by Speer, Flora
“I doubt if they can hold off this kind of all-out assault for long, though,” Merin replied. “We’re in position again, Herne. Fire when ready.”
A bright flash on the viewscreen showed that Herne’s weapon had found its mark. From the spot where a Cetan ship had been, debris rained downward.
“Six Cetan shuttlecraft closing in on us,” Herne announced. “At least they’re after us and not those poor people on the ground.”
“Two more to port,” Merin said, her gaze alternately on the viewscreen and the control panel. “Fire. Fire again.”
A sudden blast from a Cetan ship sent the shuttlecraft spinning. Merin fought to regain their position above the city.
“Damnation,” Herne muttered. “Where’s Ananka? If she lied to us, I’ll –”
“If she lied to us,” Merin responded, “there is nothing we can do but die bravely.”
“I think you’re enjoying this.” Herne spared her a quick glance before resetting his sights and firing at an oncoming Cetan ship.
“I was thinking how much Jidak and Imra would enjoy it,” Merin answered. “They both come from warrior Races. I wish they were in another ship, fighting with us.”
“Watch out! Dive!” Herne’s warning came too late. The Cetan ship fired straight at their bow. A stream of white fire ran along the control panel, searing Merin’s hands. Screaming with pain, she fell backward. Herne was out of his seat in a heartbeat, burning his own fingers to put out the fire and set the damaged controls on automatic.
Merin lay senseless, sagging out of the pilot’s chair into the aisle. Herne unclasped her safety harness and pulled her into his arms. Another bolt from a Cetan ship struck them. Herne fell to his knees, still holding Merin.
In the center of the viewscreen a globe of greenish white light formed.
“Ananka?” Herne’s voice was hoarse. The globe of light grew larger and brighter, more purely white.
“Come on, Ananka,” Herne whispered. “You promised. Don’t let her die. We haven’t much time left here. Do it now. Please. Please, for her sake.”
The white light filled the shuttlecraft. Herne looked down at Merin’s peaceful face, so thin and pale, and felt her fragile weight in his arms.
“Until later, Herne.” Ananka’s laughing voice came from the dazzling globe.
Herne looked into the light again, staring at it without flinching, until his head began to spin and his ears rang with the sound of a thousand bells. He stared until the universe went black.
Part IV
Home
Chapter 18
Herne came onto the bridge just as Tarik’s voice sounded over the speaker.
“The solar flares are much too frequent and powerful,” Tarik said, his words accompanied by considerable interference from static. “Stay aboard the Kalina, where you will be better shielded than in the shuttlecraft. Merin, do you hear me?”
“Heard and understood,” she responded.
“Narisa calculates it will be two to three days before it’s safe to send Carlis and Alla to relieve you, and for you to return to Home. I’m sorry about this, but it can’t be helped. Is everything going well there?”
“As you know, we’ve experienced a few minor problems, but they have been repaired.”
“How are you getting along with Herne?”
Well aware that others at headquarters might be nearby to overhear whatever she said, Merin replied, “Herne is always professional. He was most helpful when we had that trouble with the disconnected cable.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I know he doesn’t enjoy being confined on the ship. We’ll talk again later.” Tarik signed off.
“So, we’re to stay a few days longer.” Herne came toward Merin, smiling in a way that was not at all usual for him. “Tarik is wrong, I don’t mind at all. Do you?”
“Not really. I like the Kalina.” Merin started to rise in order to yield the science officer’s chair to him while she made her end-of-watch report. She hesitated, struck by sudden dizziness.
“Are you sick?” Herne had seen her waver. He put out a steadying hand, catching her at waist level. Instead of backing quickly away from him as she ordinarily would do, Merin leaned toward him, placing her hand on his upper arm. They stood thus in a half embrace while she marveled at the absence of suppressed anger in him. There was a calmness about him that she had never noticed before. He was regarding her with serious concern, so it was possible that quiet competence was part of his medical persona when dealing with a patient.
“I have been light-headed for the last few minutes, but there is no reason for it,” she told him.
“I’ve been feeling a bit queasy myself,” he admitted. “Perhaps it has something to do with the solar storms. But there’s another reason why you should be dizzy. You haven’t been eating. Sit down.”
His hands on her shoulders made it impossible for her to resist the order.
“Put your head down.” He pressed her head forward until her face was touching her knees. “Stay there for a minute.”
She could hear the soft whirring of his diagnostic rod.
“You are constantly examining me,” she complained.
“That’s because I worry about you.” He took her wrist between his fingers. She straightened a little, not enough to give him cause to scold her for lifting her head before he had given his permission, but far enough to be able to watch him counting her pulse.
“Isn’t that method a bit primitive?” she asked.
“These things aren’t infallible.” He pocketed the rod. “Your pulse rate is rapid, but otherwise you check out as perfectly normal. Do you have any aches or pains that I should know about?”
“My hands still itch, but you said they would until the lacerations from the cable repairs heal. Today, there is a burning sensation in my fingers, too.”
“That’s not unusual.” Herne turned her hands palm upward to look at them. “They’re healing normally, though your fingertips are a bit red. It could be a minor burn. Have you been getting too close to the heating element in the galley?”
“Not that I remember. May I stand up now?”
“Only if you promise to eat something. You are much too thin.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m hungry.” She sounded as surprised as she felt. She was never hungry, she simply ate when it was time to do so.
“I’m hungry, too.” He put his arm around her to help her rise. She did not protest the gesture, but went to the hatch, where she paused to look back over her shoulder with a quirk of her lips that Herne thought might have been the beginning of a smile, except that Merin never smiled.
“In that case, I ought to prepare enough food for two,” she said. “Vegetable stew, bread and fruit for both of us, with a double serving of pastry for you.”
“Merin.” His teasing tone stopped her exit from the bridge. She saw the harsh lines of his face softened by amusement. “It’s still your watch for another hour. I am the one who should prepare the food.”
“I forgot.” She put one hand to her head. “I wasn’t thinking. I guess it’s because I’m so hungry.”
“Then I should bring your meal quickly, and make it enough for four.”
When they passed each other, Herne heading for the galley and Merin back to the science officer’s chair, he patted her shoulder in a light, friendly touch. She stared after him, wondering why she was not offended by what he had just done.
The light-headedness washed over her again, leaving her with a distinctly unsettled feeling, as though some fundamental aspect of her being was in the process of shifting position. She sank into her chair, rubbing at her itching, burning hands. By the time Herne returned with their food the dizziness was gone and she attacked the food on her plate with unconcealed eagerness.
“I’ve never seen you eat like that before,” he said, leaning back in his chair in a relaxed posture and smiling at her. “I take your hunger as a healthy sign.”
“You’re different,” s
he told him.
“In what way?” He had been reaching for a third piece of pastry, the kind he especially liked, stuffed with juicy red berries. His hand stopped, hovering over the plate, while his eyes flashed a sharp look at her that told her all she needed to know.
“You are confused, too, aren’t you?” she said. “Upset, unsettled, a little dizzy. And very hungry. You have eaten twice as much as I have.”
“What of it?” He was trying to hide what he thought was a weakness with his usual abruptness, but it wasn’t working. She knew him too well for him to fool her in that way.
Knew him too well? Why should she think that? She didn’t know him at all.
“We are not sick,” Herne told her. “I have checked both of us thoroughly. Nothing is wrong with the air supply, the water, or the food on this ship. No toxic substances are affecting us.”
“And yet?” she encouraged, more confused than ever.
“And nothing.” He popped the third pasty into his mouth and began to chew.
“Something is hovering around the edges of my memory, but I can’t get it back,” she said. “I wish I could remember.”
Herne swallowed the last of his qahf, watching her. She knew he was watching her because she was looking straight at him. She was looking right into his eyes without the least twinge of embarrassment or shame. It seemed perfectly natural to do so. His answering gaze warmed her, lifting her spirits. In the blink of an eye, as she sat looking at him, she saw herself going into his arms, felt his naked body against hers, his mouth scalding her own. She felt him inside her.
With a gasp she leapt out of her seat and across the bridge. How could she imagine something so dreadful, so completely foreign to her training? What was wrong with her, to make her feel this way, to make her allow passionate emotion to suddenly take such strong control of her mind? She knew as well as anyone else that the coming together of male and female was the most terrible crime of all under Oressian law.
Her thoughts reeled in confusion. Her body was telling her something her mind dared not accept. She knew, knew absolutely, that union with Herne would bring with it not pain and physical destruction but an intense, sweet joy, and the beauty of their joining would endure for the rest of their lives. Her certainty of that heretical belief was so strong it was as though her body understood something her mind did not know, or had rejected, or had forgotten.
For one long moment of nearly unbearable conflict, Merin’s strict Oressian training fought against her deep, complicated feelings for Herne. She wanted him. She could not want him. It was impossible, vile, unnatural. She wanted to be a good Oressian. She wanted Herne.
She clamped her mouth shut on a groan, refusing to express by any sound her terrible inner turmoil. Unaware of Herne’s reaction to her stiff posture or her tense, withdrawn expression, she was completely focused on the battle taking place inside her deepest self.
It was a painful struggle. For a time it seemed her sanity would be utterly destroyed by the strain of it. But at her weakest moment, when any hope of integrating two totally antagonistic desires seemed impossible, there rose into her thoughts the image of a blue-robed figure with an ageless face. From the figure radiated so much affection and strength, so much pure friendship, that Merin, her courage renewed, was able to set herself once more to find a way through anguish and uncertainty back to reality.
Finally, as if a thousand tiny clenched fists had opened themselves in her mind to set her emotions free, the complex web of Oressian laws and rules and training that had held her bound for her twenty-five years of life drifted into the back of her consciousness. She knew the web would never be entirely gone from her. She did not want it gone. There were valuable qualities she had gained from her childhood: her respect for order over chaos, for peace over violence, her love of learning. But there were advantages to other ways of life, and strong emotions were not necessarily destructive. Miraculously, she could now accept those revolutionary ideas. She could accept Herne, and her need for him.
“Merin, speak to me.”
She realized that Herne had been talking to her for some time, while she had been silently undergoing the most amazing internal transformation. He was holding her shoulders, as if he thought only his strength could keep her upright. She laid both of her hands flat upon his chest and lifted her face to his.
“Please,” she whispered with the oddest sense that she had said the same words to him before, “please kiss me.”
“Don’t ask unless you mean it,” he growled, stepping back a pace. She took one of his hands and laid it over her breast. He made a sound in his throat, a low primeval moan of rising male passion.
“Kiss me, Herne.”
“If this is some weird aberration of Oressian hormones caused by the solar flares,” he groaned, pulling her toward him, “I don’t want to hear the scientific explanation.”
“It’s no aberration,” she whispered, her mouth against his, “it’s me. It’s what I want.”
His mouth was hot on hers, his arms held her tightly. Her lips parted to let his tongue surge into her. Merin put her arms around his neck, raised herself on tiptoe, and gave herself completely to his kiss. It was wonderful; it was everything she had known it would be. It ended too soon.
“We are supposed to be watching the ship,” he said, his voice a little hoarse.
“Could we put the instruments on automatic for a few minutes?” she asked.
“A few minutes?” He shook his head. “More like a few hours.”
He did not let go of her. Perhaps he was afraid she would change her mind if he did not continue to touch her. He kept one arm around her waist while he transferred all of the Kalina’s instruments to automatic.
“Our cabins are too far from the bridge,” he said. “It’s not that I’m unromantic, but I’d like both of us to stay alive through any emergency that might occur. We will have to use the conference room.”
Still holding her at the waist, he led her toward it. The rest of the ship was black and grey, and the conference room had grey walls, but during the refitting at Capital, new furniture had been installed. The conference table was ebony artificial wood, the chairs around it covered in darkest maroon. To one side of the room were two armchairs and a couch, all upholstered in dark maroon fabric. The couch was narrow for two people to lie on it, but the bunks in their cabins were not much wider.
Merin went to the nearest armchair and paused, one hand at the neck of her treksuit.
“Let me.” Herne’s fingers brushed hers aside, then slid along the pressure sensitive opening. The front of her suit fell apart. He peeled it off her shoulders and down the length of her body. Soon treksuit and boots were removed and she stood before him in the thin, sleeveless undershirt and low-cut briefs that were standard Jurisdiction Service issue. His fingertips lightly touched her breasts, circling her nipples until they stood up hard and obvious through the transparent fabric.
Merin caught her breath. She was trembling in eager anticipation, but she was surprised at her own lack of fear. She touched Herne’s treksuit.
“It’s my turn,” she said and opened it from throat to crotch. He did not wait any longer for her. Within a few seconds he had pulled off the suit, his boots, and his underwear. He looked as he had in her dreams, a large-boned, hard-muscled man, with thick ash-brown hair and grey eyes. His manhood stood out stiff and proud from a cluster of brown curls.
Merin licked her dry lips and reached for the chinstrap of her coif. Now that his body was revealed to her in all its masculine glory, she could see how much he wanted her. It was time for her also to show her most intimate secrets. She unfastened the chinstrap, pulled off the coif, and dropped it onto the armchair where he had laid her treksuit. With both hands she began to remove the pins that held her tightly coiled hair. She bent to lay the pins neatly on top of her coif, then straightened to find him staring at her in awestruck wonder.
“I swear by all the stars that I have never seen anyone or anyt
hing as beautiful as you,” he whispered.
With her eyes locked on his, she pulled off her undershirt. She reached for her last remaining piece of clothing, but he stopped her.
“My turn again,” he murmured. He slid his hands around her hips, beneath the top edge of her briefs and over her buttocks. Slowly, deliberately, he eased the flimsy undergarment down along her legs to the floor, kneeling as he moved lower. His face was against her thighs, his hands still caressing her ankles and calves. He began to kiss her thighs while he stroked upward with both hands. Merin cried out, her knees buckling. She caught at his shoulders to keep herself from falling.
He must have heard the alarm in her voice, for he stood at once and lifted her, carrying her to the couch. He bent over her, looking deep into her eyes.
“You have always been so reluctant for close physical contact,” he said. “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want.?”
“Could you bear it if I said no?” she responded, smiling at him. “I know I could not bear it if you were to turn away from me at this moment.”
“What has changed you so radically in so short a time?”
It would take too long to explain what had just happened to her and she did not want to lose this precious moment. She would tell him everything later, but now she answered almost flippantly.
“Perhaps the solar flares have something to do with it.” She laughed a little and saw him look startled, as though she had never laughed before. But she had laughed, and he had laughed back at her. Where? When? The faint trace of a lost memory faded. She tried a more rational approach. “Perhaps the change occurred when you rescued me from that awful shaft and kissed me afterward. Perhaps I just didn’t recognize the change until now.”
