The hidden light source that illuminated the Gathering Hall did not extend to the garden behind it, where there was only moonlight and the pale gleam of hundreds of white flowers. Herne paused, searching the shadows.
“The entrance to Ananka’s grotto has to be here somewhere,” he said, “and in that grotto we’ll find the answers we need.”
“If Ananka is capable of appearing at Saray’s house, then she isn’t confined to one place,” Merin pointed out. “In any case, you won’t find the answers you need in the dark. The moons are lower now, and will set soon.”
“Which means we are free until daylight.” Merin saw a flash of white teeth as Herne’s arm slid around her waist. She stiffened, fearing they might be seen. Much as she welcomed his caresses when they were alone, she still could not adjust to demonstrations of affection when others were near. She was relieved when he did not try to kiss her, but instead hurried her through the door and into the alley between the Gathering Hall and Dulan’s house.
His arm was still around her waist and he drew her near, his free hand tilting her face upward. Her eyes had not yet grown used to the almost total darkness in the shadow of the wall, so she could not see his face.
“All evening,” he whispered, “every moment I was aware of you. I could almost feel your skin beneath my hands. I could remember the look of your hair all undone and falling over my arm as I held you. And I remembered the way you cry out in pleasure when I make you mine.”
“Oh, Herne.” His fingers held her chin and she knew his mouth was almost on hers.
“You are part of me now, Merin, part of my mind and heart and in every cell of my body. No matter what happens, I promise I won’t let anything separate us.”
His kiss was meant to be gentle, to seal that tender oath, but the meeting of their mouths lit a fire in Merin that was out of control in an instant. Had Herne not retained a bit of common sense, she would have lain down on the hard stone paving and let him take her there, not caring who might come upon them, for she was beyond embarrassment, beyond the reach of any discipline she had ever known. She burst into frustrated tears when he pulled away from her to urge her toward Dulan’s house.
Once they were indoors she reached for him again and this time Herne did not resist the temptation she offered. A moment later they were in their bedchamber, where a dim lamp burned, and they were tearing at each other’s clothing. From Merin’s gown rose the rich fragrance of khata wood, filling their nostrils, heightening their desire. They fell upon the bed together, naked limbs entwined, Merin nearly attacking him with her greedy kisses and the most unabashedly erotic caresses she had ever bestowed upon him.
At first Herne reveled in this unleashing of repressed passion, but she would not stop, not until he caught her hands in a tight grip, holding them at either side of her head while he thrust into her, hard, harder, harder still. She began to moan and writhe. Herne forced himself to control his own need so he could watch her lovely, tormented face dissolve into ecstasy. But that sight, together with the thrashing of her legs and the swiveling of her hips had their effect on him. With a loud cry he burst into a passionate climax that seemed to extend Merin’s, for she continued to move and throb beneath him. It was not until her wild cries of passion had eased into soft sobs that he withdrew and lay beside her. When she turned to him he saw the tears upon her cheeks.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she choked. He put his arm around her, pulling her against his shoulder. “Never in my life have I completely lost control like that.”
“Perhaps it’s something to do with the telepaths,” he said, kissing her forehead.
“Oressian minds are not suited to telepathy,” she reminded him.
“Nor are Sibirnan minds,” he responded. “But close contact with many telepaths who are in communion with the Chon made us aware of what you called ‘vibrations in the air.’ That must have affected us. And don’t forget, we are suffering from a severe dislocation in both time and space. I haven’t really felt like myself since I arrived in Tathan.”
“I’m hungry all the time,” Merin said, sitting up. “At this moment I am absolutely starving. I have to find some food.”
“I’ll go with you.” He found their towels in the bathing room. Wrapped in them, they explored Dulan’s kitchen, discovering bread, ixak cheese, fruit, and a small jug of batreen. All of this they piled onto a tray which they took back to their room, where they sat upon the bed to eat. Merin cut the cheese, laying the pieces neatly on small slices of bread before feeding them to Herne
“Do you think I’m so hungry because of our lovemaking?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Just a moment there!” he cried in mock anger. “For every one you give to me, you eat two, yourself.” He snatched a slice of bread and cheese out of her hand and ate it.
“I can’t help myself. This tastes wonderful. In fact, all Tathan food tastes marvelous. Could I have some of those little orange berries before you finish all of them?” When Herne popped the fruit into her mouth she caught his finger in her teeth.
“Will you eat that, too?” he teased.
“Possibly.” Still clenching her teeth around his finger, she circled it with her tongue.
“Woman.” Herne pulled his finger free. “I hope you are aware that I haven’t finished with you yet.”
“I’m so glad.” She ran her hand across his naked chest, then reached down and tugged at the towel still twisted around his waist. Her eyes met his and in their purple-brown depths Herne saw all the love that had gone ungiven throughout her lonely life. “I hope you never finish with me,” she whispered. “I know I will never be finished with you.”
Not taking his eyes from hers, Herne piled the few remaining crumbs of food and the empty batreen jug onto the tray and set it on the floor. Then he took her into his arms again.
This was a less frantic loving than the first time, but still passion flared hot and bright between them. Merin was an apt pupil, always willing to learn more, and Herne found her endlessly fascinating. She was exquisitely sensitive to his every caress, so that he felt as if her body sang beneath his searching, probing hands and his eager mouth. Their coming together was a delight so intense that he almost lost his mind.
“I love you,” he said, looking into her wondrous eyes. He waited, poised above her, his manhood deep inside her, hoping, secretly praying to all the ancient Sibirnan gods for the answer his heart longed to hear.
“I love you,” she whispered, and moved in exactly the way he wanted her to move. Then he did lose his mind and every vestige of self-control in an explosion of happiness that went on and on until he was drained and weak and they were both completely, blissfully satisfied. This was his woman, his love, in this time or any other. And he knew with absolute certainty that for him there could be no other love.
* * * * *
“Whether we ever get home again,” Herne said during the darkest reaches of the night, “or whether we are forced to spend the rest of our lives in this time, I want everyone to know that you are mine and I am yours. Will you marry me tomorrow? And if we can go home, or if we find a way to escape the Cetan attack, will you have my children? Will you live with me until we both grow old and die?”
In Merin’s mind a blot of fear began to grow, canceling out the indescribable joy she had just experienced with Herne. She was going to have to tell him the truth about herself. His insistent love would compel her to speak. She could not say she would marry him, or even refuse him, without explaining.
“I don’t know how to have a child,” she began, fighting back tears.
“We have just been practicing.” Laughing, he laid a hand on her abdomen. “As a doctor, I will be happy to provide the intimate physiological details. The child will grow in here. Shall I demonstrate again how it enters?”
His teasing manner did not disguise how much he wanted her to say she would agree. Suddenly, she wanted it, too. For all of her carefully regulated existence the idea of pregnancy had been a horror in her mind worse even than the contemplation of the act of love – which had a very different name in the Oressian language.
Now a new thought occurred to her. The Oressian Elders had lied about the pain and physical damage caused by lovemaking. Could they have lied about childbearing, too? Was it possible that she might be capable not only of carrying Herne’s child inside her body, but of surviving its birth? A real child, a natural child, conceived in hot passion, born of love…Herne’s child inside her, growing…a child….
“I wish it could be,” she whispered, covering her face with both hands, knowing that once she had told him everything, he would want that miracle no longer. Not with her. Never with her.
“I know we’re in danger, and it’s probably foolish to talk about having a family,” he said, “but knowing it’s what we both want will give us something to hang onto. I’ll find a way out of here, Merin. I’m almost certain I can convince Ananka to send us back.”
“If you can’t,” she began.
“If I can’t, then we’ll leave Tathan anyway. We’ll go to Dulan’s retreat at Lake Rhyadur, where we know the Cetans won’t find us, and we’ll live there. We can leave a message there for Tarik, so he’ll know what has happened to us.”
“It’s a dream,” Merin said. “It can never be. You won’t want it.”
“It can be,” he insisted. “Whether here, or in our own time, I’ll make certain you are safe.”
“I cannot marry you.”
“Why not? You can’t deny that you want me.” When she tried to get off the bed, he reached for her, but she eluded him. “Merin, answer me. Why won’t you marry me?”
“I cannot bear to tell you.” Tears were running down her cheeks. She knew he would insist upon knowing everything, and the thought of telling him was breaking her heart. She made one last, foolish effort to stop what was inevitable, taking refuge one final time in the standard Oressian phrase of denial. “I am forbidden to tell you.”
“I thought we were finished with those old excuses.” They were both standing now, Herne holding onto her hands so she could not cover her face again or try to run away from him. “Merin, I have just asked you to be my wife. For a Sibirnan, that is no small thing. I deserve a better answer than just, ‘I am forbidden to tell you.’”
For a long time she stared at the floor rather than at him, trying to gather her courage while he held her hands as if they were tethering him to life itself. Then the weight of the terrible secrets she had been carrying since leaving Oressia became too great for her to bear the burden any longer. Her shoulders slumped. She took two steps backward and lifted her head to look directly at him.
“You are right, Herne. You do deserve an explanation. Your honest proposal, the love we have repeatedly made, and the emotions you have made it possible for me to feel, all have negated my oath never to speak of Oressian customs, just as my telling you the truth of my origins will dissolve all the beautiful promises you have made to me, all the sweet and gentle oaths you thought would bind us together forever. Let me cover my nakedness first, then I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, for when I have finished you won’t want to look at me any longer.”
“Wrap yourself in this.” He handed her the towel she had used earlier. While he was searching for his own towel, she disappeared into the bathing room. He found her standing with her back to him, in the doorway to the enclosed garden. She looked at the plants instead of at him while she spoke. Winding his towel about his waist once more, Herne walked across the room to stand beside her.
“Long ago,” she began, “Oressia was a world of profligate and violent passions. Wars were fought for foolish reasons, or for no reason at all except the love of killing. Rampant lust led to diseases and unhappiness. Oressian culture seemed doomed because the people would not control or even postpone their simplest desires. Every wish must be gratified immediately. There are vast resources on Oressia, including metals needed for the manufacture of space ships and their propulsion systems, but the companies formed to mine and export those metals were ruined by the greed of their owners and the indolence of the workers.
“Then arose our great leader, Olekan.” Merin sounded as if she was declaiming the lines of some ancient epic poem. “Many were the battles, terrible the bloodshed. Entire clans were exterminated before Olekan brought peace to our world. Once he had conquered all of Oressia, Olekan established stern laws and named a Tribunal of Elders to enforce those laws. All forms of violence were strictly forbidden, the slightest infringement punishable by death. But that was not enough to prevent future wars, or a return to our old decadent ways under a new leader after Olekan had died. He understood this, so he made still more laws for our protection.
“Oressia became a closed planet. No outsiders were allowed to set foot on it, and any Oressian who left could never return to contaminate our newly peaceful society with alien ideas. Exportation of our products was from that time conducted by mechanized ships and robots. The only importations allowed were foodstuffs and the few raw materials we lacked, which came to us on the returning unmanned ships.”
Here Merin paused, considering how to explain the rest, how to make Herne understand without despising her. Knowing her hope was a futile one, she drew a deep breath and continued.
“Under Olekan’s laws, marriage was forbidden. Families were forbidden because they generate ambition. Friendship, greed, hatred, social status, all were forbidden, for these were the temptations that had once led Oressians into near extinction. The few children left alive after the wars ended were educated to hate and fear those temptations.” Another pause. Merin swallowed hard. “Lovemaking was forbidden. Even mention of it was against the law. We are taught from our earliest days how dangerous it is to feel any emotion. We are strictly trained from childhood to repress all disruptive feelings.”
“What you are describing is totalitarianism of a particularly insane kind,” Herne protested.
“For your people, perhaps,” Merin responded. “But those Oressians who had survived the great wars understood that for us there could be no other way. It was strict regulation or certain extinction, and my ancestors made the only choice that would allow our society to continue. For centuries, Olekan’s system has worked well, proving the wisdom of this great leader. Oressia is now a peaceful and prosperous world. Poverty no longer exists. The metal mines are profitable once more, and those profits are dispersed for the good of all our people. Where once we were disreputable outlaws, now we have become valued members of the Jurisdiction.”
“No families, no friends, no love, no lovemaking. That’s a lonely price to pay for social stability,” Herne said. Then, “Without lovemaking, how do Oressians reproduce? And how are the children raised, if no families are allowed?”
“We do not reproduce,” she told him. “Not in the way you mean. What you and I have done together is strictly forbidden because it is the vilest of crimes, leading to terrible social ills. Until your body entered mine, I did not even know exactly how it was done. From early childhood each Oressian is taught to avoid any activity or any situation that might give rise to illicit desires. Disobedience of this law is punishable by immediate extermination.”
“By Oressian law, you and I are criminals?” Herne looked as if he could not believe what she was saying.
“From the first moment you touched me in the grotto all those weeks ago, my life was forfeit,” Merin said, “and rightfully so, for from that moment my discipline has been dissolving until now it is completely gone and I am lost forever.”
“Only on Oressia,” Herne said. “Not here, not on Dulan’s Planet.”
“We carry our home-worlds with us wherever we go.” Her voice was filled with sadness.
“You still haven’t explained how Oressians reproduce,” Herne noted. “Obviously, you do reproduce, since the system you describe has been in place for centuries. As a doctor, and as a man, I find the question intriguing.”
“Olekan decreed that the population of Oressia should remain stable, at the level best suited to our resources,” Merin said, evading a direct answer. “And so it has been done, since that time.”
“How?” Herne demanded. “I doubt that even your Olekan could abolish all diseases, or accidental death, or the ravages of old age. How, then, can a stable population be maintained? Answer me, Merin, and tell me the truth, because I have a terrible feeling that what we are discussing is against Jurisdiction law.”
“Oressia became a member of the Jurisdiction on condition that our planetary isolation and our ancient laws be preserved,” she reminded him. “The Jurisdiction needs Oressian metals. Our conditions were accepted.”
“And every Oressian who leaves the planet is sworn never to reveal anything about Oressian culture, and never to return there,” Herne prompted softly, trying to encourage what was obviously going to be a difficult admission for her to make.
“It is a rule I never broke until I came to Dulan’s Planet,” Merin said. “Great Olekan and the Elders were right. It took only the sight of your naked body and one kiss to lead me into moral degradation. I fell further from discipline and honor each time you touched me. See me now, unclothed, hair unbound, my body repeatedly opened to yours, unable to deny you anything you want of me, even to speaking our deepest secrets. By loving you, I have betrayed everything I was ever taught.” She stopped on a sob.
“You are a perfectly normal human female,” Herne said, “capable of great passion, able to conceive and bear a child. I ask you again, Merin: would you bear my child? Would you want to?” He saw in her face wonder, hope, joy – and horror. It was that last emotion, unconcealed and painful, that decided his next words. He had to know, so he made his voice hard. “No more delaying, no more evasions. Tell me now how Oressians reproduce. Do they use artificial insemination? Or have they discovered a means to induce parthenogenesis, like the Riothans do? Is that it? Do your women not need the male seed? Do they literally get themselves pregnant?”
For a long time he thought she would not answer him. He watched her struggle with this last, deepest restriction, watched tears fill her eyes while she gathered her courage to defy the final Oressian law. And he felt pride in her and a love so wide and deep it was beyond measuring when she began to speak again. But only until he understood what she was saying. Then his heart went cold.
“We are grown from tissue stored in the BabyCompLab,” she said. “By Great Olekan’s order, fifty males and fifty females were chosen to be the progenitors of all future Oressians. The choices were carefully made for diversity of physical characteristics, for strength, endurance, lack of inherited diseases, and for comeliness. Olekan saw no reason to create an ugly race.”
“Create? BabyCompLab?” Herne was shaken to his core. What Merin was explaining was absolutely forbidden by Jurisdiction law. No wonder Oressians were so secretive. Though he tried, he could not keep the distaste out of his voice. “When you once told me you had no mother, you were speaking the truth. You are a clone.”
She bowed her head under that condemnation and Herne thought his own heart would break with the pain of it. This woman he came near to adoring was the product of a practice so abhorrent to all the Races of the Jurisdiction that he could not yet comprehend the horror of her confession. But then she raised her head and looked him straight in the eye.
“I am a member of the five hundred and sixty-fifth generation of my original parents,” she said with an almost defiant air that touched him through his revulsion and disgust, and told him that whatever else Olekan’s laws had achieved, they had not entirely eliminated familial pride.
“Tell me about your childhood,” he commanded.
“We are raised under laboratory conditions, in isolated cubicles, where the master computer teaches us what we need to know at each stage of our development. At the age of ten, we are given our first clothing, removed from First Cubicles, and turned over to second Cubicles and advanced education. At the age of twenty, those needed to replace dead Oressians are sent into society.”
“What about the extra children?” Herne tried to keep his voice calm, tried to hide the repugnance and anger he felt at what Merin was telling him. “Olekan must have provided for extras to be produced in case they were needed.” It made him sick to talk about humans in that way, as if they were components in a factory, waiting to be used on an assembly line to manufacture a product.
“Those who are not needed as replacements on Oressia, but who have displayed exceptional abilities, are permitted to leave, to live on other worlds. I have an unusually retentive mind for details. That is why I was sent to the Archives at Capital.”
“So, variations appear as you are trained. Interesting.” Herne stopped, aghast at his own words. “What about those who are not needed on Oressia but do not rate placement elsewhere? What happens to them?”
“They are exterminated.”
“But they are sentient beings!” This was too much. Herne was furious. “Willful destruction of intelligent life forms is forbidden by all the worlds in the Jurisdiction, and by overriding Jurisdiction laws!”
“There are those who believe that life forms, sentient or not, that are produced by methods other than the natural manner for their species, have no souls and therefore are not protected by those laws,” Merin said quietly. “Which is one of many reasons why Oressians are bound to secrecy when they leave their own world. It is for our protection, Herne.”
More likely, it was for the protection of the Oressian authorities, who certainly knew how many laws they were breaking.
Herne staggered to the bench beside the tub. There he sat down and put his head in his hands. He could not blame Merin for what she was. The way she had been born – or, rather, created in a laboratory – was not her fault. Nor could she be blamed for her acceptance of one way of life when she had never been given the opportunity to know another. None of this was her fault. None of it, he told himself again. She was a victim of the Oressian system.
His reaction to what she had revealed was physical. His head ached from the awfulness of it. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to leave her and never see her again.
He loved her. He had repeatedly made love to her. To a clone.
But she was a normal human female in every respect. His diagnostic rod had told him so each time he had examined her. His body had told him the same thing whenever he held her in his arms, when he had made her his while they made love. She was human, real, a courageous companion in their strange predicament. He admired her intelligence and her learning. She was a valuable contributing member of Tarik’s colony.
She was a clone.
He loved her.
“I’ll need some time to digest all of this,” he said, his face still in his hands. He heard a movement, then saw her feet in front of him, delicate bones covered by creamy skin, with opalescent nails. She knelt and he saw her hands, slender and beautiful. He felt like crying. She took his hands in hers, pulling them away from his face.
“Please look at me,” she said.
“How many times have I begged you to do the same thing?” he countered, unable to meet her eyes.
“Herne, I know I have shocked you beyond your ability to accept what I am. I wish it had not been necessary, but I could not agree to marry you and then live a lie. I love you too much to lie to you about something so important. If there is anything I can do to make acceptance easier for you, please tell me.”
“Easy?” He gave a bitter laugh. “Nothing in my life has been easy, but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. I’m not angry with you; I want you to know that. But I do need to be left alone until I think through everything you have said.”
“I understand. I know my revelations have made it impossible for you to continue our intimate relationship.” Her voice was amazingly cool, perfectly calm, like the Merin he had first known. And every word she said tore at his heart. He wondered how she could speak without breaking into tears.
“Thank you for freeing my emotions, Herne. I will cherish the memory of our lovemaking for the rest of my life, though I know those same memories must disgust you.
Nevertheless, I hope we will still be able to work together to achieve our mutual goal of a safe return to our own time.”
Mutual goal? Cherish the memory? Herne nodded, unable to speak for the emotion that was choking him. She left him, going into the bedchamber, where he heard her moving about. After a few minutes he heard the door open and close. He assumed she had gone out, perhaps to walk along the path by the salt marsh, to breathe in the salty air that reminded her of her homeworld – her home!
What kind of home was it that could treat its children so impersonally, so brutally? Though his own childhood had been anything but happy, still Sibirnan parents did see their children into the teen years with some show of concern for their welfare. It hurt him to think of Merin as a small, delicate-boned girl with dark curls, not running free and playing as children ought to do, but confined in a miserable, isolated cubicle, being fed information and food at predetermined intervals, by a computer. No human contact, no loving mother’s arms no brothers or sisters or playmates. Nothing but a machine to tend to her needs. No machine could be programmed to care if a little girl cried.
That thought broke him. The picture in his mind of a tiny Merin, alone and weeping with no one to comfort her, brought him to the first real tears he had shed in more than thirty years. He wept for what had been done to her, for her loveless childhood and her lonely life since leaving Oressia. And he wept for himself, because no matter how much he loved her, he was not sure he could ever accept what she was.