Venus of Shadows (42 page)

"My daughter hasn't always been so practical." Chimene started at the sound of Risa's voice, then looked up at her mother's shadowy form. "But maybe being on the Islands makes her appreciate what we have here."

Chimene resented the intrusion. "I'll show you the greenhouse, if you like," Risa continued. "Then I suppose Tina will want to scan you — I don't expect they bothered on the Platform."

"They didn't, but you won't find anything wrong with me."

"Chimene, you might help Patrick with his lessons if you can tear him away from his mind-tour, and then you should probably go to sleep."

Chimene got to her feet reluctantly.

"Good night, Chimene," Sef said as he rose. "Maybe you can give me a tour of this dome tomorrow, after I finish whatever work the others find for me."

She grinned in the darkness, happy again.

*  *  *

Chimene was the first passenger off the airship when it was docked in its cradle. She raced through the bay, slowing as she neared the door, then held out her arm.

"Destination?" a voice said.

"Oberg."

"An airship for Oberg will leave in three hours. Go to the waiting room, first door to your left. Don't wander —"

She did not wait to hear the rest; she had been on the Platform often enough. She walked toward the waiting room, where several people were asleep on the long couches. A glassy booth with a screen in the corner was already occupied by a man; she walked toward the booth and waited.

Two boys were sitting on the floor next to the booth, playing chess on a pocket screen; they were younger than she was, perhaps no more than eight. The red-haired one looked up. "Where are you headed?" he asked.

"Oberg."

"We're going to Lyata. They picked us to live with the grubbers for a while. I hope it isn't too awful."

Chimene glared at him. "You'll get along," she said evenly. "I just hope they don't mind putting up with a couple of gasbags." She stared at the boys in silence until the man ahead of her left the booth.

She went inside, sat down, and spoke into the screen. "I want to talk to Lena Kerein, west dome of Oberg, at her house. If she isn't there, I'll leave a message — I'm Chimene Liang-Haddad."

Lena's rosy-cheeked face appeared. "Chimene! Risa said you were coming back for six months this time."

"Maybe longer. I don't want any of our friends to think I'm turning into a gasbag. My ship leaves in three hours — can you meet me?"

"I'll try, but my father told me I'd have to clean my room and feed the rabbits first, so if I'm not there, I'll meet you at your house. Are you going over to the Guide's?"

"I'd like to."

"When she heard you were coming back, she made a point of telling me you were invited. I'll let her know, all right?"

Chimene nodded, hoping that Risa would not find out. But Lena would be careful not to let her household know where they were going. Lena's parents might be flattered at Kichi's apparent interest in their daughter, but Chimene did not want them bragging about their good fortune in front of Risa.

"See you," Lena said. The screen went blank. Kichi wanted to see her, and that cheered her, even if it meant a little more time would pass before she saw Sef again.

Sef! She would have six months with him, and he'd have to notice how much she'd grown since the last time; she was almost as tall as Risa now. He wasn't so much older than she was, and surely he would wait until she was old enough for him. He would never dream of approaching her now, but later — She could not tell him how she felt or he might leave the household; he wouldn't want anyone to think he might take liberties with a young girl. But when she was older —

Her grandfather Chen had met his bondmate Iris when she was fifteen. Four years couldn't be so long to wait. It seemed like an eternity.

"Sef," she whispered.

"I need more information to make your call," the screen replied.

She got up abruptly and left the booth, dreaming of Sef.

Eighteen

Lena was able to meet Chimene after all. They walked east, following the main road toward the memorial pillars. The Guide's house was on the southeast side of the main dome, but Lena always chose a roundabout route to get there. The brown-haired girl had a contented smile on her face; Lena enjoyed conspiring with Chimene to make these visits.

Chimene sighed. They had three hours before the light began to fade, and she disliked having to waste any of that time. Lena might like conspiracies, but Chimene resented the need to keep this secret. She wanted to be able to see Kichi openly, to convince her mother that the Guide was her friend. Surely it wasn't wrong to visit a woman who made her feel better about herself and more able to confront her problems. But Risa would never understand; she saw the Guide as a spider, weaving a web in which to trap the unwary. Risa had said so in exactly those words.

"I'm glad the Guide didn't have to work today," Chimene said. "I didn't think I'd be able to see her right away."

"I'd better tell you." Lena looked a bit more solemn. "She hasn't been working as much. Oh, she goes to the lab for a few days every so often, but she has to rest more now. She isn't as strong as she used to be."

"But Kichi isn't that old. She can't be more than seventy or so — my grandfather's older than that."

"She's weaker. She doesn't visit the other settlements as much lately, and I've heard that her rejuv treatments aren't working the way they should."

Chimene frowned. She had heard Bettina talk about some of her patients, people who did not seem to adapt to dome life as well as others physically and psychologically, who grew listless too soon, whose immune systems broke down sooner than they should. Eventually, Bettina claimed, the medical researchers would find out if a genetic predisposition was responsible for this tendency, but such a study was unlikely to yield results that would help Kichi in time. The settlements were an experiment; that was Malik's view. The settlers were living in a new environment, and unforeseen problems were bound to surface.

"Don't worry too much," Lena said. "The Guide still has years ahead of her even now, and she won't lack for care. Everyone in Ishtar'll see to that."

The two girls halted in the road. A cart, looking like a box on wheels, was rolling toward them; five passengers sat in its seats. Since Chimene's last visit, the surface settlements had finally arranged for this modest transportation system; now, inside each dome, two carts, traveling in opposite directions, carried passengers along the main roads that circled the land under all of the domes. The cart stopped; she and Lena climbed aboard through one of the openings on the sides. The five older people sitting in the vehicle nodded and smiled at the girls.

Chimene settled in one seat next to Lena. She was home now; Oberg was home, not Island Two. The cart passed the wooded area near the memorials; to the south, rows of houses bordered by trees and shrubs stood on a grassy plain. The panes of their small, private greenhouses glinted with light; tethered goats were grazing near a few of the residences.

Island Two had never seemed this homey. The Islanders did not have houses, but lived in residences that were more like dormitories. The Administrators had their ziggurat, the tallest building on that Island. Its curved hallways were quiet, empty places where she only rarely saw a white-robed figure emerge from one of the rooms. A spiral housed almost two hundred of Island Two's scientists, a few of whom had been friends of her grandmother Iris. She and Malik had a room in the building where most of the teachers and nursery workers lived, but her two favorite places were the pilots' residence and the steel-blue building where workers lived. The pilots' dwelling had two triangular wings, and she sometimes lingered in the common room hoping to see someone from Oberg among the pilots who gathered there between trips. The workers' residence was a noisy place where people propped open their doors and sat in the hallways gossiping or playing games. They reminded her a little of the people in Oberg; they always welcomed her warmly, although that might be because her father was one of Administrator Sigurd's friends.

The Islanders, whatever their pretensions, were aware of various distinctions. A scientist was more important than a worker, and an Administrator held a higher place than anyone. They might say that they were all working for the Project, but each group of people preferred to live among others like themselves. They might claim that their loyalty was to Venus, but they seemed more interested in the details of their work. Many of the Islanders probably wouldn't care what happened to the Project as a whole as long they were free to go on with their scientific and intellectual pursuits. No wonder her father preferred to be there, where he did not have to care about anything beyond his own interests.

They were approaching the tunnel that led into the southeast dome. The cart rolled to a stop; Lena and Chimene disembarked as another passenger boarded the vehicle. They waited until the cart was out of sight, then ran toward the trees opposite the tunnel.

Oberg's people kept their wooded areas cleared, yet there was a wildness here that the tamer Islands lacked. Amid these trees, away from the road, Chimene could pretend that she was in a wilderness, that she could roam without ever seeing anyone else; it was an illusion impossible to maintain on the manicured grounds of Island Two.

A cluster of houses were just beyond the trees; these dwellings stood near the bank of a small creek. Kichi's house, like the others, was shielded from its neighbors by trees on either side. Lena hunched forward and crept toward one wing of the house, glancing from side to side. This seemed an unnecessary precaution to Chimene; no one was outside, and most of Kichi's neighbors were also members of Ishtar. They would hardly go running to Risa to tell her of her daughter's visits.

They stopped in front of the side door. Lena pressed her hand against it, then waited. Chimene fidgeted; as Lena touched the door again, it opened.

Eva Danas quickly ushered the two inside. "The Guide's in her room," Eva said; she was a young blond woman who had moved to Kichi's house only three years before. "She's been expecting you." She led them down the hall, pressed a door open, then stepped back as the girls entered the room.

Kichi sat in a chair by her desk, peering intently at a screen; she looked up. "Greetings," she murmured. "Please do sit down." The girls settled themselves on cushions in front of the Guide. "Lena tells me you'll be staying with us longer this time."

"Six months," Chimene said.

"I'm delighted to hear it." The Guide's light brown face was a little paler, and the black hair pulled back on her head was streaked with silver, but she did not look as though she was ailing. Kichi's dark eyes narrowed a little. "Lena, you're not wearing your sash."

"I forgot. But I wear it most of the time."

"It doesn't matter. It's what's in your heart that counts." Kichi lowered her voice. "I'll tell you a secret. Sometimes I forget, too, and one of my housemates has to remind me. Tongues would wag if the Guide wasn't wearing her sash."

Lena giggled. "And what have you been doing, Chimene?" Kichi leaned back in her chair. "Did your parents decide you should spend more time in Oberg, or was this your idea?"

"It was mine," she answered. "I missed it." She had not meant to say much more, but she suddenly found herself talking about the slights of her schoolmates and her feeling that she did not belong. It was always easy to talk to the Guide, who never dismissed her worries as unimportant. She was about to speak of Sef as well but stopped herself; she had not even mentioned that to Lena yet.

"It's a pity some of the Islander children treat you that way," Kichi said when Chimene was finished. "Such attitudes shouldn't exist among fellow Cytherians. Too many Islanders think of their scientific work as an end in itself, instead of as knowledge that must serve all Cytherians, and the Habbers encourage them in that view. Some Islanders grow too close to Habbers, and then they begin to see themselves as different from us. We're wiser here in having as little to do with them as possible."

"Habbers don't seem
so bad," Lena said boldly.

Kichi nodded calmly. "You're right, Lena — they don't seem so bad. Often, in fact, they seem quite nice, but that's exactly why we must be cautious in dealing with them. They don't want us to see what they really are or what their true purpose is." Kichi's hands fluttered against the arms of her chair. "This is a particularly problematic time, since one of the domes in the Freyja Mountains will soon be ready for settlement, and more of our people will join the few who are working there with the Habbers. Part of our industrial base will lie there, and the Habbers are quite capable of taking control of it and forcing us to bend to their will. The Islanders grow so lax in their dealings with Habbers that they may not even stand with their own people."

"Administrator Sigurd's still seeing that Habber woman," Chimene said. She had met Tesia a couple of times, and although the woman had addressed Sigurd only in formal language, Chimene had not been fooled. She had seen how Tesia's face softened a little when she looked at Sigurd, as if she were sure of her hold on his affections. "But maybe that isn't the same," she continued. "People keep saying it's just an amusement, that she doesn't really mean anything to him."

"Sigurd has done much for this Project," Kichi said, "but now, I fear, he's beginning to see himself as a ruler. It's a disease, in a way, to see yourself as that. He thinks he can't be touched, that he can do as he likes, and his example leads others to act in the same way."

Chimene thought of her father and how he went to Habbers. They wanted to take him away from her; she could not escape that feeling. He often told her how much could be learned from the Habbers, who were probably only trying to use him; they had to know Malik had not joined the Project as willingly as others.

"Sigurd may be forgetting that he's only another Cytherian," Kichi went on, "and that his loyalty must lie with that. It's the disease of rulers, to consider themselves above the obligations that bind the people they rule. It's why we must all strive to become brothers and sisters and have no more rulers."