Venus Rising (11 page)

“The Cetans have been blamed for entirely too
much. The people who died on this planet would not have been found
here, totally unprotected, if the Assembly had not banished them
from the Jurisdiction,” Tarik said flatly. “They were only a few of
the millions who died needlessly from one cause or other, not all
of them having to do with the Cetans. Don’t try to defend the Act
of Banishment, or the Assembly that passed it, to me.”

Narisa believed he was still angry with her
for her earlier rejection of him, and that was why he spoke so
sharply now. Perhaps, also, he had been as affected as she by
Dulan’s story and wanted to hide his feelings.

She had always been taught that telepaths
were an immoral, wicked group, but faced with this tragic story,
she could feel only sympathy for Dulan and the other settlers.

Surely, in all the wide galaxy, there ought
to be room to accommodate those who were different from
Jurisdiction norms.

She decided to overlook Tarik’s remarks, as
she had tried to thrust out of her mind other things he had said
about the Jurisdiction and the Assembly that ruled it. She kept
silent, not wanting to irritate him further, and not wanting to
admit aloud her own sudden qualms about an important Jurisdiction
law. The unsettled feeling she had experienced since landing on
this planet had intensified as she listened to Dulan’s story. The
possibility that the laws the Assembly made were sometimes wrong or
even unnecessarily cruel had occurred to her before and had been
rejected. She could not reject that possibility now. And if one law
was wrong, others could be, too. She frowned, feeling that such
ideas were disloyal to all her training.

Tarik’s slightly raised voice broke into her
troubled thoughts. She realized he had been speaking to her for a
while and had apparently taken her lengthening silence tor
indifference.

“Have you no curiosity, Narisa? Wouldn’t you
like to see the main settlement Dulan’s people built?”

“Yes, I would,” she admitted, glad to discuss
a neutral subject. “I admire their courage, Tarik. They could not
help being born telepaths, and I don’t doubt they suffered terribly
for their talents. They must have built a remarkable settlement,
but wouldn’t it have been destroyed to its foundations by the
Cetans? It’s probably covered with forest after so many centuries.
Why don’t we investigate the information stored in the computer
before we start exploring? Dulan said the main settlement was half
the planet away from here.” The thought of setting out on foot for
another long journey through thick forest or across dry, stony
desert was too much for her to deal with after the last few days.
She had not realized just how worn out she was. She couldn’t help
drooping in her chair.

Tarik noticed. “We both need a rest before
doing any more traveling,’ he conceded. “This is the best place to
do that. You are right about searching the computer’s memory banks.
However, I think the first thing we should do is bury Dulan, as he,
or she, wanted. He glanced upward toward the round window in the
high dome. “It has stopped raining. I’ll go look for the burial
ground.”

“I’m going with you,” Narisa said.

“As you wish. But sit where you are and eat
that wafer while I try to find whatever Dulan used to dig the other
graves.”

Narisa was content to do just that. She even
put her feet up on the second chair, and was half asleep when Tarik
came out of one of the storerooms with a shovel in his hand.

“Isn’t it interesting,” he remarked, “that
there are some things that don’t change? In spite of all our
technological advances, Dulan’s shovel is basically the same as the
ones we use today, and it is probably not so different from the
shovels used a million years ago. Every Race with hands has
something similar.”

“You look remarkably happy for a man who’s
about to dig a grave,” she noted.

“I prefer this to sending ashes into space
the way we do, and we know a grave here on the island is what Dulan
wanted,” he replied.

They had trouble finding the ancient grave
site. The island was larger than they had thought, and Dulan had
written only that it was on the side nearest the cliffs.

“What we need,” Narisa remarked after they
had tramped back and forth for a while, unsuccessful in their
efforts, “is a bird with a long memory to help us.”

“Call one.” Tarik was testing the ground
around an oddly shaped stone that he thought might have been used
as a marker for the graveyard, and thus he answered her
absently.

“I don’t know how.” Narisa wondered whether
Dulan had called aloud or had some instrument to bring the birds
when they were needed.

Dulan used the powers of the mind.
That long-dead person had been telepathic, after all. Narisa,
lacking that power, could not summon them. She wished she could.
How lovely it would be simply to think of a bird, the blue one with
the scratched beak for instance, and have it come. She could
imagine it, blue wings spread, gliding in to land beside her.

“Chon. Chon-chon. Chon.”

Narisa spun around. The blue bird folded its
wings and stood watching her. Behind her, Tarik laughed aloud.

“Did you call it?” he asked.

“No, I only thought how nice it would be if
it came to help us. I’m not a telepath, Tarik,” she added
defensively.

“You are not, but the bird is. Why don’t we
both think about Dulan, and digging a grave near the other ones,
and see what happens?”

Only a day before, Narisa would have
protested that what Tarik had just suggested was against
Jurisdiction law. But Dulan’s story had changed her thought
patterns until she could not believe there had been any evil, or
any danger to the Jurisdiction from the settlers who had come to
this planet. She thought about Dulan, about the eleven telepaths
who lay somewhere near, of Tula, the only other one whose name she
knew, and of Dulan’s mate who had gone before. Dulan deserved to be
buried with them. She scarcely noticed that Tarik, standing behind
her, had put his two hands on her shoulders. The bird watched them
both.

After a few minutes the blue wings opened.
The bird flew to a low hill covered with bushes, and perched on top
of it, looking back at them.

“Of course,” Tarik exclaimed. “High enough to
be out of reach of the waves in a bad storm.” He moved toward the
bird, his hands still on Narisa’s shoulders, pushing her along
before him. The bird flitted to one side as they drew near. Tarik
hugged Narisa.

“This is the place, I’m certain of it,” he
cried.

“But I didn’t do anything,” Narisa said,
confused. “All I did was think.”

“That’s all we needed to do. The bird did the
rest. Look.” He was on his knees, pulling up a layer of weeds and
turf. “There’s a stone here with a word carved on it. Let me get
the dirt off and see if I can read it.
Tula.
This is it,
Narisa. We’ve found it, the three of us together.”

She saw in his excited expression that he had
forgotten his earlier anger with her. For the moment at least they
were functioning together in complete harmony. Tarik paced out an
approximate size for Tula’s grave, based on Dulan’s height. Narisa
marked the boundaries with broken twigs she stuck into the damp
ground. They could find no sign of another grave next to Tula’s,
and the bird made no move to stop them, so they cleared away a
small bush, and Tarik began to dig a hole of similar size.

“We will put the two friends side by side,”
he said.

The rain had stopped, and the sun was shining
again, but the air was still very humid and growing hotter. It was
not long before Tarik was drenched in perspiration and nearly
covered with mud. When he paused for breath, Narisa took the shovel
and continued the digging.

“That’s deep enough,” Tarik said at last.
“It’s time to get Dulan.”

They returned to the grave site a little
later, carrying between them Dulan’s bones, which they had gently
wrapped in the coverlet from one of the beds. The bird was still
standing near the grave, but when it saw them, it flew away.

“We should have checked the computer to see
if there is a burial ritual,” Narisa said.

“If we find one later, we can come back then
and say the correct words,” Tarik told her. “For now, this is the
best we can do.”

They laid Dulan in the grave they had dug.
Tarik had picked up the shovel to begin replacing the soil over the
remains when there was a rustle of wings and the bird reappeared.
In its beak was a flower, one of the yellow, cup-shaped ones Tarik
had noticed growing on a vine in the forest. The bird dropped the
flower on top of the wrappings covering Dulan.

Narisa began to cry. She could not help it;
the tears simply came, pouring down her cheeks. She, who never
wept, who believed tears were a sign of weakness, sagged against
Tarik, feeling his strong arms holding her upright while she sobbed
uncontrollably. It was not only for Dulan’s lonely end that she
wept, but for her own family and friends also, for whose deaths she
had not allowed herself to shed a tear lest she never stop
crying.

When Tarik lifted her into his arms and
carried her back to the white stone building, she put her arms
around his neck and her head on his shoulder, and wept like some
small, lost child. Tarik laid her on a bed in one of the personal
rooms, pulled off her muddy boots and uniform, and covered her
warmly, for she was shivering in spite of the heat. She was sobbing
still, her face streaked with tears and dirt, her hair hanging in
limp strands. Tarik sat on the edge of the bed, holding one of her
mud-streaked hands in his.

“I’m sorry,” she wept. “I can’t seem to
stop.”

“Cry all you want and don’t be ashamed.” He
squeezed her hand. “Perhaps it was time for you to weep.” He stayed
where he was, keeping her hand in his until her sobs finally
stopped and she drifted into sleep. After a while, certain she
would not waken soon, he went back to the open grave and finished
burying Dulan.

Narisa woke later to a dim room illuminated
only by the light shining through the partially open door.
Realizing she was wearing only her undergarments, she sat up to
look for her uniform. Not finding it, she went to the door and
gazed into the main room.

Tarik stood beside the computer-communicator.
She had to look twice to be certain it really was Tarik. She had
never seen anyone so dirty. It was hard to tell he was wearing a
Service uniform. He was encrusted from head to foot with mud and
leaves. A few twigs, along with other more mysterious debris, clung
to his untidy hair. His face was smeared with dirt. Even his beard
was filthy.

“What have you been doing?” she asked.

“Making repairs.” He diverted his attention
from the computer screen to grin proudly at her. “I have fixed the
plumbing. Some animal had made a nest in one of the cold water
pipes and blocked it. I cleaned it out. Then I found the heat
source and turned it on, so the bathing room-is now ready for use,
with a choice of hot or cold water.”

“You need it,” she murmured, but not
unkindly. He was so enthusiastic about his accomplishments, she
could not help smiling at him. She gestured toward the
computer-communicator. “Have you got that working, too?”

“Just a little while ago. It controls the
ventilation and heating systems for the building, as well as the
lights.”

“I can tell. It’s much more comfortable now.”
The stale odor was gone, and the temperature was nearly ideal.
Around the base of the dome a system of indirect lighting shone,
illuminating the carved frieze and lending a soft glow to the white
room. Narisa could see through the window in the top of the dome
that it was night. Tarik had gotten the lights working just in
time.

He had found furniture, too, probably in the
storerooms they had only glanced into earlier. A table and two low,
cushioned chairs had been set out near the couch where Dulan had
lain. The original cushions were gone from the couch, as was the
thick layer of dust. New cushions covered with blue-green fabric
padded the couch. The large central room looked almost like a
home.

“Have you been able to get much information
out of it?” Narisa asked Tarik, who had turned back to the
computer-communicator. She did not suggest trying to call the
Capital. Tarik’s earlier anger against her had vanished completely,
and she did not want to annoy him again. Nor did she mention her
tearful outburst at Dulan’s grave. It would only embarrass her to
speak of it now.

“I haven’t had time to begin researching the
history of Dulan’s settlement,” Tarik told her. “I’ve been more
concerned with our practical needs. When I found the heat source
for the water, I discovered it is also used for cooking and for
heating the entire building. It’s in a subterranean room and it’s
really very ingenious. There are hot springs on this island. The
water from them is pumped into the room below this, where it’s
stored until needed. I’ll show it to you tomorrow. Fortunately for
us, Dulan had turned off the valve that lets the hot water into the
tanks, and then had drained the entire system. Once I opened the
valve and flushed out the pipes, it worked perfectly.”

“Then we could make hot food. If only we had
something to cook.”

“That is just what I’ve been checking.” Tarik
indicated the console. “There is a record in here of everything in
the storerooms. I’m certain the food we found is safe to eat. So is
the water, in case you were worrying, both the lake and hot
springs.”

“How wonderful. I’m so hungry, and I never
did like those compressed wafers.”

“You won’t have to eat them anymore. Why
don’t you use the bathing room while I finish what I’m doing here?
Then I’ll clean myself up, and we’ll have a feast.”