Venus of Dreams (31 page)

Even Constance would not help him. She would be too embarrassed to have him in the house when he could be out working, and the other women wouldn't allow it, anyway. Oh, they talked about men often enough, and flirted ridiculously whenever one was around, but they clung to this house and their lives with an iron grip and would never allow themselves to be bound by any man's wishes. Even Peter, who was liked by many, was barely tolerated in some circles, and he was the head of his household. Eric would have no such protection.

Iris had brought him to this, had lifted him up and then dropped him, not caring what became of him. How sick it made him feel to hear the town talk of her. That fool Laiza bragged of her friend the student to visitors when it should have been clear to her that Iris no longer had time for Laiza, either, had even discouraged her from visiting the Cytherian Institute when Laiza had offered to come and see her old friend.

Eric lifted his bottle and drank. Maybe Iris would not do so well at her studies; maybe the Institute would send her home. She wouldn't be worth much, then. He almost smiled as he thought of that possibility.

He turned his head toward the screen; the movement made him dizzy. He could almost see Iris behind it, hiding in the dark, laughing as she told him how to find commissions and increase demand. She was with her fine friends now, all those Linkers and Counselors who sat in their cities mocking the feeble efforts of people like Eric. They had all conspired against him; they would take everything from him—his shop, his home, his life.

He stumbled to his feet. Grabbing his bottle by the neck, he hurled it across the room. The bottle smashed against the screen; the glass tinkled from the unbroken surface to the floor.

After Chen's suborbital flight had landed, he followed the other passengers into the Caracas port. A guard at the entrance beamed obsequiously at those who were well dressed, then narrowed his eyes when he spotted Chen.

Chen held up his bag and identity bracelet for the scanner while searching for Iris among the crowd greeting other passengers. At last he found a seat near the entrance, afraid he might get lost and that she would not be able to find him. A young woman tried to sell him a cyberguide's services; a boy offered him a cheap room at a hotel; a patrolman asked to see his wristband.

The trip had cost him most of what he had earned on his last job, and he was beginning to wonder what he would say to the bondmate he had not seen in over a year. He should have been spending this time with his son; now he was unlikely to see Benzi before late summer or fall.

Chen was hungry, but if he went to fetch food, Iris might not know where he had gone, or might even think he had changed his mind and gone to Lincoln instead. He could ask for instructions on how to get to the Institute, but hesitated as he was about to rise. Iris might already be on her way; she'd be annoyed if he wasn't here. He cursed himself silently for not planning the trip earlier, for not preparing himself with images of the city.

He reached into his pocket and took out the carving he had finished. Iris's face gazed out at him from the wood; her eyes looked past him to another place. Her upper lip was curled in a cold smile. She had looked like that the last time he had spoken to her.

"May I see that?"

He gazed into the long, pale face of a blond woman; a Linker's gem shone on her forehead. He held up the carving.

"Did you do that?"

He nodded.

"I'll buy it from you." She held her wristband to her lips, ready to make the purchase. "Just tell me your name, Nomarchy of residence, and the price, and we'll put it into your account."

"It's not for sale."

"Ah, a bargaining ploy. Name your price, Citizen. I can afford it."

"It's not for sale."

She tilted her head. "Too bad. Do you do a lot of that?"

"When I can. It's a hobby."

"You have talent. I have friends who'd pay a lot for something original and handmade. I don't suppose you'd change your mind later."

Chen was silent as he thought of the cost of his trip. He could use the money, and Eric might need some help as well. He would hardly have to force the credit on Eric, who was deeply in debt to Fatima, but he wondered if Eric would pay the shopkeeper or simply spend the credit at the tavern.

"It's a gift," he said at last. "I can't sell it."

"I'll be at the Tamanaco for three days," the woman said. "If you like, just come there and ask for Arla Goddell—that's my name. Just tell the clerk that you're the craftsman from the port. Maybe you could do another for me. I must rush."

As the woman hastened away, Chen saw that Iris was approaching him. Her face was taut, her green eyes more prominent. He stood up and she stepped back, not seeming to see his outstretched arms.

"What are you doing here, Chen?"

"What kind of greeting is that?"

She eyed him warily; then her face softened and she kissed him awkwardly on the cheek, bumping her nose against his. "Well," she said.

"Didn't you get my message?"

"Of course. I couldn't get here before now. You didn't have to wait—you could have met me at the Institute. There's an express right over there." She pointed down the hall. Next to a doorway, signs in several languages were posted, while a woman on a screen repeated the information on the signs for those who could not read.

She took his arm, not even glancing at the carving as he put it into his pocket. He picked up his duffel and let her lead him toward the tubeway entrance.

An escalator carried them down to a platform, where they waited with other passengers until the magneto-train whispered through the tubeway to their side. Iris elbowed her way through the crowd and found a seat near the back of one car. He glanced at the back of her neck as she sat down; her thick brown hair was still short, and she was wearing light green shorts and a sleeveless green blouse. A couple of men across the aisle were staring at her muscular bare legs.

Chen sat down next to her. "I thought you'd want to see Benzi, as you always do," she said. "You came at a bad time. I have a lot to do."

"You always have a lot to do."

"You should have given me more warning."

"I wanted to see you."

The train shot out of the tubeway and hummed as it passed flickering towers, then hurtled past adobe houses and patches of green. In the distance, Chen could now see the mountains around the city. His view was suddenly obscured by more towers even higher than the last. Iris gazed out the window, her face turned away from him.

"You haven't said much in your messages lately," Chen said. "You used to tell me a little about your friends here, and now you hardly mention them. Is Alexandra Lenas still here?"

"I don't see much of her any more."

"Does that older student Esteban still give you advice?"

She was silent for a moment. "Sometimes," she said at last.

"I wondered. You haven't talked about him for a while."

"He grew up on Basic. I don't know if I ever told you that. He used to work in the port as a guide to get credit for lessons. A Linker found him there and became his patron, decided he should be sent to a school." Her voice held a trace of an accusatory tone, as if she were wondering why Chen had not shown such industry and ambition. She touched his hand lightly. "I am glad you came, really," she said. "It's just that I don't know how much time we'll be able to have alone."

"Better a little than none at all." He paused. "How's that boy you met when you first came here, the Linker's son?"

She shifted a little in her seat, then leaned back. "Anthony? He left the school a month ago."

"Why?"

Iris looked grim. "He had to. Oh, no one asked him to leave, but he soon saw he wasn't welcome. You know, he had some rather odd ideas, kept talking about how the Project was part of a historical discontinuity instead of being a natural outgrowth of Earth's development. He used to argue about that in some of our discussions, and the rest of us would keep pointing out that it was the Habbers who broke with the past, not us, that we seek to redeem it instead."

Chen nodded, not sure he understood what she was talking about but waiting for her to continue. "Does it matter what you think, one way or the other?" he asked.

"It matters that we consider what the Project is for," Iris answered. She had grown more animated and seemed to have lost her unease for the moment. "It isn't enough just to know that we might have the technical means to transform a world. It isn't even enough to realize that what we find out there may someday help us here, though that's important too. A lot of people don't realize it, but the future progress of all the Nomarchies hinges on that Project. Earth might stagnate without it. But once Venus is settled, a new culture there can revitalize Earth, the way younger, newer cultures changed old ones in the past. Differences move history forward."

"I see," he said, remembering similar comments he had heard on the Islands. "But the Habitats are something new too. Why couldn't they—"

"We may need the Habs for certain things, but they're still a break, a discontinuity. They've given up the good of human history along with the bad. They pretend human beings are nothing more than a rational mind, and we're not. Their worlds are constructs of consciousness, planned and controlled. Their way can only lead to sterility. A planet is more like an organism, with both a rational mind and an autonomic nervous system, and it also offers something outside of ourselves for us to explore. No matter what we accomplish on Venus, no matter how much control we gain over its environment, there will always be that other, outside of ourselves, that we can't control, and that will both make us stronger and give us a sense of our true place in the universe. Habbers live in a closed environment that they dominate. They live in an illusion."

Chen considered her words, sure that he had at least grasped the main point. The Habbers he had known did not seem to fit her description; they had been only too aware of being specks on the sea of space. But Iris had more knowledge than he possessed; she had to understand these matters better than he could.

Iris was staring out of the window again. "What about Anthony?" Chen asked. "You didn't finish telling me about him."

"Oh." She fidgeted, looking distinctly uneasy. "I guess my talk must bore you."

She would never have said that before, he thought with a pang. She had already forgotten how often he had questioned her about her lessons, how much enjoyment he had taken in hearing about what she had learned even when he could not understand everything she would say.

"It wasn't just his questions," she went on. "We're supposed to ask questions, it's part of our training. But Anthony acted as though he already had the answers. He claimed that we didn't really understand what the Project would lead to, that once Venus was settled, it might even become something separate from the Nomarchies—as if it could. It would need Earth's help for centuries. Anthony was sort of simple-minded, in a way—he kept saying that there was a contradiction at the heart of the Project, that we wanted Venus to diverge and yet be part of us as well. He didn't seem to see—" She paused.

"It's not something you'll find out with talk," Chen said.

Iris shrugged. "Well, that wasn't why he left. It wasn't even that he started wondering whether or not the Project was being pushed too fast. That was another thing that bothered him, the plans to build domes on the surface as soon as possible instead of waiting—oh, he would harp on that."

"He isn't the only one. Some people on the Islands wondered about that."

"Well, it's either taking a chance on domes or waiting for centuries. People are getting impatient—they've waited long enough. You can understand that, Chen. You're waiting yourself. We have materials now that are strong enough for domed settlements there. If we couldn't do it, we wouldn't risk it. After all, it may be our lives that are at stake. We need space for settlers soon."

He took her hand. At least they still shared that vision. She let her palm rest in his, then drew her hand away. "I do run on," she said. "You can see why my messages are so short. If I let myself go, I'd just go on and on forever, and God only knows what that would cost. Anyway, Anthony began to get kind of disruptive—haranguing us in discussions, pestering other students, trying to bring others around to his point of view."

Chen frowned, feeling more ignorant than ever. "But if you're supposed to ask questions, then what was wrong?"

"He wasn't just asking questions." She sighed. "He was also trying to find out what all of us thought. I can't prove it, but we began to wonder if he'd been sent there to find out which of us might not be suitable for the Project. You know—a spy."

Chen kept his face still.

"It was little things that bothered us." Iris's eyes were cold. "A few months ago, Anthony got an increase in his allotment. We all have the same allotment, we have to get extra credit from our families or from work—as if anyone would have the time for a job. The rumor was that he'd done some job for a Counselor, even though he didn't appear to be doing any extra work. Then he began to get a few extra privileges, a couple of days off, a trip home when the rest of us were advised to stay at the Institute."

"Was his work better than anyone's?" Chen asked.

"Oh, he was better prepared than most of us when he came, but there were others doing as well at their studies. Then we heard that he'd been telling some of the Administrators about students who agreed with some of his notions. By the time he got smart enough to see how much we resented him, it was too late—no one would talk to him. He lost every friend he had, the few who remained." She scowled. "That's why he left. He must have realized that he wasn't useful any more. I heard he might be going to another school. I suppose he'll be spying there too."

"And I guess you didn't stay friends with him, either."

She lowered her eyes suddenly. "No," she said sharply. "I had reasons to be sure I kept my distance. I didn't want anyone thinking—well, you can see."