, Herne
took the cup of batreen that Dulan offered him. “I’ll search the
garden by myself later today. But what I’d like to do before then,
Dulan, is return to our shuttlecraft. We were badly shaken up
during our flight and not thinking too clearly after we landed.
It’s possible that we missed something important when we went over
the ship the first time.”

“I’ll go too,” Merin said.

“It’s not necessary,” Herne began.

“It
is
necessary!” she blazed at him,
angered by the way he was trying to ignore her presence. “I piloted
that ship. I know it as well as you do. I am going with you.”

“As will Tula and I,” said Dulan, putting an
end to the quarrel. “We are both curious about the ship in which
you came here, and we may be of some help.”

“It’s a long walk,” Herne protested.

“Which is why I will have Tula bring his cart
and ixak from the stables,” said Dulan. “I do not think it wise for
either of you to waste your strength on the walk.”

Dulan left them. Herne picked up another
chunk of bread. Merin laid her hand on his wrist. Herne looked at
it with so cold an expression that she immediately removed it.

“I am still the same Merin I was yesterday,”
she said.

“True, but yesterday I didn’t know the real
Merin, did I?”

“I wish you would not hate me.”

“Hate?” He put down the bread untasted. “I
don’t know exactly what I do feel for you, but it’s not hate. It
will take some time for me to get used to the idea that you are a –
that you are what you are. In the meantime, there is the problem of
how to get back to where we belong. If I could just find
Ananka.”

“Did Saray give you no help at all?”

“I had the impression that she might have
provided some information, but Hotan was there. I think Hotan wants
to keep Saray to himself, perhaps in hope of using Ananka’s power
in some way, while Saray wants to keep Ananka to herself. I also
think Hotan and Saray are sleeping together. Whatever intrigue is
going on in that trio, you and I are caught in the middle of
it.”

“Meanwhile, the Cetans may attack at any
time,” said Merin.

“Which means I have to get to Ananka fast,”
Herne told her.

* * * * *

The shuttlecraft appeared to be untouched
since they had left it. They crowded inside, Dulan and Tula
expressing great interest in the workings of the ship, while Herne
and Merin tried unsuccessfully to start the engines.

“We do have a few mechanics who maintain our
air transportation vehicles,” Tula said. “If you think they will be
able to help you, I will call upon them.”

“I’m no mechanic,” Herne admitted, “but these
are relatively simple engines, and I can find nothing wrong with
them that any mechanic might fix.”

“Nor can I,” said Merin. “I think the problem
isn’t mechanical at all. It’s something to do with our movement
through time.”

“Then it is possible that only Ananka can
repair the ship,” said Dulan.

“We always return to Ananka.” Herne sounded
resentful. “Let’s go back to the city and demand that Saray take us
to Ananka immediately.”

“Saray is not amenable to demands,” said
Dulan, climbing out of the shuttlecraft.

“I don’t care what she’s amenable to,” Herne
responded rudely. “I’ll threaten to kill her if I have to. I’ll do
anything so we can clear out of this cursed place.”

This was the Herne whom Merin had first
known, irritable, abrupt, seeming not to care whose feelings he
hurt. She knew him better now, so she was able to see beneath the
hard surface. She could tell he was in pain, and it was her doing.
Her heart ached for him but still, she could not allow him to
insult their two best friends in Tathan.

“You know you don’t mean that,” she
protested. “You wouldn’t harm Saray.”

“Give me a fair chance to reach Home again,”
Herne snarled, “and see what I’ll do to make it happen.”

“You are right,” Dulan told him, much to
Merin’s surprise. “It is absolutely essential that you leave Tathan
as soon as possible.”

Herne and Dulan walked away from the
shuttlecraft, toward the cart in which they had come. Tula jumped
out of the hatch to the ground with unexpected grace, considering
his rotund shape. Just behind him Merin began her downward jump,
but was overcome by a wave of dizziness. She fell out of the
shuttlecraft onto Tula, who attempted to hold her upright. Neither
of them made a sound, but as if a warning shout had been given,
Dulan spun around, tugging at Herne’s sleeve. By the time Merin’s
head had cleared, she was in Herne’s arms and he was carrying her
toward the cart.

“This cannot go on,” Tula said. “My friends,
this affair must end before irreparable damage is done to your
health.”

“Stop babbling and help me get her into the
cart,” Herne snapped. “And this time see if you can make those
star-blasted ixak move at something faster than a slow walk. I know
they can run; they did it yesterday.”

“You need not swear at me, nor at my ixak,”
Tula responded with injured dignity.

“I don’t care how you do it, just get us back
to Dulan’s house so Merin can lie down and rest,” Herne
ordered.

Merin did not care how long the return trip
took. Herne laid her across the back seat of the cart. He sat at
one side of the seat, holding her in his arms to brace her against
the bumps and rattles of a hasty journey across rough ground. She
let her head rest on his shoulder, allowing him to think she was
ill, when in fact her head had cleared within a few minutes. It was
wonderful to be so close to him again, to know he did care if she
was sick.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, his cheek against
hers, “Just a little longer and we’ll be at Dulan’s house. I’ll
give you something to eat and put you to bed. I’m not feeling any
too healthy myself. I think it’s the food. We have to get out of
here.”

She must have fallen asleep, or possibly she
fainted, for the dizziness came once more and she was not fully
aware of her surroundings again until Herne was setting her down on
the bed in Dulan’s guest quarters. She let him remove her boots and
even her coif, but when he reached for the fastening of her
treksuit, she caught his hand, holding it against her bosom.

“Take this off,” he said, “and get beneath
the covers. You’ll sleep better.”

“I can’t sleep. I have to help you. Let me
talk to Saray.”

“You aren’t going anywhere until you’ve had
some rest.” With the cool professionalism of a well-trained doctor
he removed her treksuit, then eased her back on the bed. The harsh,
angry Herne was gone. He ran a hand across her ribcage. It was a
doctor’s touch, not a lover’s caress, but still it awoke a warmth
in her. “You are much too thin, Merin. You’re fading away a little
every day.”

“I’m frightened.” Her fingertips brushed his
lips. “Hold me. Make me feel safe.”

“Neither of us is safe.” But he sat on the
edge of the bed to pull her close. She craved the touch of his body
so strongly that she thought she would melt into him. She could
tell by the quick tightening of his arms that he was not unmoved by
her nearness. She let her hands work their way around his waist.
His lips touched her ear, the side of her jaw, her cheek. He would
kiss her mouth next. She knew he would. He moved backward a little,
staring hard at her. “I can’t do this,” he said.

She was no longer a complete innocent. Her
hands were still at his waist, and now she brought them forward,
lowering them to fondle his hardness in the way he himself had
taught her. She saw by the immediate closing of his expression that
she had lost the chance to convince him there was still hope for
them. He leapt off the bed, not stopping until he reached the
door.

“After we get back to headquarters,” he said,
“assuming we ever do, then we can talk about what is between us,
and what you are. Then, and only then, can we make a sensible
decision on the kind of relationship we might have in the future.
If there is a future for us.”

“If love were sensible,” she cried, “I never
would have fallen in love with you.”

She tried to rise to follow him, but the
dizziness assailed her again. She collapsed onto the pillows,
closing her eyes to shut out the spinning, darkening room. When she
recovered enough to open her eyes, Herne was gone.

* * * * *

“I think it’s the food,” Herne said to Dulan.
“It doesn’t agree with us in some way. That’s why we don’t feel
well.”

“You have come close to the truth of your
situation,” Dulan replied.

Merin joined them in the sitting room, not
taking a chair, but crouching on the raised hearth, as near to the
fire as she could get. The chill and the dampness of the wet day
were seeping into her bones. Herne did not look at her, but kept
his attention on Dulan.

“I have learned something unexpected from my
direct physical contact with Merin earlier today,” Dulan said. “I
discussed my findings with Jidak and Imra when I met with them, and
they agreed that my conclusion must be correct.”

“What conclusion?” Merin held her hands out
to the fire, trying to warm them. Her treksuit, with its thermal
adjustment properties, should have kept her warm or cool, depending
on the temperature of her environment, but the cold she felt was
inside her, the product of too many unfamiliar emotions and an
ever-growing weakness.

“You are both starving,” Dulan said. “Because
you are in the wrong time, your digestive functions and our food
are not compatible. You eat constantly, but only a small portion of
what you consume provides nourishment to your bodies. For the most
part, it’s as though you were not eating at all.”

“But water quenches my thirst,” Merin
said.

“We do not fully understand the metabolic
process involved. In this respect, water may be an immutable
substance,” Dulan said. “We believe there may be other effects of
the temporal displacement you have suffered. Merin, I know you are
aware of a significant change in your ability to control your
emotions.”

“Are you saying,” asked Herne, “That what we
feel for each other is only the result of where we are? That if –
when – we return to our own time, our feelings will change?”

“I do not know,” Dulan replied. “To my
knowledge, no one has ever moved through time before.”

“It would help,” Herne said with ice in his
voice, “if we could return emotionally to where we were when we
first came to this planet.”

Merin caught her breath. There it was, laid
out for her so that she could no longer deny the truth. Having
finally learned what she was, Herne found her so repulsive and his
desire for her so painful that he wanted to feel nothing for her.
That being so, it would surely be better for her if she could
arrange to feel nothing for him as well. She wondered if it would
be possible for her to achieve the same control of her emotions
that she had once maintained, and knew, with a rising sense of
despair, that she could not.

“I’m going to see Saray.” His expression
fierce, Herne stood and headed for the door. “I’ll force her to
contact Ananka.”

“Force won’t help,” said Dulan. But Herne was
gone. Dulan’s head was bowed. “He is in terrible pain. He loves and
hates at the same time, fears and hopes in the same moment. Hourly
he grows weaker, but he will strive for your safe return until he
dies.”

“If he dies,” Merin whispered, “I will die,
too. If he is gone, it won’t matter to me.”

“You should rest. I have an appointment with
Jidak, who believes the Chon may be able to help you.”

Left alone, Merin wandered into the kitchen
in search of food. She found bread and ixak cheese laid out
together, and a bowl of fruit, but she did not eat. She was too
angry. Rage against the circumstances of her life, against the lies
she had been taught throughout her youth, fury toward Ananka and
Saray for their heedless experiment that had brought Herne and her
to Tathan, a sense of the unfairness of it all filled her, giving
her a desperate strength.

“I won’t lie down and die,” she swore. “I
won’t let Herne die, either.”

She ran out of Dulan’s house, along the alley
and through the door at the rear of the Gathering Hall. She climbed
the steps, where she stood with her back to the Hall, facing the
garden, trying to recall every detail of the investigation she and
Herne had once undertaken through the ruins of both Hall and garden
while they explored the site with Tarik.