Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)(26)

‘We’ll have you caught up with Pop Culture in no time at all…’ Jane’s face suddenly pale, as she realised her mistake. Liv felt her heart squeeze tight. There was no time left for learning more Pop Culture or anything else.

‘How’re you doing, Liv?’ Jane asked gently.

‘Tired but well. The worms have expanded the arable land by a square yard on every side, in the last month. And soil samples show a marked increase in nutrient content. The team are extremely impressed by the results.

‘We have introduced a protein-rich ground cover that became extinct in the late Twentieth Century. It is fast growing, and keeps the soil moist. Being a food source also adds to its value, as does the fact that it does not compete with the larger plants we introduce. And the beetles find the ground cover perfect shelter. The bees on the island seem to have discovered the small flowers of the ground cover too. And this morning I noticed butterflies – I will need to identify them later.’

‘Wow, no wonder you’re tired. It makes our little trip to London in the later 1950s seem like a walk in the park.’

‘Did you successfully Retrieve the sisters that went missing? Was it an abduction?’

‘Yes. And no, it wasn’t. The girls had gone down into the tunnels beneath the city on a dare, and we were able to find them before they got too lost. They’re a feisty pair. They keep demanding we take them home.’

Liv had learned all about the Retrieval process, and she knew that no one, once Retrieved, could go home. Except her. She was the only one who still had a life back there. The familiar sadness began to overwhelm her again. After nearly a year in this world, the thought of going back to 1810 was misery. Not that she wouldn’t like to see her sisters, aunt and father again. But that life just seemed so bare, now that she had experienced the richness of life here with Rene.

She would be able to bear it if Rene had been able to join her, but her secret investigations had not turned up any mention of Rene. But at least she wouldn’t have to live long without him. Although the information had been blocked to her initially, she had discovered a way around the block to find the truth of her own destiny. She understood the heart-wrenching sadness she felt in Rene every minute of the day. She understood the nightmares that troubled his few hours’ sleep every night.

Since the committee had finally given her a departure date, the dreams had become worse. There was wildness in his eyes. She knew he was planning something crazy, but because she didn’t want him to know she had discovered her fate when she went back, she said nothing. They had two weeks left. It was not nearly enough.

‘How is Rene holding up?’ Jane asked softly, sitting down on a rock at the edge of the garden.

‘Not good. He cannot sleep. His work is falling off. He has even taken to avoiding me. This is our last few weeks together, and he can barely look me in the eye. It hurts so much.’

Jane nodded silently, and played with the long copper plait that usually hung down her back. ‘I’ve tried to talk to him, but he keeps closing me down. I even got Jac to have a word, because I was starting to think he was hatching some plan to escape with you to somewhere in-situ. He can’t do that Liv, even if it was possible. You can’t know the possible ramifications such a change might cause the Continuum. It’s dangerous thinking…’

‘Do not worry, I will not let him do anything like that. I think that is one reason he avoids me. He knows I will fight him if he tries to take me out of my time-line. And this world needs him too much. His work – this work,’ she gestured to the greenery all around them. ‘This is so important. More important than any one person. He has to stay. He has to continue on doing what he can for the world.’

‘They’re worried he’ll crash and burn. When you’re gone. They’re saying it was a bad idea to have allowed you to stay this long.’

‘They are probably right. If I had known the torture I would inflict on him, I would have gone home immediately. I wish… for his sake only… that he’d never met me.’

‘No matter how devastated he’s feeling now, and will feel later… I know he would never trade the time you two have had. He’s alive now, where before he was just a shell, driven only by a bitter oath he made to his mother.’

‘Bitter Oath? He has not told me of this.’ Liv looked across at Jane, and tried to fight down the jealousy that always came when the extent of her husband’s friendship with the girl became apparent.

‘He told me about it months before you came into his life. He was only a boy of ten, and his mother had taken him out into the wilderness, and inundated him with the details of all that had gone. The rape of the land, the destruction of habitat. And she made him swear to spend his life in service to the planet. Fighting to save it, in whatever way he could. He called it a Bitter Oath, because it seemed so hopeless back then. There seemed no way that they would ever be able to save the environment.’

‘And now there is. He must be made to stay true to his Oath. It would destroy me to know he threw it all away for me.’

Later that day, Liv made a point of tracking Rene down so that they could have the talk he had been avoiding for weeks. He came to bed late, made love to her until they were both replete, and then would sleep for a few hours before the nightmares would wake him. Then he would leave their bed, and disappear for the rest of the night. She would find him huddled over his Tablet, but he would never show her what he was looking at.

Now it was way past the time for talking.

Rene had his head bent over a petri dish when she entered his lab. His blue-black lock of hair was too long and unkempt. His body was bent over as if he was hundred years old, and when he looked up at her, she knew she would see the dark circles under his eyes and the tired lines that made him look years older than a man in his early twenties.

For a few minutes, she stood silently watching him. He knew she was there, but had not acknowledged her presence. After an insultingly long time, she finally cleared her throat and spoke.

‘Why are you hurting me like this, Rene? What have I done to deserve this treatment?’ she said softly.

That got his attention. His head shot up, and the wildness and pain she saw in his blue eyes almost broke her heart.

‘I am sorry. You have done nothing wrong. I am just struggling with … fate.’ His voice was a tired growl. But at least he was talking to her. That gave her hope.

‘Do you want our last weeks together to be as strangers? Shouldn’t we be spending every moment together, building more memories to carry us through the lonely times to come?’

He shook his head in exhaustion. ‘I cannot. Every time I look at you, I feel my failure. It is taking everything I have just to get through these last days. Please do not ask me for more…’

‘Your failure?’ she challenged him angrily. ‘How have you failed? Your work has been a brilliant success, and promises to be more so, in the years to come.’

‘Damn the work,’ he snarled furiously, sweeping his arm across the top of the bench, and sending all of the equipment, including the petri dish, flying.

‘Rene, my beloved, talk to me! I want to understand. Seeing you like this is destroying me.’ She couldn’t hold back the little sob that fought its way out. She wanted to go to him, hold his head against her breast, and take away his pain. But she could do none of it. So she stood and waited for the answers she so desperately needed.

Rene glared across at her, his chest rising and falling, as if he had run a race. ‘Yes, I am destroying you. Or my inability to find a way to save you will destroy you. A man protects what is his. A man fights the dragons for his damsel. I cannot do that for you, Liv, no matter how much I want to. I do not know how to save you…’ He suddenly realised what he had said. ‘I mean… save you from the loneliness of life when you go back.’

‘Rene, I know. You do not have to hide the truth from me. I have seen my death records. I know I will only have a few months left when I get back. To be honest, I will be glad. The idea of living a long life without you seems like torture.’

‘A torture I will be condemned to!’ he yelled at her, reaching out for the glass beaker that had missed the sweep of his arm. He grasped the beaker tightly for a second before throwing it across the room. Liv jumped at the sound of it shattering.

‘You cannot save me from my fate, my love. Please stop torturing yourself like this. It hurts us both, and solves nothing,’ she begged, as the tears began to fall from her eyes, blurring her vision.

Through the blur, she saw him move toward her, and draw her gently into his arms. For several long minutes, they clung to each other like children in a storm. Liv could hear his heart beating desperately in his chest. She wanted to reach in and still its frantic pace. Her beautiful husband was falling apart, and she didn’t know how to help him. It was far worse than thoughts of her own approaching death.

‘You are right. It solves nothing. I knew right from the start that our time would be short. And I shorten it further by treating you thus. Come home with me now, Ma Chere, let me try to build more pleasurable memories for you to cling to after… after I have gone.’