Free No Other Love by Flora Speer Page A

“Each transmission makes Cetan detection of our
settlement more likely and thus jeopardizes our mission here. Were
the Cetans to discover that we are monitoring their activities,
they might decide to abrogate their treaty with the
Jurisdiction.”
    “Oh, come on, Merin; that’s taking one short
message too seriously. Hasn’t your mother ever done something
affectionate that embarrassed you? Even my mother, much as she
disapproved of me, embraced me in public once or twice and smoothed
down my hair in front of my friends. When I was still very young,
of course. Never after I reached the age of six.” Herne’s amusement
faded as he watched Merin freeze. He decided he was not going to
let her get away with that old routine. Not this time. He was going
to push at her reticence until he learned something more about her.
“Tell the truth, now. What did your mother do that embarrassed
you?”
    The uncomfortable silence stretched on and on
until Herne thought she would never answer. But, eventually, she
did, in a small, strangled voice.
    “I have no mother.”
    Damnation! Every time he opened his mouth
with her, he made another mistake. Almost at once he realized it
hadn’t been a mistake at all. He had hurt her by bringing up sad
memories, but he had also succeeded in opening the door to her past
by just a crack. He knew from his work with patients that if he
wanted more information, he had better continue asking questions
right now, while she was still upset.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “Were you very young
when she died?”
    “I have never had a mother.” Still that same,
pinched voice. She pushed back her tray and rose from the table.
“Thank you for the food, but I find I am not at all hungry.”
    She was gone, leaving Herne cursing himself
for his clumsiness and his stupidity. Merin wasn’t a patient,
compelled to answer his questions in order to procure the best
medical treatment he could give; she was someone he wanted for a
friend, and for more than a friend. He thought he understood what
his prying had done to her. He had reopened an old wound.
    Death in childbirth was rare, but it did
occur now and then, and when it did it was a terrible tragedy that
left its scars on the entire family. The one most hurt was always
the child whose birth had caused the loss. The death of her mother
when Merin was born could explain a great deal about her character,
especially if Oressian fathers were distant and unloving, like
Sibirnan fathers.
    Believing this was what had happened to her,
Herne thought it was no wonder that Merin found it difficult to
give or accept affection. She had probably never received it as a
small child. Yet he had seen her begin to unbend toward others,
particularly toward Osiyar. It was possible that she would
eventually learn to trust Herne, too, and even to care for him.
That sweet reward would be worth any amount of patience on his
part.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Merin sealed the entrance to her cabin and
turned off every light, even the red emergency bulb that was
supposed to be lit at all times. She stood in the middle of the
blackened room, taking deep breaths, willing herself into a
peaceful state, the condition she had known in First Cubicles and
had seldom achieved again since. Advancement to Second Cubicles had
brought light, stimulation, order, and rules. From then on it had
been one rule or law after another, all of them to be memorized and
obeyed. Failure had meant instant extermination. She had seen
others moved out of Cubicles, never to return. But she had a mind
well suited to detail, and memorization was easy for her. She had
advanced faultlessly through the milestones of her tenth year, her
fifteenth, her twentieth. At twenty she had learned her fate, had
taken her oath of silence, and then had left Oressia. And now,
every day, she broke another rule, violated another Oressian
law.
    She should never have spoken those words to
Herne. They had been the truth, yet they would mislead him,