B00CH3ARG0 EBOK (30 page)

Love.

He stroked the rough skin of her ridges and whispered, “Can
I know again what I had with my lost Suralia?”

She started moving again, surging through the water with
powerful strokes of all six flippers. He leaned against the ridge to which he
clung and closed his eyes.

Approval rumbled through the hevalrin.

* * *

The atmosphere in the refectory was colored with an anguish
not even the joy of a new birth could lighten. Kyza and Thela ate their evening
meal in a rush and fled from the somber adults. Laura took the chair beside
Marianne and cuddled Rose, who fussed at the grief around her.

Marianne put her elbows on the high table and dropped her
head in her hands. “It’s my fault,” she whispered.

The Sural put a hand on Marianne’s shoulder. “Storaas was
responsible for his own actions.” He shoved a piece of fruit in front of her.
“You need to eat, beloved.”

She nodded, but made no move to touch the food. “If I hadn’t
forced the issue, if I hadn’t made him decide he had to go off and think—”

“You cannot know this.”

“—he might not have been in that cave when the earthquake
hit.”

“It’s not your fault,” Laura said.

The Sural nodded agreement. “I have told him many times over
the years that the caves are dangerous, but he was drawn by their beauty.”

Marianne looked up. “Are you sure he was there?”

“We found his tablet and the residue of the dead pod. We
have yet to locate his body.” His lips compressed as grief lanced through him.
“He cannot have survived. It was too deep, the water too cold. The science
teams calculated where he could have drifted. We found nothing.”

“What about,” Marianne paused and gulped, “animals. Carrion
eaters.”

“Numerous in the oceans, but small. There was not enough
time to consume a body.”

“Cold water drowning—”

“It was half the morning before we knew he was missing. Too
long.”

Her eyes filled. “There’s really no chance?”

He shook his head.

“Have you told Cena?”

His eyes swept the refectory. “Not yet.”

She dropped her head back into her hands. “I’ll do it.”

The hand on her shoulder tightened. “We will tell her
together.”

* * *

Cena was distant and preoccupied as she allowed the Sural
and Marianne into her study and motioned them to sit. Marianne opened her mouth
to speak, but Cena interrupted her.

“No,” she said in a flat voice. “He is not dead. I would
know it.”

The Sural gusted an exhale. “Are you certain?” he asked, his
voice gentle. “Do you allow hope to affect your senses?”

“I am certain.” Cena swallowed. “Perhaps ... he has been
captured.”

“No,” said the Sural. “He would walk into the dark.”

Marianne cleared her throat. “What if he were unconscious?”

“He ... could be,” Cena allowed. “The connection is tenuous.
I cannot be certain.”

“We have not ceased searching,” the Sural said, “but the
seas are deep off our coast. There are no islands within a reasonable
distance.”

“Define reasonable,” Marianne asked.

He gave her a grim look. “Even I could not swim so far.”

“Oh.”

Rose, left in the next room with her nurse, began wailing.

“I must return to my duties,” Cena said. She stood and fixed
her gaze on Marianne. “This emotional turmoil is disturbing Rose. Celebrate
your daughter’s birth, high one. Do not mourn a death which has not occurred.”

Storaas staggered up the sandy beach. The island to which
the hevalrin brought him was larger than he had hoped, which boded well for
finding water. The sun was now below the horizon, and it would be dark soon. He
untied his robe from around his waist, shrugged into it, and continued up the
beach.

Hunger and thirst drove him. He’d had nothing to eat or
drink since dawn – if it was even the same day. His time sense had been
unreliable since the summer, when his heart had nearly failed him. He couldn’t
be certain how long he had been unconscious after the shock of nearly drowning
in Suralia’s frigid seas.

The island was covered with trees and vegetation, some of
which were certain to provide edible fruits or greens. Even if he failed to
find anything to eat, he could fast a few days before weakening, but without
water he wouldn’t live long enough to be found. The moonless night ahead would
not make the search easy.

He turned a slow circle, looking for landmarks, trying to
get his bearings before venturing into the trees. Tiny creatures called,
chirped, and hummed in the dim forest. When he tripped over a root he failed to
see in the dimness, he thought better of exploring the forest at night and
returned to the beach.

Perhaps a stream ran to the ocean? He turned to pace along
the line between the trees and the sandy beach, scanning the ground for fallen
fruit, intent on walking the island until he either found water or returned to
where he’d begun.

The stars were bright overhead when he heard it: a bubbling
sound, faint but audible under the noise of the crashing waves. A tiny stream,
as wide as a man’s stance, flowed onto the beach. He threw himself on his knees
and rinsed his hands in it. When his hands were clean, he brought a scoop of
water to his mouth and took a tiny sip.

Fresh!

It was like nectar on his parched tongue. He took a few
greedy gulps before he could force himself to slow down and drink at a measured
pace. When his thirst was satisfied, he splashed the ocean salt off his face and
peered into the forest along the stream.

He shook his head. It was too dark in there.

Heaving a sigh, he sat against a tree that overarched the
stream. At least he had water. He was sure to find food in the morning, and it
was warm enough to sleep in the open despite the season. The hevalrin had done
well to bring him here.

A tickle at the edge of his senses indicated she was still
nearby.

“My gratitude, hevalrin,” he murmured.

Concern.

“Have no concern. There is water here.”

Puzzlement.

He chuckled and propped his head against a large root at the
base of the tree. Within moments, he was asleep.

* * *

Storaas woke at dawn with a grunt. Something was picking at
his peds. He glanced down and wondered when he’d lost his slippers. He’d not
even noticed the loss, but now a sand crawler was scraping the skin on his
heels and then picking away and eating any flakes of skin it managed to
dislodge. He kicked at it. The creature scurried away.

His stomach grumbled as he scrambled over to the stream to
drink and splash water on his face. Ignoring his hunger, he followed the stream
into the forest, hoping to find food and the source of the water.

He’d walked only a short distance when he came upon a tree
hung with fruit in various stages of ripeness from inedible to full maturity.
He set into the ripe fruit with a will, eating until he was satisfied and sucking
the juice from his fingers. He rinsed the stickiness from his face and hands
and resumed his trek upstream, passing several more fruit trees of various kinds
and spying some edible weeds in the underbrush. He would not lack for food.

By midmorning, the air under the forest canopy was hot,
humid, and still. He trudged on, keeping a slow but steady pace, sweating in
the heat. Flutters called and chattered, and insects buzzed and hummed. He
smiled at the beauty of it all. If only Cena could be there to share it with
him.

He stopped. Was that a faint roaring? He couldn’t be certain.
A little farther on, it became more audible, until the head of the stream
opened into a large, shallow pool beneath a small waterfall. Orange sunlight
poured through the hole in the canopy. An urge to be clean came over him, and
he stripped to rinse his robe and trousers, laying them over bushes to dry.
Then he waded over to the waterfall.

The water was cold enough to make him gasp, but he stepped
under it to rinse the ocean salt from his hair and body. He pulled his hair
around to examine it and frowned at the tangles, wondering if there were some
way to fashion a brush. He shook his head. It was going to be a time-consuming
task, dealing with his hair. He set about washing it as well as he could. Later,
when it dried, he would see to untangling it. His fingers would serve as a
comb, if he could find nothing else.

Clean and refreshed, he left his clothing draped over its
bush and sat naked at the edge of the pool, warming himself in the sun and
thinking.

He could live out his remaining days in this place.

Granted, he had yet to find shelter. While autumn here
seemed warm enough, he wasn’t sure where the hevalrin had taken him, nor did he
know if temperatures would remain mild enough for him to survive the long
winter. Driftwood and deadfall might not be enough to keep a fire going as long
as needed, and shelter was a priority. Perhaps these rocky hills contained
caves. Or perhaps he could dig one.

He snorted. With what? He looked at his gnarled old hands.
Better suited to a stylus, those hands, even if he had a spade. But the fact
remained that he had to come up with shelter that would withstand the winter,
because the heat made one thing obvious: he was much too far from Suralia to
hope for rescue. When the remains of the transport pod were discovered, if they
had not been already, the Sural would think him dead and send search teams to
look for his body. They would search as far as they thought his body could
possibly have drifted, but they would not search this far. A pang went through
him.

He was on his own.

Therefore, he needed to come up with shelter. He should also
start gathering wood for the winter, and he needed to make a fire. One side of
his mouth twitched upward. That might be an enjoyable exercise.

Then his mood shifted with the realization that food and
food storage would be a problem if the winter became very cold. How far south
was he? He picked himself up and donned his robe and trousers. No matter what
lay ahead, he needed to explore the island.

* * *

The Sural stood on the Overwatch, arms crossed in front of
his chest, staring across the city at the sea beyond.

Where are you, old friend? Are you alive?

Storaas had been missing three days, and the guard had completed
their search of Suralian waters without finding any trace of him. If the Sural
did not know for a certainty that there were no human ships within light-years
of Tolar, he would suspect the old man had been phased off the planet.

A disturbance in the bay caught his eye: a hevalrin
breaching.

He looked again. It was the wrong time of year for hevalra
to be in Suralia. Strange, but the huge sea creatures could be unpredictable.
Doubtless the marine biologists in the city were investigating it. He shrugged
and went back into the keep. It was time to contact Suralia’s neighbors and
talk them into joining the search.

* * *

Storaas strolled along the beach, gathering driftwood. Not
much had come ashore along this section of the island. That was in some ways
fortuitous, since it was a long walk back to where he was storing it, in a pile
beside the crude hut he had fashioned at the edge of the trees near the stream.

He was in no hurry. He shifted the small load under one arm
and bent to pick up a small stone, then pitched it into the surf. After a
moment, his senses tingled.

“There you are, my friend,” he said.

Happiness.

He smiled. “I am also happy to communicate with you. Are you
well?”

Longing.
An image of a bold male appeared in his
senses.

“You miss your mate?”

Agreement.

“Yes, I know this feeling.”

Curiosity.

“I miss Cena. I miss my people.”

She bellowed sadness at him, then whispered longing.

“You think my longing for Cena is not as strong as my
sadness for my Suralia.”

Agreement.

“I cannot control that.”

Denial.

“Truly, I cannot.”

Denial.

A sigh escaped him, but then a wry grin crept onto his face.
He was arguing about matters of the heart ... with a sea creature.

* * *

Marianne was feeding Rose when the Sural entered her
quarters late in the evening of the fifth day since Storaas’ disappearance. She
made room for him on the divan.

“Everyone is talking about the hevalrin in the bay,” she
said.

“It is most unusual.” He slid onto the divan beside her. “An
adult male. Normally they are in the southern oceans during this season, so
that the females may give birth in warmer waters.” He cupped Rose’s tiny head
with one hand and dropped a soft kiss in her mop of black hair.

“What’s he doing here, then? Does anyone have an idea?”

“Perhaps he has lost his mate. He breaches repeatedly and
calls. When a biologist approaches he calms and allows contact, but he has so
far been unable to communicate.”

 “Can’t you communicate with him?”

He shook his head. “I have not attempted it. I can bespeak
their matriarch, but that does not guarantee I can communicate with this
individual.”

“And their matriarch would be in the southern oceans right
now?”

“Very likely.”

“No help there, then.” She leaned her head on his shoulder,
thoughts of Storaas damping her mood.

“Do not do that,” he said. “Think happier thoughts. Newborns
are intolerant of uncomfortable emotions for the first few tens of days.”

“Little tyrant.”

He chuckled. “How is Laura adjusting?”

She snorted at him. “As if you didn’t know. She’s getting
used to being an empath, but it’s hard for her to be around more than a few
people at a time.”

“Her sensitivity is remarkable.”