by Speer, Flora
“You have never been with a man before.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Oressians don’t –” She stopped, unsure how much to say. She saw him frown and shake his head a little as if to drive away an unwelcome thought.
“No, of course Oressians don’t,” he said. “You did tell me that once. It may hurt a little when we first come together. I’ll be as gentle as I can.”
“I’m not afraid.” Smiling, she raised both hands to catch his face and pull it close enough for a kiss. She met his mouth with her lips open.
Any barriers that might have remained between them disappeared in an instant. Herne’s passion engulfed her like a raging flood, his hands and mouth and tongue driving her to near madness. She felt as though her body remembered him, but that was obviously impossible. Still, every touch, every caress, every kiss evoked a familiar physical reaction. And she knew how to touch him so as to give him the greatest possible pleasure. As her excitement mounted she cried out shamelessly, begging him not to stop what he was doing. She saw him poised above her, his face tense.
“Please,” she whispered, as earlier she had begged him to kiss her. “Please, Herne.”
He pushed against her. Smiling into his eyes, she pushed back, offering him all she had to give. Being gentle as he had promised, he moved into her. There was no pain, there was only a long, slow, beautifully sensuous slide until he filled her completely. She sighed with pleasure. This was what she wanted and needed. Herne made a slight movement that joined them even more closely. Passion rose in her with great naturalness, as if she and Herne had been together like this many times in the past.
That notion was nonsense, of course. It was just the memory of his previous stolen kisses that had inflamed her senses, making her want what he was doing now. She moaned when he moved again. She saw him looking at her in amazement.
“I know you,” he whispered. “My body knows yours.”
He withdrew from her completely, then drove into her with fierce passion again and again, harder and harder. Merin wrapped her arms and legs around him, crying out with mounting desire at each vigorous thrust until finally they shuddered together into a great, gasping climax that met the unfulfilled need secretly waiting within her and released it into quivering beauty.
Nor did he leave her at once, but held her still, his mouth upon hers through a long and quieter resolution, while their hearts gradually stopped racing and their breath steadied. Passion completely spent at last, he gathered her tenderly into his arms again.
“I once read,” he told her, wiping the tears from her face, “that when a woman weeps at the climax of lovemaking, it’s because her soul has been touched.”
If the woman has a soul. She could not speak for fear she would begin to cry in earnest and blurt out what she knew she soon must tell him. She had made her peace with her past, but she was not certain Herne would be able to accept it. She caught his caressing hand and kissed it instead of using words to describe her feelings.
“I love you,” he said. “With all my heart and for all time, I love you.”
Still she said nothing but only held his hand to her lips.
“I suppose an Oressian can’t say it.” He sounded wistful.
“An Oressian.” She sighed, knowing she could not put the revelation off much longer. “There is much I need to tell you. When I do, you will turn from me in disgust.”
“There is nothing disgusting about you,” he said with great firmness, “Didn’t you hear me, Merin? I love you.”
She sat up, the sudden action almost pushing him off the couch.
“We are neglecting our duties,” she said. “I will dress and check the instruments.”
He was beside her, tearing the treksuit out of her hand, tossing it back onto the chair.
“For a virgin who has just had her first experience of lovemaking,” he said, “you are behaving with remarkable coolness.”
“First?” Confused, she wrinkled her brow. “Yes, it was my first experience. How could it be otherwise?”
“Then I guess Oressian women are made a little differently from other women.”
“What do you mean?” She tensed, all too aware of what she would tell him within the next hour.
“Only that it didn’t hurt you. In fact, it was as if we had made love before.”
“I will dress now.” She wanted to delay the painful subject, at least until she was decently covered again. Then his rejection wouldn’t hurt so much.
“If you must, then just your underwear,” he said. “It’s warm enough and with only the two of us on board, it doesn’t matter what we wear. Besides, we may want to come back here in a little while.”
“Not after you hear what I have to say.” Nevertheless, she donned only her undershirt and briefs. Herne pulled on his own briefs and they went out onto the bridge.
“There, you see, everything is as it should be.” Herne flicked the switches, turning part of the instruments back to manual control. “I’m hungry again. Will you make some food for us, or shall I?”
“I cannot eat until I have told you the truth about me. Please stop looking at me like that, and stop touching me until I have said what I must.”
“Sorry, but I like to touch you. It seems natural now that we have become lovers.”
“We are not!” She stopped, one hand over her mouth. “Yes, we are. I want to go on being your lover until we grow old and die. My body and yours, my heart and yours. My soul and yours. But you may not think I have a soul. Oh, Herne, let me speak before my heart breaks from the weight of this guilt I carry. I have allowed you to imagine things about me that are not true. I have deliberately allowed you to believe falsehoods.”
He sat down in the navigator’s chair and spun the science officer’s chair around to face him.
“Sit here,” he ordered. “Say what you want, and never believe I’ll stop loving you.”
She told him everything.
“So you are a clone,” he said quietly when she was finished. Then, with a hint of anger, he asked, “How many other Merins are there, back on Oressia?”
“We are not named, we are numbered. I chose the name of Merin for myself when I was told I had to leave Oressia. I had read it in a history book.”
“So on Oressia there is a society of identical people, created to certain specifications, functioning like living machinery.” His disgust showed in his face. “No wonder the Jurisdiction forbids that kind of artificial reproduction.”
“If the Jurisdiction ever learned the truth about Oressia,” she said sadly, “the planet would be destroyed with no compunction whatsoever because we are considered, as you said, identical, soulless, subhuman creatures.”
“Not long ago,” Herne said, “I think I would have been unable to accept what you have just told me. But something inside me has changed. I don’t know how or why it happened. Perhaps the change occurred as I learned to love you. Whatever the cause, I’m not the same man I used to be, and I know you are not a soulless creature. If ever anyone had a soul, you have.”
“You don’t know me well enough to say that.”
“I do know you. You are a physically normal, exceptionally beautiful, intelligent, warm-hearted woman, though you try to disguise most of those qualities. You are courageous and inventive in a crisis, you are tolerant of personal differences, and a wonderful friend. I know you here.” Herne struck his chest. “You spoke earlier of the two of us, body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. That’s true. You and I, together. I don’t care if there are a thousand others back on Oressia who are just like you. You are the Merin I love.”
“But there are not a thousand others,” she exclaimed. “That is the greatest mystery of Oressia. We are alike when we leave First Cubicles, but after that changes occur in each of us that make us distinctive individuals by the time we are twenty. It should not happen, but it does. No one knows why. There are theories linking the differences to Oressian water, or to the soil in which our food
is grown. Others claim the changes occur during the maturing process that takes place at age fifteen. The mystery remains unsolved. All we know is that by the time we are twenty, we are more like very similar brothers and sisters would be on some other world than like identical clones.
“You can understand,” she went on, “why Oressians are bound to strict secrecy about our way of life. But it seemed right to me for you to know. I cannot swear you to silence, I can only ask you not to reveal this truth to anyone who would find me repulsive as a result of the knowledge. This is not something I had control over, Herne, any more than you could control the hair color you were born with or the shade of your eyes.”
She fell silent. Herne was staring at his hands, which he had clenched into fists. He did that sometimes, when he was trying to control his anger, but she had not seen him do it since – since when? He himself had admitted that something important had changed him, had taken away his inner rage. But what? And when? Had her story so revolted him that the rage was back?
“Have you ever killed anyone?” he asked suddenly. “No, don’t bother to answer. It was a stupid question after the tale you’ve just told me. You have been trained not to be violent. I was fifteen when I left Sibirna. Before my fifteenth birthday I had killed eight men. I had to, if I was to stay alive. That’s the kind of place Sibirna is.”
“That’s horrible,” she whispered. He went on talking, his eyes still on his clenched fists.
“The true horror was that no one, not even the relatives of the dead, cared very much. That kind of violence was just accepted as an everyday occurrence, because all Sibirnans should be free to do whatever they want. To my mind, that way of living, without any self-discipline, is as bad as growing children in a laboratory. Both cultures degrade the human spirit, but I think Sibirna is worse than Oressia. Eight men. All of them attacked me first, but still, after that what right do I have to call you a horror?”
Wanting to comfort him, she put one hand over his fists. He looked up at her, searching her face.
“I don’t usually talk about my past,” he said. “Do you hate me for what I did?”
“I could never hate you.” She thought of an argument that might help him. “Herne, you told me once that you left Sibirna because of the violence. You became a physician because you wanted to help people, not hurt them. How many lives have you saved?”
“I don’t know. I’ve lost count. I was in the Service for years during the Cetan wars, and assigned to Riotha during the plagues there. It was hard to keep track of my patients during all of that.” He rubbed his hands across his face as if he were tired. “I know what you’re trying to say, Merin.”
“I’ll say it anyway. You are by nature a healer, not a killer. It is certain that you have saved more lives than you have taken.”
“I hope so. It would be some recompense for the blood on my hands.”
“Jurisdiction law recognizes self-defense. You said those men all attacked you. The death of your opponent in one-to-one combat in which you were fighting for your life is not a punishable offense.”
“Eight-to-one combat,” he corrected her, “and the Jurisdiction knows about it. I confessed before I entered the Service. They cleared me of all guilt in the incident, but I still can’t forgive myself for those deaths. I should have found a better way to end the fight.”
“Eight to one? And you think you are to blame for what happened during that cowardly attack?” She went to her knees before his chair, taking his hands in hers. “You must have been terrified. How brave you were, at such a young age, to win over so many. How proud of you I am. How much I love you.”
“There can be no question you have a soul,” he said, “but there’s more than a little barbarian in it. Your ancient ancestors would be proud to claim you as their own. Who would have thought it would take the story of that dishonest ambush to make you say you love me?”
“It’s not the first time I’ve said it to you.”
“Really? When did you ever say it before now? In the shaft when I couldn’t hear you, when we both thought you were going to die?”
“I said it in my dreams,” she told him, knowing there had been another time, another place, when she had dared so much. But where? When?
“Merin,” he said, touching her face with gentle fingers, “your watch is over now, and I am suddenly half-starved. Do you think you could prepare enough food for both of us?”
“It will take a little while,” she answered. “But you want to be alone for a time, don’t you? You want to think about what we have both said.”
“You know me well.” He watched her walk to the hatchway, a tense young woman barely covered by her skimpy underwear. There was one thing he did not need to think about, not for a moment more. “I love you,” he said, and saw the tenseness leave her slender figure.
* * * * *
“I have a theory about why sex was the activity most particularly forbidden among Oressians,” Herne announced. He paused, noting a flush of rising color in Merin’s cheeks, though she continued to eat with every appearance of indifference to what he might say. “I suspect it was because Oressians are an extremely passionate people. I have known a few women in my life, not many, but enough to know that you are unusually responsive.”
“We were taught that it is extremely painful to men and women alike,” she began, “that it destroys the body.”
“Was it painful for you?” he asked.
“Not at all. It was wonderful.” Her cheeks were flaming now. She stopped eating.
“It was more than wonderful for me,” Herne told her, “because of the way you reacted to me. Which is probably why the ancient Oressians spent so much time at it, until their promiscuous actions threatened wholesale destruction of their society. It’s easy enough to imagine jealous passions causing personal dissension, or family and clan feuds, or even escalating into international warfare.
“That’s my theory; I believe that is why your Great Olekan forbade the art of love. That’s why he made all those strict rules and laws for daily life, why you were created and raised as you were. Perhaps Olekan’s methods were the only ones that would have worked for Oressia. I don’t know about that, not being a sociologist or a historian, but it does seem a shame to me to force an entire planet to forego the pleasures of rapturous sex in order to keep peace and preserve the Oressian Race. There should have been an easier way.” He paused to smile at her. “At least you are freed from that tyranny. On Dulan’s Planet there is no punishment for love.”
“Freed.” Her gaze was thoughtful. “I have noticed that other free women, Suria for instance, or Narisa, or even Alla from time to time, all incite their men rather than waiting for the males to make the first advances.”
“Have you thought of following their example?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “I like that word, incite. It suggests the possibility of a riot.”
She stood, the movement pulling her undershirt tighter across her breasts. He looked from her bosom to the tempting curve of her abdomen and then below, to the dark shadow beneath her briefs, where her thighs joined. She shook her head in a seductive motion, making her mane of qahf-colored hair swing forward across her right shoulder.
“Can there be a riot with only two people present?” she asked with great seriousness.
“I don’t know.” Herne reached to switch all the instruments back to automatic. “Shall we find out?”
Chapter 19
The lake glittered in ice-rimmed winter blue and the bare trees swayed in the cold wind. Dressed warmly against the chill, Tarik and Osiyar had come to the shore to greet Merin and Herne on their return to headquarters. The shuttlecraft appeared on schedule, spiraling downward to settle on the snow-dusted beach.
The main hatch opened and a woman stepped out. She wore a vivid blue heat-conserving jacket over her orange treksuit, but her head was bare. Gleaming hair the color of well-brewed qahf was coiled neatly at the back of her head, controlled except for a few stray wi
sps caught by the wind. She turned her head to say something to her companion, who was still inside the shuttlecraft. The sound of laughter drifted toward the watching men.
“Merin?” Tarik gaped at the smiling woman coming toward him. “Is that really you?”
Herne jumped out of the shuttlecraft and followed Merin up the beach. When he reached her side he put an arm across her shoulders. She regarded him with open affection.
“She looks different without that cursed coif, doesn’t she?” he asked with a big grin. “I convinced her to take it off and dump it into the recycling chamber.”
“One must wonder,” murmured Osiyar, “exactly how you achieved that notable end.”
“Can’t tell you.” Herne’s arm tightened around Merin. “Medical confidentiality, you know.” With that, he and Merin headed for the warmth of the building at the center of the island.
“I did say,” Tarik remarked, watching them, “that they wouldn’t mind a few extra days alone together.”
“It is as I had hoped,” Osiyar mused, also looking after the lovers. “I was not wrong about Merin. She knows, though she has forgotten what she knows. It is enough. She will find her way, and so will Herne find his.”
“I won’t pretend to understand what that means.” Tarik began to walk toward the headquarters building, toward Home. Osiyar went with him, Jurisdiction officer and telepath together, friends in spite of the cultural and psychical gulf that should have separated them. Tarik spoke again. “There are more things in heaven and earth than we can know.”
“If Narisa could hear you,” said Osiyar, “she would doubtless warn you about misquoting poetry.”
Tarik’s only answer was a wicked chuckle.
* * * * *
“I thought you would be interested to learn,” Narisa told Merin, “that Tarik and I have finished cleaning and analyzing the recorder you found at Tathan.” She gave a copy of the report to Merin, who shook her head in disbelief as she read it.