by Speer, Flora
“Your humor is misplaced,” she said. “Since neither of us is an experienced pilot, a forced departure from Dulan’s Planet is not a pleasant prospect.”
“I have piloted this ship before, several times,” he replied, grinning. “So, if Tarik decides he wants us to leave orbit, you will just have to trust me, won’t you? I promise to trust you, whether you have ever acted as pilot on a large ship, or not.”
Refusing to respond to what she regarded as a deliberate provocation on his part, which was designed to lure her into revealing something more about herself, Merin did not answer. She flipped a couple of switches, reset a dial, than stood and made ready to leave the bridge.
“It’s your watch, Herne.” With that, she officially turned the ship over to him for the next eight hours.
“See that you eat something,” he called after her. “You have been starving yourself.”
Again, she did not answer. She knew he had been monitoring her food consumption, but she did not care.
She moved easily through the ship, comfortable in the confinement of its black and grey walls, secure in the knowledge that so long as Herne was on the bridge she would meet no other person. In the galley she poured a cup of hot qahf. Herne had left a tray of pastries on the counter. He had a tendency to eat sweets when something else would have been a better nutritional choice, and he assumed that others would want sweets, too. Merin thought it was an odd attitude for a physician. She would have preferred a piece of fresh fruit. Reminding herself that personal preferences were irrelevant, she picked up a piece of pastry and took it with the qahf to her cabin. It was almost time for sleep.
* * * * *
She was back in the grotto at Tathan, watching the globe of white light grow larger and more brilliant, until she could clearly see every inch of Herne’s naked body. He was a glorious creature, beautiful to her eyes, totally, excitingly male.
A wave of emotion swept through her, shaking her to the foundations of her being. Everything in her - heart, spirit, mind – yearned for him. Her body ached for his touch. Herne took a step toward her and Merin felt the air stir against her bare skin. She was without clothing. Even her coif was gone, so that her hair tumbled freely down her back.
She waited for him, her heart pounding, knowing that in another moment he would take her into his arms. His skin would touch hers. Her breasts would be scratched by the rough brown hair on his chest. His mouth would be on hers, his tongue inside her. She would be held…touched…kissed…caressed.
“No! No!” She awoke, sitting up on the bunk in her cabin aboard the Kalina, clutching a blanket to her chin. She still wore her treksuit and her coif remained firmly fastened to her head. On the shelf beside the bunk was half of the pastry and the empty qahf cup, her recorder next to the food.
She had been dreaming. It had been a terrible, a terrifying dream, but nothing more. Only a dream, and it was over. All was well. Nothing had happened. Herne had never seen her unclothed. No one had, not since the day when she had first put on garments. She understood the need to stay completely covered at all times, except for the very brief moments required for hygienic purposes. She had never failed to obey that rule. Until recently, she had always obeyed the rules.
It was her mind that had betrayed her into that forbidden dream, her thoughts and the emotions she ought not to have – could not possibly have – would not allow herself to have. Not after so many years. She had passed all the tests. She would have made a perfect Oressian had it been possible for her to remain on Oressia. Even during her years at Capitol she had never faltered for an instant. Not wanting to know about forbidden subjects, she had deliberately kept herself apart from the activities of humans while she lived in a city where access to any vice was possible so long as one had enough money and free time. Merin had never been tempted. Not once.
Only since coming to Dulan’s Planet had she begun to weaken. She was not certain whether the fault lay with the planet itself, or with the other colonists. Perhaps it had begun when Osiyar’s mind had touched hers. Or with Herne’s kisses. Herne’s kisses….
Merin lay down, pulling the blanket up to her nose and tucking it tightly around herself, to make herself feel safe. In the dream she had felt air on her skin because once a day she removed all of her clothing to bathe. She had felt her hair loose and falling down her back because, twice a day she took it down and brushed it. But she had not felt the touch of Herne’s naked flesh on hers because a dreamer could recall only the sensations that had been experienced in waking life. The trouble was, she should not have had the dream at all. That she had was a sign of how dangerously far she had fallen from Oressian discipline. Were she on Oressia, she would have been honor-bound to turn herself over to the Elders, to be exterminated for the good of society.
But here, outside Jurisdiction boundaries, on a lost planet in the Empty Sector, there was nothing to stop her from dreaming again – and again.
* * * * *
“There’s food ready for you.” Herne indicated the tray next to the science panel. “I fixed it for myself, but I couldn’t eat. No point in wasting it.”
“Thank you. Relieving you of duty.” Neatly avoiding any opportunity to touch him Merin mounted the two steps to the science officer’s seat. Herne did not leave the bridge promptly, as she had hoped he would. Instead, he stood on the deck directly behind her. She could almost feel him there. If she moved her head backward just an inch, it would rest upon his chest. Then he would surely put his arms around her. She could relax against him.
Vile, disgusting thought! Never touch again…never allow anyone to touch…. She stiffened her back, sitting rigid before the panel of blinking lights. He had to leave the bridge before she lost control of her emotions. He had to….
Herne leaned forward, his left shoulder brushing against her coif, his right hand pushing a button.
“Pay attention to what you’re doing, Merin. You might have missed that solar flare. You know we are supposed to watch and record each one, no matter how small.
“The computer will do it,” she said absently.
“Not if the flares interfere with the computer’s power, which is a distinct possibility.” He spun her chair around so quickly that she gasped in surprise. “What’s wrong with you? I can see you aren’t concentrating. The records in ship’s store indicate that you have scarcely eaten since we came aboard. Does my presence offend you so much that you lose your appetite?”
“I seldom eat much,” she said. “You didn’t eat the latest meal yourself.” She glanced toward his untouched tray.
“Look at me.” She had heard him use that voice before, when he was performing surgery and meant his orders to be instantly obeyed. She could not deny his command. Intense, worried grey eyes bored into hers. He pulled from his pocket the diagnostic rod he always carried and used it to scan her body quickly, from head to toe. “You are a bit undernourished and dehydrated, but otherwise healthy. See that you eat properly and increase your fluid intake. That’s an order.”
“Please,” she whispered, “keep your eyes lowered.”
“You said once that to an Oressian, a direct glance constitutes a challenge,” he recalled, setting one hand on each arm of her chair so she could not escape him. “A challenge to what? Physical combat? Lovemaking?”
“No.” It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to keep herself from giving way to total panic, and so the truth slipped out before she could stop the words she ought not to say. “Never lovemaking. Leave me alone, Herne.”
“Why do you find me so repulsive while I find you incredibly attractive?” he wondered, half to himself. When she did not answer, but sat wringing her hands in distress at how much she had revealed to him in the last few days, he added, “Can’t we at least be friends?”
“Friendship is forbidden.” That much she was permitted to say to anyone who might approach her.
“No love, no friendship. Yours is a cold world, Merin. An inhuman world. Yet you are human.
I have just proved it with this diagnostic rod.” He straightened, releasing her from the prison of his closeness. He paused before leaving the bridge. “Someday, even you will know how human you are. I hope that day is soon, before you break from all the emotions you are repressing.”
Chapter 7
The overlapping hour between their watches had become a torment to Merin. When she had first come aboard the Kalina with Herne, it had been the one time when she could not ignore or avoid him, but at least it was only an hour. If it was the end of her own watch, she could cut the time short by leaving the bridge as soon as she had made her report to him. At the end of his watch, when she came on duty, she pretended to be absorbed in her work until he left the bridge to seek his cabin or to wander around the ship, checking on the various systems that kept it in orbit. Now, however, a disruption had occurred in one of those systems, and Merin and Herne were going to have to work together to repair it. Thus, one of the two most unpleasant and difficult hours of her day would be extended to an indefinite length.
In the engineering chamber, where the controls for the Kalina’s propulsion system were housed, Herne pulled the grate off a shaft in the lowest section of the bulkhead and shone a handlight inside it. At his command Merin squatted beside him, craning her neck to look where he indicated.
“There,” he said, moving the handlight to give her a better view. “Can you see the dial? And that loose cable? The cable will have to be reconnected and the dial reset.”
“This should not have happened.” After looking into the shaft, Merin scrambled to her feet to call the ship’s plans onto a nearby computer screen. “According to this information, when the ship was refitted at Capital new cables were installed and then double-checked to be sure they were properly connected. I’m no engineer, but this diagram looks simple enough to me.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Herne interrupted her disparaging comments about whoever had originally made the cable connection, “because you are the one who is going to have to fix it. That shaft is too narrow for me to fit into it.”
“Herne, I’m a historian, not a mechanic,” she protested, now regretting her hasty remarks.
“We are all supposed to be able to perform every necessary chore on this ship or on the planet. You have accomplished every other task Tarik has set for you. I’m sure you can do this one, too. Are you afraid of small spaces?” The look he gave her was kind but determined. “If you are, I’ll give you a relaxant so you won’t feel frightened, but that cable has to be repaired and you are the only one to do the job.”
“Small places are home to me,” she told him with a murmur of silent laughter at how true that statement was. “I will not need drugs to enable me to enter the shaft. I was only concerned about the work itself. I have never reconnected a cable before.”
“I’ll show you how to do it.” From the computer Herne called up another screen to demonstrate the repair process. “Think you can do that?”
“I’ll try my best.” Merin looked at the hole through which she was expected to crawl. “Isn’t it bad planning to build a shaft too small for the average man or woman to crawl into?”
“No one has ever accused the Cetans of careful advance planning,” Herne said. “Gaidar certainly wouldn’t fit in there. At Capitol they have a narrow trolley, a flat gadget on wheels that rolls right into tight spots and does the work automatically. I’ve seen it in action. It only takes a few seconds to make a repair like this.”
“We should have one on the Kalina,” Merin said.
“Complain to Tarik when we return to Home.” Herne strapped a flexlight to her left wrist and set it for full brightness, then handed her the tools she would need, explaining the use of each. “There isn’t much room for you to move around in there. You won’t be able to get your arms over your shoulders in that space, so you will have to lie down on your back with your arms over your head out here. Then I’ll push you inside. When you’re done, I’ll pull you out again.”
Startled by this proposition, she looked directly at him. He gazed back at her with a reassuring smile. She thought he was trying to convey to her without putting it into embarrassing words that he would not touch her in an improper way or take advantage of her inability to defend herself while inside the shaft. She sank to her knees, then stretched out on her back as he ordered, holding the tools and putting her hands into the opening of the shaft.
By bending her knees and pushing with her heels she was able to help at the beginning, but the shaft was deeper than she had anticipated. Before she reached the disconnected cable, Herne’s hands, on her thighs, then on her calves, and finally around her ankles, were all that moved her forward. She knew, with a sickening jolt of her heart, that when she dreamed again, she would feel his hands on her. Deliberately, she used her will to blank out all physical sensation so she could concentrate on her work.
It was not complicated, but the position was awkward and she was unfamiliar with the techniques required. Minutes ticked by as she tried to fasten the end of the cable to the terminals, failed, and tried again. Herne’s worried voice came to her like a tinny echo through the layers of metal. He seemed think she must be suffering from claustrophobia. She called back that she was perfectly fine. And she was. She felt safe and comfortable in that narrow shaft. It felt like home. She was almost sorry when the cable was fixed, the dial reset, and she could tell Herne to pull her out.
She was free as far as her knees when a loud popping sound behind her head reverberated through the metal bulkhead. Immediately, the shaft was filled with grey smoke. She felt the urgent pressure of Herne’s hands on her thighs, pulling hard at her, sliding her through the shaft as fast as he could. An instant later she was out of the narrow shaft and Herne, who had been kneeling across her legs as he worked her body forward, was holding her in his arms, crushing her against him while smoke billowed out of the hole where she had been. When she put up one hand to adjust her coif, he gave a shaky laugh.
“That cursed thing never comes off, does it? Blessed stars, I was frightened for you! Are you hurt? Merin, can you say something?”
“I’m not hurt.” He didn’t seem to realize that he was still straddling her thighs and that she could not move. He did release her from the tight embrace of his arms, but only to take her face between his hands while he kissed her. And she, thoroughly shaken by the explosion in the shaft, lowered her defenses enough to put her arms around him and kiss him back. Then they were down on the cool metal of the deck, Herne sprawling on top of her, pressing hard on her, holding her there, while his hands at either side of her head kept her immobilized through a wild, deep kiss. Still she clung to him, trying to pull him closer, reveling in the unfamiliar pleasure of masculine hardness and taut muscles.
“Merin, Merin, I thought I had lost you.” He held her gently now, pulling her partly off the deck so they were side by side as he rocked her.
It was sweet, so very sweet, to be held like that, to know he cared enough to fear for her. No one had ever cared for her before. No one. Merin buried her face against his shoulder.
His hands touched her coif, trying to unfasten the strap beneath her chin, trying to push away the fabric. That brought her back to reality. Breaking apart from him, she sat up.
“We need to attend to the ship,” she said.
“For a while there, I forgot about it,” he told her. “I forgot everything but you, and whether or not you were hurt.”
“You must never forget your duty for my sake.”
“When we have the ship repaired,” he began, “when we are back safe on the planet, at Home again—”
“Then all will be as it was before.” She had regained her usual self-control. “Nothing has changed.”
“Nothing?” He stared at her, then reached out to pull her close again, but she stood up and moved away from him. He followed her, a hard-muscled hunter stalking his prey. His next words sounded almost like a threat. “I want you, Merin. I dream about you at night.”
So he dreamed, too. Did he imagine her unclothed, walking toward him, as she had dreamed of him coming to her? He had never seen her without her treksuit and coif, but he was a doctor; he would know how a woman was made. Did he dream of putting his hands on her bare skin, of pulling her against his naked body? Merin ran her tongue across her dry lips.
Herne. Oh, Herne. They were looking into each others’ eyes and, like the mesmerized prey she imagined herself to be, she could not tear her own gaze away from the hunter who would destroy her. But she must. She must.
“Stop this,” she said, fighting for calmness through her fear and through that other emotion she refused to acknowledge. “We have a faulty cable that needs correction. Since I have failed in my amateur attempt to fix the malfunction, I suggest we contact Tarik and ask what he recommends. We should do it at once, before the problem is compounded by any more errors on our part.”
“How can you do that?” he asked. “You change so easily from deep passion to complete coldness and control.”
“It was not passion. As usual, you have misunderstood me, Herne. I was only a little startled by the explosion.”
“I know when a woman is responding to me.”
“Will you call Tarik, or shall I?”
He could tell she had closed him out of her mind for the present, so he started back to the bridge, to contact Tarik. He was not at all downhearted. After the embrace they had just shared he felt certain that Merin’s withdrawal – her prim claims to feel nothing, her insistence on rigid standards – were merely a disguise for her emotional nature. Sooner or later there would come another moment of surprise or of danger when she would forget her strict rules of behavior and open herself to him again. He would be better prepared when it happened the next time, and the time after that. Eventually, with patience on his part, he would learn what she was really like beneath all the conditioning and the rules. Then he would understand how to make her his. For he knew now that she would be his, when the time was right.