Insistence of Vision (20 page)

According to lore, the first colonists used to care a lot about measuring the thickness of Venusian seas, back when some surface light used to penetrate all the way to the ocean floor. They would launch balloons attached to huge coils of string, in order to both judge depth and sample beyond the therm-o-cline barrier and even from the hot, deadly sky. Those practices died out – though Jonah had seen one of the giant capstan reels once, during a visit to Chown Dome, gathering dust and mouldering in a swampy corner.

The way Earth denizens viewed their planet’s hellish interior, that was how Cleo dwellers thought of the realm above. Though there had been exceptions. Rumors held that
Melvil,
that legendary rascal, upon returning from his discovery of Theodora Crevice, had demanded support to start exploring the great heights. Possibly even the barrier zone where living things thronged and might be caught for food. Of course, he was quite mad – though boys still whispered about him in hushed tones.

How many comets?
Jonah found himself wondering. Only one book in Tairee spoke of the great Venus Terraforming Project that predated the Coss invasion. Mighty robots, as patient as gods, gathered iceballs at the farthest fringe of the Solar System and sent them plummeting from that unimaginably distant realm to strike this planet – several each day, always at the same angle and position – both speeding the world’s rotation and drenching its long-parched basins.
If each comet was several kilometers in diameter… how thick an ocean might spread across an entire globe, in twenty generations of grandmothers?

For every one that struck, five others were aimed to skim close by, tearing through the dense, clotted atmosphere of Venus, dragging some of it away before plunging to the sun. The scale of such an enterprise was stunning, beyond belief. So much so that Jonah truly doubted he could be of the same species that did such things.
Petri, maybe. She could be that smart. Not me.

How were such a people ever conquered?

The roil of his drifting mind moved onward to might-have-beens. If not for that misguided comet – striking six hours late to wreak havoc near the canyon colonies – Jonah and his bride would by now have settled into a small Laussane cottage, getting to know each other in more traditional ways. Despite, or perhaps because of the emergency, he actually felt far
more
the husband of a vividly real person than he would in that other reality, where physical intimacy happened… still, the lumpy grain sacks made part of him yearn for her in ways that – now – might never come to pass. That world would have been better… one where the pinyons waved their bright leaves gently overhead. Where he might show her tricks of climbing vines, then swing from branch to branch, carrying her in his arms while the wind of flying passage ruffled their hair –

A
twang
sound vibrated the cabin, like some mighty cord coming apart. The sub throbbed and Jonah felt it roll a bit.

His eyes opened and he realized
I was asleep.
Moreover, his head now rested on Petri’s lap. Her hand had been the breeze in his hair.

Jonah sat up.

“What was that?”

“I do not know. There was a sharp sound. The ship hummed a bit, and now the floor no longer tilts.”

“No longer–”

Jumping up with a shout, he hurried over to the gauges, then cursed low and harsh.

“What is it, Jonah?”

“Quick – wake all the adults and get them to work pumping!”

She wasted no time demanding answers. But as soon as crews were hard at work, Petri approached Jonah again at the control station, one eyebrow raised.

“The remaining stone ballast,” he explained. “It must have been hanging by a thread, or a single lashing. Now it’s completely gone. The sub’s tilt is corrected, but we’re ascending too fast.”

Petri glanced at two sadoulites and two laussaners who were laboring to refill the ballast tanks. “Is there anything else we can do to slow down?”

Jonah shrugged. “I suppose we might unpack the leaky bearing and let more water into the aft compartment. But we’d have no control. The stream could explode in our faces. We might flood or lose the chamber. All told, I’d rather risk decompression sickness.”

She nodded, agreeing silently.

They took their own turn at the pumps, then supervised another crew until, at last, the tanks were full.
Bird
could get no heavier. Not without flooding the compartments themselves.

“We have to lose internal pressure. That means venting air overboard,” he said “in order to equalize.”

“But we’ll need it to breathe!”

“There’s no choice. With our tanks full of water, there’s no place to put extra air and still reduce pressure.”

So, different pumps and valves, but more strenuous work. Meanwhile, Jonah kept peering at folks in the dim illumination of just two faint glow bulbs, watching for signs of the Bends. Dizziness, muscle aches and labored breathing? These could just be the result of hard labor. The book said to watch out also for joint pain, rashes, delirium or sudden unconsciousness. He did know that the old Dive Tables were useless – based on Earth-type humanity.
And we’ve changed. First because our scientist ancestors modified themselves and their offspring. But time, too, has altered what we are, even long after we lost those wizard powers. Each generation was an experiment.

Has it made us less vulnerable to such things? Or more so?

Someone tugged his arm. It wasn’t Petri, striving at her pump. Jonah looked down at one of the children, still wearing a stained and crumpled bridesmaid’s dress, who pulled shyly, urging Jonah to come follow. At first, he thought:
it must be the sickness. She’s summoning me to help someone’s agony. But what can I do?

Only it wasn’t toward the stern that she led him, but the forwardmost part of the ship… to the view-patch, where she pointed.

“What is it?” Pressing close to the curved pane, Jonah tensed as he starkly envisioned some new cloud of debris… till he looked up and saw –

– light.

Vague at first. Only a child’s perfect vision would have noticed it so early. But soon it spread and brightened across the entire vault overhead.

I thought we would pass through the therm-o-cline.
He had expected a rough – perhaps even lethal – transition past that supposed barrier between upper and lower oceans. But it must have happened gently, while he slept.

Jonah called someone to relieve Petri and brought her forth to see.

“Go back and tell people to hold on tight,” Petri dispatched the little girl, then she turned to grab Jonah’s waist as he took the control straps. At this rate they appeared to be seconds away from entering Venusian hell.

Surely it has changed,
he thought, nursing a hope that had never been voiced, even in his mind.
The ocean has burgeoned as life fills the seas…

Already he spied signs of movement above. Flitting, flickering shapes – living versions of the crushed and dead tumbledowns that sometimes fell to Tairee’s bottom realm, now undulating and darting about what looked like scattered patches of dense, dangling weed. He steered to avoid those.

If the sea has changed, then might not the sky, the air, even the highlands?

Charts of Venus, radar mapped by ancient earthling space probes, revealed vast continents and basins, a topography labeled with names like Aphrodite Terra and Lakshmi Planum. Every single appellation was that of a female from history or literature or legend. Well, that seemed fair enough. But had it been a cruel joke to call the baked and bone-dry lowlands “seas”?

Till humanity decided to make old dreams come true.

What will we find?

To his and Petri’s awestruck eyes, the dense crowd of life revealed glimpses – shapes like dragons, like fish, or those ancient
blimps
that once cruised the skies of ancient Earth. And something within Jonah allowed itself to hope.

Assuming we survive decompression, might the fiery, sulfurous air now be breathable? Perhaps barely, as promised by the sagas? By now, could life have taken to high ground? Seeded in some clever centuries-delay by those same pre-Coss designers?

His mind pictured scenes from a few dog-eared storybooks, only enormously expanded and brightened. Vast, measureless jungles, drenched by rainstorms, echoing with the bellows of gigantic beasts. A realm so huge, so rich and densely forested that a branch of humanity might thrive, grow, prosper, and learn – regaining might and confidence – beneath that sheltering canopy, safe from invader eyes.

That, once upon a time, had been the dream, though few imagined it might fully come to pass.

ᚖ

Jonah tugged the tiller to avoid a looming patch of dangling vegetation. Then, ahead and above, the skyward shallows suddenly brightened, so fiercely that he and Petri had to shade their eyes, inhaling and exhaling heavy gasps. They both cried out as a great, slithering shape swerved barely out of the sub’s way. Then brilliance filled the cabin like a blast of molten fire.

I was wrong to hope! It truly is hell!

A roar of foamy separation… and for long instants Jonah felt free of all weight. He let go of the straps and clutched Petri tight, twisting to put his body between hers and the wall as their vessel flew over the sea, turned slightly, then dropped back down, striking the surface with a shuddering blow and towering splash.

Lying crumpled below the viewing-patch, they panted, as did everyone else aboard, groaning and groping themselves to check for injuries. For reassurance of life. And gradually the hellish brightness seemed to abate, till Jonah realized.
It is my eyes, adapting. They never saw daylight, before.

Jonah and Petri helped each other stand. Together, they turned, still shading their eyes. Sound had transformed, and so had the very texture of the air, now filled with strange aromas.

There must be a breach!

With shock, still blinking away glare-wrought tears, Jonah saw the cause. Impact must have knocked loose the dog-bolts charged with holding shut the main hatch, amidships on the starboard side –never meant to open anywhere but at the safety of a colonial dock.

With a shout he hurried over, even knowing it was too late. The poisons of Venus –

– apparently weren’t here.

No one keeled over. His body’s sole reaction to the inrushing atmosphere was to sneeze, a report so loud and deep that it rocked him back.

Jonah reached the hatch and tried pushing it closed, but
Bird of Tairee
was slightly tilted to port. The heavy door overwhelmed Jonah’s resistance and kept gradually opening, from crack to slit, to gap, to chasm.

“I’ll help you, Jonah,” came an offer so low, like a rich male baritone, yet recognizably that of his wife. He turned, saw her eyes wide with surprise at her own voice.

“The air… it contains…” His words emerged now a deep bass. “…different gases than… we got from pinyons.”

Different… but breathable. Even pleasant. Blinking a couple of times, he managed to shrug off the shock of his new voice and tried once more to close the hatch, before giving up for now. With the boat’s slight leftward roll, there was no immediate danger of flooding, as seawater lapped a meter or so below. The opening must be closed soon, of course…

… but not quite yet. For, as Jonah and Petri stood at the sill, what confronted them was more than vast, rippling-blue ocean and a cloud-dense firmament. Something else lay between those two, just ahead and to starboard, a thick mass of shimmery greens and browns that filled the horizon, receding in mist toward distant, serrated skylines. Though he never dreamed of witnessing such a thing first-hand, they both recognized the sight, from ancient, faded pictures.

Land. Shore. Dense forests. Everything.

And overhead, creatures flapped strange, graceful wings, or drifted like floating jellyfish above leafy spires.

“It will take some time to figure out what we can eat,” his wife commented, with feminine practicality.

“Hm,” Jonah replied, too caught up in wonder to say more, a silence that lasted for many poundings of his heart. Until, finally, he managed to add –

“Someday. We must go back down. And tell.”

After another long pause, Petri answered.

“Yes, someday.”

She held him tight around the chest, a forceful constriction that only filled Jonah with strength. His lungs expanded as he inhaled deeply a sweet smell, and knew that only part of that was her.

Story Notes

This tale of exile appeared in the anthology
Old Venus
, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. It, too, is about perseverance in the face of apparent hopelessness. And reclaiming an old dream.

The final tale in this section – “Eloquent Elepents Pine Away for the Moon’s Crystal Forests” – may seem incomplete. But it served my purpose – laying down a glimmering notion that will continue to grow…

… that of revolution.

Eloquent Elepents Pine Away for the Moon’s Crystal Forests

ᚖ

W
hat do the Coss want from us?

Unbidden, the question frothed to the surface of his mind, even though Doni knew better. He should avoid thinking about the invaders.

Still, it nagged at him. Despite having grown up under the New Enlightened Imperium, he just couldn’t bring himself to take alien domination for granted.

They don’t even seem to enjoy being our masters.

More than a human lifetime after their arrival, the Coss had transformed themselves in stages. From welcome visitors into hated conquerors, and then – over the following two generations – into just another layer of life in the Solar System. Occupying the top niches that human beings used to fill – more awkwardly – with overlords of their own. With kings and priests and all variety of homemade bosses.

Only no human aristocracy ever did it quite so well.

Doni watched two of the alien rulers argue next to the dock where cargo, fresh from Earth, was unloaded from the gaping hold of the
Mt. Orleans.
Robots hauled massive crates, while delicate luggage was carried by human porters in stiff, high-collared uniforms. Everything in-between got moved by patient elepents, grunting and rumbling a low song that seemed to fill the vast chamber as they tugged awkward items with their dexterous trunks, sometimes rearing back in the low gravity of Pallas, standing on their hind legs in order to give each other a pand.

The pair of Coss, engrossed in their dispute, seemed aloof to all this, blithely ignoring the commotion around them. Of the two, Matron Kopok was much shorter, almost diminutive for one of her race – not even two meters tall, with a head that barely topped over Doni’s. But that did not diminish her power to intimidate. Right now, the great lady fumed, from her crest of fine copper hair to the tips of her pointed fingernails, glaring at the Coss officer in command of the Pallas dockyard.

Doni checked his uniform to make sure all was spotless and straight. Then – although he knew he shouldn’t – he edged closer in order to listen.

“... won’t even acknowledge that the gulagis are fellow creatures of the Universal Spirit! Some of them were sentenced to this wilderness decades ago. Don’t the Primes teach us that cruelty is only valid when it’s
useful?
How can our vassals ever fully accept lasting faith in our wisdom if –”

“Acceptance comes from resignation, Milady,” the dock commander answered coolly, from a height of nearly seven feet. “Which is taught through adamant strength. As for the gulagis, they are malcontents, upstarts and rebels. “

“Not in every case.”

With a broad-shouldered shrug that rattled his sparkling necklace array, the commander seemed willing to concede that point, and made clear that it did not matter.

“In any event, the prisoners are no concern of yours, Milady. They serve the Imperium that they criticized and betrayed. That should be satisfying enough to the Universal Spirit.”

“But those supplies –” the Matron gestured to a stack, just beyond the glistening bow of the Mt. Orleans. “I expected someone from Compassionate Beneficence to sign for them.”

“There is no longer a representative of that organization here on Pallas.”

“No longer...” Kopok paused, the spiderweb of tendons and veins in her long neck pulsated. “I see. And they never saw fit to notify me? Oh, mothers, why must I forever be flattered into doing favors for well-meaning fools?”

She sighed, straightening and smoothing the ruffled folds of her blue gown.

“It must be my reputation for generosity. That is why I’m punished thus. Well, then. I suppose the supplies –”

“I will take charge of them,” the dockmaster cut in, tugging on one long earring. “Your Ladyship is free to continue on her way, completing the long journey from Earth to her
Academy...”

Was there a sarcastic edge to his voice?

“...without sparing any further concern for this matter.”

Uh-oh
, Doni thought, as a low hum seemed to fill the cavities within his ears, without actual sound. Taking a rapid glance at the Matron, he knew where the resonance was coming from. Kopok’s long, Coss face was rapidly undergoing what cadets called
the change.
Those eyes, often placid as deep space, turned stormy under glowering lids.

The big guy just made a mistake
. Doni started edging away.

“You
dare
to decide what matters may, or may not, concern me?”

Her words were cold and sharp, like icicles, while the
hum
grew stronger, now tugging at the tonsils in the back of Doni’s throat. The dockmaster, clearly accustomed to giving orders from on-high, blinked several times at the much-smaller female of his race. Realization appeared to be dawning that, perhaps, he had gone too far.

“Please be assured that I did not mean –”

“You clearly know who I am,” continued the Lady Kopok. “Do you truly wish for a
dispute
between us?”

She left the implication hanging in mid-air, as if it were not something to discuss openly, within hearing of the lower orders. Doni already knew at least a dozen ways that the Solar System’s alien aristocracy settled disputes among themselves. From trial-by-combat to appeals for royal arbitration. They were even known to use
law
, when no other method sufficed. Whatever the method, Lady Kopok was reputed to be a master of them all. Or else, how could she ever have managed to do the impossible, and reopen Porcorosso?

An instinct for self-preservation made Doni look away from the confrontation and busy himself with the Matron’s bags. Straightening. Adjusting. Even though they were already neatly set upon the cart.

You did not want to be caught looking, when a Coss was being humbled. Even – especially – when the humbler was another Coss.

“I... I will see to it that the relief supplies are trans-shipped to your academy,” the dockmaster said, in a voice that seemed to strive, at once, for both dignity and appeasement. “Though it will ultimately be up to the
gulagmasters
, whether you are permitted to deliver these goods to the exiles.”

“I will deal with the gulagmasters, if it is my whim,” Kopok snapped, in a voice that sounded quite accustomed to obedience. “Or else, I may send the crates back to Compassionate Beneficence on Earth, at double freight charges. It would serve those idealistic fools right.”

While Doni marveled at the verbal agility of his headmistress, the taller Coss barked a brittle laugh of agreement, one that conveyed more than three-quarters relief. “Yes, Milady. It would.”

“Hm. Just make sure the boxes are delivered to Porcorosso, undamaged and unopened.”

The dockmaster clicked his heels.

“Safe journey, Lady Kopo.”

And he turned to go, gliding away in a graceful lope, assisted in the low gravity by traction boots. It all was done with haughty Coss solemnity, of course. Punctilious attention to face. Nevertheless, Doni picked up a definite
mutter wave.

Crazy old bat,
the dockmaster was thinking as he left.

Officious cretin,
the Matron murmured after him, without making a sound.

Upon which, Doni felt her gaze sweep toward him. He snapped to attention next to the cart stacked high with luggage. “Shall I fetch a porter, Madam? Or an elepent?”

“Hm? Oh, nonsense. This is Pallas, Doni. There is barely enough gravity to walk, so obviously the cart isn’t heavy. Anyway, you could benefit from practice, estimating inertia and momentum.”

In other words, the muscle power of a fifteen-year old boy ought to suffice. Simply pull and push on the cart – massive but not “heavy” – a good, hard nudge now and then, at well-chosen intervals, so that it keeps rolling along toward the shuttle docks. The job should be easy. Surely no worse than piloting one of the academy’s leaky, obsolete rocket trainers, dodging meteoroids and “threading needles” in deep vacuum.

Only, pushing the luggage cart was tricky. You’d better be sure to
time
each turn and stop just right – every muscle-powered acceleration and deceleration – prodding the tiller with
exactly
the appropriate force. Make an adjustment too late and it may crash into a wall or collide with a grunting pachydermoid. Decelerate too soon and you could (far worse!) delay Lady Kopok a second longer than she expects.

All in all, Doni would prefer time in a trainer, when the worst penalty for a mistake was death.

Grabbing the tiller, he planted his traction soles and dug in, straining until the cart was on the move, rolling past gleaming cargo ships – each bearing the crest of a Coss liege lord – hauling his lady’s baggage toward a gritty little shuttle that awaited in a back corner of the cavernous space harbor. A completely human-built relic from another era, with a
red pig
painted on the nose. A pig wearing goggles, a brazen scarf and leather flight jacket, grinning with a jaunty confidence no human being would express nowadays.

The homely craft that would take them home. To Porcorosso.

ᚖ

Across the Solar System, most of the old battle scars had been erased. Except where the victorious masters thought that a lesson was needed. New York, Yokohama, Hong Kong and San Diego were left to smolder – ruins that would keep their deathly glow for another thousand years, teaching a sermon about the limits of Coss chivalry.

It was one thing to offer a little courageous resistance, during a time of honorable struggle. Humans were even allowed to erect statues to their greatest warriors, Penna and Chang, whose battlefield valor elevated them to the status of honorary Coss (posthumous).

But mass obstinacy was another matter. Those cities would never be rebuilt. The rubble and seared bones, never buried.

Porcorosso, clearly, fell into the first category. Everybody knew about the Last Stand of the Federation Cadets. It would be futile to squelch the legend. So, with typical Coss adaptability, they co-opted it.

Passing through the academy’s outer security grid, Doni guided the shuttle silently by the monument that Lady Kopok had unveiled, the day Porcorosso re-opened. A tableau, laser carved from a single chunk of nickel-iron asteroid, portrayed a trio of cadets – battered, wounded and surrounded by fallen comrades – resolutely facing a closing circle of giant Coss. Conquerors whose faces did not seem cruel at all, but rather
proud
of the defiant youngsters. Proud... and saddened by what had to be done.

Behind them all, with starwings wide-stretched, an effigy of the Universal Spirit seemed to beckon all of the nobly-fallen into her embrace.

It was propaganda of the first order. Through this image, the conquerors seemed to say: “We
like
humans. We respect you. We shall guide and teach and elevate you.

“But don’t even think of resisting us
en masse,
ever again.”

From this point to the berthing chamber, a guide beam revealed itself to Doni’s encrypted eyeptics. Easy to follow, the glowing route led close by a sentry post where every cadet took turns, standing guard detail for days without sleep. Grueling, hardening hours alone, in ebony armor that seemed more space than metal.

The student currently on duty saluted the shuttle, snapping rigid, presenting a deadly-looking string-rifle.

Doni spared a glance or two, looking for changes during his long absence, accompanying the headmistress to Earth.
I see they finished the Refectory,
he thought.
Maybe we’ll start eating better, at last.

For the very first class, dwelling in little more than patched ruins, a year spent eating century-old Federation freeze-dried rations had almost sparked mass resignation. Till Madame began sending for takeout from Meteograd.

That village could be seen as a glitter in the distance... the final bead in a chain, strung along a single, adamantine tether that formed a jeweled necklace spanning more than two hundred kilometers of vacuum. Porcorosso tugged at one extreme end, pointing starward, while Meteograd, with a huge solar array, perched at the extremity nearest the sun. Lesser beads that lay strung along the tether
between
Academy and town included several dozen smaller outposts, ranging from metallurgical shops and hydroponic homesteads to a foreboding shadow, no more than twenty klicks from Porcorosso –

– the gulag.

His adaptive eyeptics tried to zoom toward that dark patch of night, only to be stymied by inbuilt
myob
programming. Myob, for
mind your own business.

Ah, well. The Coss had made their attitude and policy clear. Curiosity, a human trait, was to be indulged, but only when there seemed to be a use, a need, or at least no opportunity for harm.

Indeed, the gulag was one place set aside for humans whose curiosity – or self-expression – struck the Coss as harmful.

“Shuttle Three, we’re ready to take you in mag lock,” said the voice of traffic control. An important task, hence given a senior classman. It sounded a bit like Herman Yang.