No Other Love (5 page)

One night she lay wakeful in the darkest
hours, refusing to allow herself to turn over one more time, or to
sigh, or even to stretch her cramped legs. But she could not
control the twinges in her limbs or make herself fall asleep. Nor
could she keep herself from thinking forbidden thoughts. She knew
the discipline imposed on her for her entire life was weakening.
The fault was mostly her own, though Herne did bear some of the
blame. If only he hadn’t kissed her; if only she had been able to
stop her response to him before he noticed it. For the tenth time
that night she tried the regular breathing exercises that had
always before brought rest.

With her eyes half closed and her mind at
last beginning to slip toward repose, she thought she saw a
movement at the front of the shuttlecraft cabin. The only light
came from the green glow at the control panel, where Tarik had set
the scanning instruments for security. Something moved between
Merin and that green light, then drifted toward the main hatch.

Herne! It must be Herne, because from where
she lay, Merin could see Tarik’s head and in the two flattened
seats behind him the dark shapes of Alla and Osiyar. She was
certain there could be only one place where Herne would be going in
the middle of the night. He was going to search for Ananka. It was
foolish of him, possibly even dangerous, to him and to the rest of
them.

So far had the strictures of discipline
slipped from her that Merin, with no forethought at all, did
something equally foolish and dangerous. She was still wearing her
treksuit, with her boots and shoulder-kit laid neatly by the seat
on which she lay. Swinging her feet to the floor, she reached down
to sling the kit over one shoulder and pick up the boots. Then she
crept to the hatch, opened it as quietly as she could, and stepped
into the night.

It took her only a moment to pull on and
fasten the boots, a moment more to find the handlight she kept in
her kit. Then, guided by the twin moons that were each half full,
she set off toward the ruined building and the grotto.

* * * * *

Inside the shuttlecraft, the green security
signal began to blink steadily and emit a beeping noise. Tarik came
instantly awake, sitting up to check the scanning instruments. He
had barely touched the control panel when Osiyar was there,
kneeling in the aisle beside him.

“Is it an intruder?” Osiyar asked.

“No.” Tarik switched off the beeping alarm
and the light stopped blinking. “Someone has left the ship.”

“Not Herne. He’s right there.” Osiyar
indicated the motionless shape across the aisle from Tarik. “How
could he sleep through that noise?”

“He’s not asleep.” Alla was awake, too, and
was using a diagnostic rod on Herne. “He’s unconscious. It seems to
be some kind of altered state of existence. There is no indication
of drugs or injury. It’s just that his mind is elsewhere.”

“It has happened before.” Quickly, leaving
out the few erotic details Herne had confided to him, Tarik told
them about the physician’s previous experience. “Herne spoke of
returning to this ship and standing beside his own body for a
second or two before he became one with it again.”

“What you are describing is not unknown to
telepaths,” Osiyar said. “It is possible that at the instant of
separation between body and consciousness an electrical discharge
could be created, but would it be sufficient to produce a signal on
our instruments? That did not occur during Herne’s previous
separation.”

“Merin is gone,” said Alla, glancing around
the cockpit.

“When she opened the door, that set off the
alarm,” Osiyar remarked, “but where would she go?”

“Where Herne went,” Tarik told him. “Alla, is
it safe to leave Herne alone in that condition?”

“I don’t see why not,” Alla said. “There is
nothing any of us can do for him until he reintegrates
himself.”

“Then we will secure the shuttlecraft and
begin a search for Merin.”

* * * * *

The faint silver glow coming from the chamber
at the bottom of the grotto stairs made Merin’s handlight
unnecessary. She went down carefully, picking her way through
rubble and avoiding broken steps. The light grew brighter. By the
time she reached the barren chamber at the heart of the grotto, it
had become a shimmering globe centered on the ledge at one side of
the chamber. Silhouetted against the light was a male figure.

“Herne!” Laughter followed her cry to him;
not Herne’s laughter, but that of a woman. Disregarding the sound,
Merin called again. “Herne!”

He gave no indication of hearing her. As he
slowly merged with the globe she could see him clearly. He was
unclothed. The sight should have revolted her, made her ill with
disgust at the obscenity he represented, but he was
beautiful…beautiful. He was a tall man, large boned and muscular,
with his proud head held high as he walked into the light. What a
marvelous creature he was…how easily he moved, how graceful was the
shape of his hands and feet and legs….

“Herne!”

Merin heard the sounds behind her, voices,
clattering feet, and she saw flashing lights.

“Merin, why did you come down here in the
middle of the night?” Alla demanded. “You know you have broken
security.”

“I followed Herne.” Merin had not taken her
eyes off the ledge, but all was now dark except for the light cast
by the lamps that the others had brought with them. “Herne was here
just a moment ago, but he’s gone now, and the light, too.”

“You saw him?” Tarik was staring at her.

“Of course I saw him. How else could I have
followed him?”

“Extraordinary,” murmured Osiyar.

Merin ignored him. Her concern was all for
Herne. “Tarik, he may be in danger. We have to find him.”

“Herne is back at the shuttlecraft,” said
Tarik.

“No, he’s here,” Merin insisted. “Or he
was.”

“Only you saw him leave the ship.” Osiyar’s
eyes bored into her.

Merin had her own eyes properly lowered, but
she could feel his on her, searching, seeking information about
her.

“I think,” said Osiyar, “that it is time for
my thoughts to touch yours.”

“No.” Merin wanted to flee from him, as
though mere physical distance could protect her from his telepathic
power. “I cannot allow it.”

“Merin, it is necessary.” Tarik’s voice was
kind, but he could not ease her fear. “We don’t know what this
entity is that can separate Herne’s body from his mind, why this
grotto is important, or whether there is any serious danger to us,
or even to the others back at Home. We have to learn all we can
about what has happened here.”

“Since you were capable of seeing what the
others did not, your mind offers the best pathway to the knowledge
we need,” Osiyar added.

“Herne’s mind would be a better pathway,”
Merin suggested in desperation.

“At the moment there is nothing in Herne for
me to contact,” Osiyar told her.

“I regret that I must order you to do this,
Merin,” Tarik said. “It is for the safety of all those under my
command.”

“No!” Merin was close to panic.

It was then that Alla came forward;
sharp-tongued, unfriendly Alla, who never said a kind word to
anyone when she could scold or criticize instead. She took Merin’s
hand and led the protesting young woman to the ledge, where she
made Merin sit.

“I was afraid, too,” Alla said, sitting down
beside Merin. “The first time I was terrified. But it doesn’t hurt.
There is only a faint prickling in your mind. It can be a beautiful
thing, to join your thoughts to those of another. Osiyar will not
harm you, will not take anything away from you. You will still be
yourself when he has finished.”

“You don’t understand. It is impossible. I
cannot do what you want.”

“Is it the Jurisdiction prohibition against
telepathy that frightens you?” Alla asked with a surprising amount
of sympathy. “This is a new world, a different place. No such
stricture applies here.”

“No, I will not do it.”

“You must.” Alla was growing impatient, her
voice taking on its usual sharp edge. “It could mean our lives,
including Herne’s. At the very least, you could save Herne’s
sanity.”

“She’s right,” Osiyar said. “Herne has no
training in telepathy. His lack of training combined with his deep
resistance to the very idea of telepathy makes me fear that he
cannot endure repeated separations of body and consciousness. The
being we know as Herne will simply disintegrate, will cease to
exist, if he is not permanently restored to what he is.”

“He will die?” For a fraction of a second,
Merin allowed herself to look directly at Osiyar, to try to read
his face, to discover if he was telling her the truth. He was so
serious that she was forced to believe every word he had said.
Tarik looked equally solemn, while Alla regarded her with
increasing impatience. “I do not want Herne to die,” Merin
said.

“Then help him,” Alla pressed her. “Help us
all. You owe it to us, Merin. Let Osiyar enter your thoughts.”

“There is no need. I will tell you everything
I know,” Merin offered, still trying to avoid what would happen if
she allowed Osiyar to do as he wanted.

“That’s not good enough,” Tarik said.

“Accept me,” Osiyar urged. “I can learn facts
and details you yourself do not understand.”

That was exactly Merin’s concern. Osiyar
ranging through her mind would learn the truth about her. He would
tell everyone. They would cast her out forever, and she had nowhere
else to go. She could not bear the pain of it, nor the fear.

But she could not bear the thought of Herne
dying, either, not when she might help him. Behind her lowered lids
she saw his image again, naked and proud, walking into the
mysterious light. She lifted her hand to her lips, feeling his
kisses once more. With a deep, shuddering sigh she abandoned her
past for his sake, sacrificing any chance she might have had for an
ordinary life.

“Yes,” she said, and lifted her eyes to
Osiyar’s.

He gave her no chance to change her mind. His
sea-blue gaze burned into her, his hard, determined will brushing
past her paltry last-minute defenses as if all her training in
control of her thoughts had succeeded in erecting only cobwebs
against him. She fought him in panic for a second or two before she
gave up and allowed him to take the information he needed.

She became aware of the prickling Alla had
described, followed by a sensation as if the edges of her mind had
grown vague and were being stretched. It was exquisitely painful.
She felt Osiyar’s surprise; it should not have hurt either of them.
Then she experienced his deep shock and knew that he had reached
her secret, that he now understood what she was. She felt his
revulsion and his pity. And then, as the prickling ended and his
mind withdrew from hers, he directed a surge of admiration and
respect toward her. It did much to alleviate her terror over what
would happen next, when he told Tarik and Alla about her.

* * * * *

To Merin’s surprise, Osiyar said nothing to
the others of what he had discovered in her mind. He discussed only
Herne and Ananka.

“I have seen in my mind what Merin saw when
she looked at the light,” Osiyar said. “I believe the light is the
creature the telepaths once called Ananka. Or, to be more precise,
the womanly form and the name Ananka are aspects of the light.”

“I don’t understand what you are saying,“
Alla objected.

“There is no way you could understand,”
Osiyar told her. “You have only five senses, plus a rudimentary
version of what humans call a sixth sense. Even I, with my
well-trained telepathic abilities, cannot begin to comprehend all
the senses and possibilities contained within the light that Merin
saw.”

“Is it friend or enemy?” Alla wondered.

“So far as I could tell, it will not harm
us,” Osiyar answered.

“Unless we step on its toes,” said Merin, and
they all stared at her in surprise. She could look straight at
Osiyar now. There was no need to hide anything from him, so she
kept her gaze on him. “What you describe is a life form far
superior to humans, even human telepaths. How can we tell what acts
of ours will make it angry, make it strike back at us? Its values,
if it has any, will not be the same as ours.”

“True.” Osiyar gave her an approving look.
“But we have not angered it so far, just by being here and poking
around the old city.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t care about the city,”
Merin said. “What about Herne? He was the reason for your invasion
of my mind. What did you learn about the creature’s intentions or
feelings toward him?”

“I regret to say, very little, except for a
gust of mocking laughter and an impression of fondness. But I felt
no hostility.”

“Fondness?” Alla interrupted whatever Osiyar
was going to say next. “Was that Ananka’s emotion, or Merin’s?”

It was a remark so typical of her that Osiyar
did not even bother to frown or tell her to be silent. But Merin
began to blush, the heat rushing upward to her throat and face. It
had happened to her only once before, with Herne. Her
self-discipline had always prevented any outward sign of her inner
feelings. Fortunately, in the fragmented illumination provided by
the handlights, the others did not notice. Except for Osiyar, of
course.

“If the creature is gone from this grotto,
then it seems to me there is nothing more we can accomplish here,”
Tarik said briskly. “We ought to return to the shuttlecraft is see
if Herne is completely himself again.” He motioned Alla up the
steps, then followed her. Osiyar was still watching Merin.

“When my thoughts touched yours,” he said, “I
understood your deep concern lest I reveal all of the contents of
your mind to Tarik and Alla. You used the word ‘invasion.’ I think
you do not understand the laws that have bound all telepaths on
Dulan’s Planet. I would never enter your thoughts without your
permission unless it were an emergency or to save a life. Nor can I
reveal anything I have learned from you that does not relate to the
problem at hand. Your past and what you are have nothing to do with
what has happened here. Your secret is safe with me.”