Destiny's Lovers (25 page)

When Tarik’s group of ten settlers first
arrived on Dulan’s Planet, Herne had appropriated one room of the
building they called their headquarters, decreeing that it would
serve as hospital and sickroom for anyone who needed to be isolated
while ill or injured. After the shuttlecraft returned from the site
of the volcanic eruption, he ordered the still-unconscious man they
had rescued carried into the bare white room. Alla offered her
services as his assistant in any treatments that might be required,
as did her friend, Suria.

“I fail to see how anyone who is both
spaceship navigator and midwife can help me,” Herne said to Suria.
“And as for a botanist-zoologist - you would only get in my way,
Alla.”

“I have done a lot of dissection work,” Alla
protested.

“On humans or on peculiar animals?” retorted
Herne, looking irritated. “What we should have among the colonists
is another physician.”

“If you had one, you would only find reasons
to quarrel,” Suria observed tartly. “What you need for this man is
someone who can serve as nurse so you can sleep occasionally. A
decent night’s sleep might improve your temper.”

Herne did not answer her. He was too busy
cutting off the man’s clothing. When he had finished, he took up
the laser knife to cut through the golden bracelet the man wore on
each wrist. He tossed the jewelry aside with the rest of his
patient’s tattered belongings, leaving it to Alla to rescue the
bracelets and lay them in a safe place. Next Herne used the
diagnostic rod to check his patient’s condition one more time
before he began the necessary repairs to the battered man.

Suria moved silently to the instrument table.
Without being asked, she began to hand Herne what he needed, while
Alla monitored the life-recording machine. Repair of the man’s
severe internal injuries was completed first, following which, at
Herne’s order, Suria started an infusion of universally acceptable
artificial blood. Next Herne quickly cleaned a deep laceration on
the man’s left arm, removing a pressure dressing he had applied
during the return trip and resealing a torn artery before melding
the skin back over the wound with practiced precision. Then he went
to work on the man’s leg wound, cleaning it and setting the broken
bones before melding the skin there, too. Finally, he immobilized
the leg while he used sonic instruments to fuse the shattered bones
back together.

As Herne worked, Alla watched the
life-recording machine carefully, wanting the strange man to live
with an urgency far beyond normal concern for a fellow being. She
could see from the readouts that the man was so deeply unconscious
he needed no anesthesia during the repairs Herne was making. In
fact, with his near-fatal injuries, anesthesia would have been
dangerous to him, but had it been required, Alla would have
administered it. There had been only a few minor medical
emergencies since they had come to Dulan’s Planet. Each time Herne
had grumbled sourly about his lack of staff and the lack of medical
training of both Suria and Alla, and then he had allowed them to
assist him. They were growing used to him by now. Flame-haired
Suria made a face at Alla over Herne’s bent head, and Alla smiled
back at her.

“He’ll live,” Herne said, tossing the skin
melder onto the instrument table and turning off the sonic
instruments. “He will be unconscious for a while, probably until
his fluid levels return to normal. He is badly dehydrated and in a
state of shock. That broken leg will take a long time to heal
completely. At least seven days, I’d say.”

“I will sit with him,” Alla volunteered.

“You will not,” Suria told her. “You need to
eat, and to think about something beside Reid and this man for a
while, or you will be Herne’s next patient. I will stay with him
until you are rested.”

“Now that you have disposed of the man and
the nursing schedule between you, I may as well get some rest
myself,” Herne said, and walked out of the room.

“You go, too,” Suria ordered Alla fondly. “I
promise I will call you if he wakens and is able to talk.”

“He might know what happened to Reid,” Alla
said. “But if he doesn’t—”

“If he doesn’t, we will still find Reid. I
know Tarik. If there is a chance Reid is still alive, he won’t stop
searching, not after the discoveries of the last few days.”

But when Alla wakened after a long nap, the
computer model showed that there had been another volcanic
eruption, with more clouds of ash and steam billowing out of the
mountains.

“We can’t search that area again until the
air clears,” Tarik said, his dark face taut with strain. “The
shuttlecraft engines would be destroyed if large amounts of ash
were sucked into them. I am sorry, Alla.”

“I understand.” Her only hope now was that
when the rescued man regained consciousness, he would be able to
give them information that would help in the search for Reid.

She was alone with him the following evening
when he began to stir, opening his eyes to see her bending over
him. The sea-blue color of those eyes was dulled by pain, and Alla
thought very likely by emotional shock, too, if he had been aware
of what was happening to his home before the columns crashed down
on him.

“The earth no longer trembles,” he said in a
hoarse, weak voice.

“You are in a safe place,” Alla assured him.
“We are well away from the volcanoes.”

“Not at Ruthlen?” The voice became firmer as
he spoke, as though he had tapped a reserve of strength far inside
himself.

“If by Ruthlen you mean the place where we
found you, no. We are half the continent away from there.” She
could sense him thinking about that and gradually understanding
that he had been rescued by people from outside his home. A few
moments later, he spoke again.

“My bracelets are gone,” he said, rubbing at
first one wrist and then the other.

“Our physician had to remove them,” Alla
explained. She picked them up from the shelf where she had laid
them the day before and handed them to him. “I am sorry they were
damaged, but I think they could be fixed without much
difficulty.”

“How appropriate that they should be cut
off.” He took the bracelets, turning them over in both hands. “A
just punishment.”

“One of our colonists is very good at metal
repair,” Alla offered. “I will ask him.”

“Don’t bother. I am no longer worthy to wear
them, and what they once represented is gone.” He dropped them back
into Alla’s hands.

“Did you find others alive?” he asked.

“We found no one,” Alla said, wondering for
whom he was concerned. She added quietly, “We did find a body near
you. A woman in a blue dress.”

“Sidra.” He gave a deep, painful sigh. Then
came a response that made Alla wonder all the more about this man.
“Sidra is gone. I am free.”

“I need to ask you a few questions.” Alla
decided it was time to steer the conversation to the subject that
most interested her.

“Your speech is different from mine,” he
said. “You speak as Reid did.”

“You know Reid?” Alla bent forward, her hands
clenched tightly together to keep her from grabbing at him in her
excitement. “Please, he is my cousin, and we have been searching
everywhere for him. If you know where he is, tell me so we can find
him.”

“So you are Alla.” The blue eyes were sharper
now, searching her face. Alla stared back at him, caught by his
marvelous beauty, and by the possibility of finding Reid. She
thought he was going to say something, but at just that moment
Tarik appeared.

“Here is our commander,” Alla said, and
watched the man look Tarik over with remarkable thoroughness.

“You are Jurisdiction,” the man said to
Tarik.

“I am, but if you are a telepath, you have
nothing to fear from us,” Tarik responded.

“I do not fear,” the man said. He looked from
Tarik to Alla, then seemed to make a decision. “I am Osiyar, former
High Priest and Co-Ruler of Ruthlen. What do you wish to know?”

“Where is Reid?” Alla asked before Tarik
could speak.

“He is dead,” Osiyar replied, and saw her
face crumple. “You cared for him. I regret the need to cause you
pain, but you requested the truth.”

“Tell us everything,” Tarik ordered, “from
the time you first met Reid until the last moment you can
remember.”

Osiyar began to talk. Herne came into the
room in the middle of the story to check on his patient, and then
to remain, listening as intently as Alla and Tarik. In answer to
Tarik’s questions, Osiyar explained that the blanking shield around
Ruthlen would have kept the scanning computer aboard the Kalina
from recording evidence of the true conformation of the land beyond
the forest, and of the people living there. He spoke briefly about
Sidra and her intrigues. Finally, he told them how Reid had arrived
in Ruthlen and what had happened to him and to Janina.

“Bedding a virgin priestess,” Herne grumbled
at this point. “The man ought to have better sense. No wonder your
High Priestess punished him.”

“So Reid isn’t dead.” Alla wasn’t interested
in Janina, only in her cousin. She knew she was grasping at a
meager hope, but she could not help it. “Reid is familiar with
boats. He might have managed to safely beach the one he and the
girl were in. He could be trying to reach us over land.”

“That’s not very likely,” Herne put in. “I
was in the forest, too, Alla, and I know as well as you how
impassable it is. Not to mention the wide desert and the prairie
lands if they got out of the forest, or the mountains if they
started walking from farther up the coast. No, I think it is more
likely they never reached land. The two of them are drowned, or
dead of thirst and starvation by now.”

“There is something else you should know,
Alla,” Osiyar said when Herne paused for breath. “I told you Tamat
and I joined our minds to hasten the volcanic eruption she knew was
imminent. I remained linked with her to the end. In the last
instants before her death, she thought of Janina with relief. The
image in her mind was of Janina on a larger, well-supplied boat. I
had no time to think more of it because the earth was shaking and
the temple columns fell on me. But now I wonder if Tamat sent
another boat after them.”

“You mean, she sent someone to help them?”
Alla asked eagerly.

“No,” Tarik said with a certainty that
impressed Alla. “He means Tamat sent them a boat with her
mind.”

“She could have done it,” Osiyar agreed.

“Which reminds me, Tarik,” Herne interrupted.
“How are we to protect ourselves against this telepath? Who knows
what he has already learned about us, or what use he will make of
the information?”

“I am too weak to use the Gift,” Osiyar said.
“Even if I were not, I still would not use it without permission.
That is the law.”

“We don’t know that we can trust what you
say,” Herne objected.

“No more than I can trust you and Tarik when
you tell me you will not turn me over to Jurisdiction authorities.”
Osiyar smiled, making Alla catch her breath at the perfect beauty
of his face. “I believe, Herne, that we are forced to trust one
another in this situation in which we find ourselves.”

“Can you use your Gift, as you call it, to
contact Reid or the girl?” Tarik asked.

“When I am stronger, perhaps,” Osiyar said.
“Janina’s portion of the Gift is locked so deep within her mind
that I do not think it can ever be reached except by use of a
harmful herbal potion, so there is little chance that my presently
weakened skills could touch her mind firmly enough for me to
understand where she is or what has happened to her. She cannot
send her thoughts outward, you see. Reid is another matter. Tamat
believed he had some latent power which he himself did not
suspect.”

“That can’t be true!” Alla declared, much
shaken by this assertion. “If Reid had any telepathic ability, I
would know it, and I tell you, he hasn’t.”

“You know nothing about such things,” Osiyar
retorted sharply. “Do not dispute Tamat’s knowledge or her ability
to search another person’s mind to learn what lies within it. Her
belief in Reid’s unrecognized ability was one reason she decided to
allow him to mate with the village women.

“As for contacting either Reid or Janina to
try to discover where they are, you must all understand that such a
use of the Gift would be exhausting for the most healthy telepath.
If I were to try before I recover fully, I would surely fail, and
if I die attempting what you want, I would be of no further use to
you.”

Alla watched him, intrigued by the coolness
with which he spoke of his own demise and wondering if he did not
care whether he lived or died. It was possible, considering that
everyone he had known, as well as his home, was lost to him
forever.

“Had you friends in the village as well as
the temple?” she asked with sympathy. She considered his response
no real answer to why he was so cool.

“There was no one I cared about. I love no
one,” he said, then looked at Tarik. “May I remain with you until I
am well? I swear I will harm no one, whether by mind or by physical
force.”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you
wish,” Tarik told him, adding, “There is a Cetan among us, but he
is a friend. I should also tell you that the remnants of the Chon
live here at the lake.”

Osiyar went perfectly still, staring so hard
at Tarik that for a moment Alla wondered if he had already broken
his promise not to use his Gift. Then she saw him relax.

“A Cetan. If you say he is friendly, I will
believe you. As for the Chon, Reid told Tamat that they still
live,” Osiyar said. “Before he came to Ruthlen, we had believed
them all killed by the Cetans. Herne, how soon may I get up? I must
meet them.”

“Two or three days at the most,” Herne said.
“You will need a crutch for your broken leg until it has completely
healed, but you should be able to move about fairly easily.”