Venus of Dreams (42 page)

"That was kind of you, Fawzia."

"Is it so important that you have to go to all that trouble?"

"You know how shipments here can get bogged down in delays."

"Indeed," Fawzia's lips curved into a smile. "But one would think that the Project's Mukhtar could expedite matters for himself."

"It isn't proper to use that title with me, Fawzia." Pavel picked up the package and pressed his thumb against the seal; the top opened.

Fawzia glanced inside, then turned toward the door. "Thank you so much for the sweets."

"Enjoy your walk," he replied. "Have a safe trip back, God willing."

The door closed behind her. She had probably bribed the pilot into giving her the package. Well, perhaps he had convinced her that the package was of no importance; Pavel had, after all, opened it in front of her, showing he had nothing to hide, and she had seen no more than a couple of tools and an imprinted console panel. She might think that he had only ordered a new toy. He sighed. Whatever she lacked, Fawzia was not a complete fool. She would wonder why he would go to such trouble over a package that could easily have been shipped to the Islands with other cargo.

Pavel closed the small box. He had it all now, all the tools he needed, all the parts for the device. It had taken him four years to bring it here, years of bribes passed to a pilot who needed credit and of having her bring in the pieces bit by bit. He could now assemble the device any time, and no one would know that he had it.

He had been careful. A component from one city, a module from another; no one would miss them, or know where they had been sent. The pilot had been told whom to bribe on Earth, but even she did not know what he was planning to assemble.

He had found out about the device's existence almost by accident. A visiting Council member had mentioned hearing a rumor in high circles. After that, Pavel had phrased his questions to the cyberminds carefully and innocuously until, without giving away his purpose, he had become convinced that the rumors were fact.

Over a decade ago, so the rumor went, the Counselors working in a couple of the North American Nomarchies had been given devices that would protect them from assassins. A beam would strike the assassin, making it seem as if he had died of natural causes. It was a clever idea doomed to failure. A couple of Counselors had used the device, but had apparently been shattered by guilt afterward—no surprise, given their training and concern for those they counseled.

Other Counselors, it seemed, had protested, and perhaps someone near the Council of Mukhtars had second thoughts about allowing Counselors to control such a weapon, because the devices were now being removed from the places where they had been installed. Pavel supposed that those who knew about their existence had been silenced by bribery or threats. He did not care to speculate about who might still find such a device convenient or useful; at any rate, such people would have to answer to the Mukhtars for their deeds, and could hardly conceal the truth from them.

But no one would know that Pavel had acquired the weapon. He had been too cautious—a stolen piece in one city, a diagram from another, a slightly damaged but still usable component from another place. Unlike many of his fellow Linkers, he knew how to work with his hands; that was a point of pride with him, a connection with the humble origins of his ancestors. He would be able to figure it out, put it together, and install it; he might even make a few modifications.

His shoulders slumped. Now that he had what he needed, he was beginning to wish that he had never heard of the device. He had brought an evil onto the Islands, something that did not belong in a place where people dreamed of a new beginning. He would put this package away with the others and pray that he would never need to assemble the parts. The Mukhtars had been right to put a stop to the use of such a weapon; one fleeting moment of rage and an instant of terror for one's own life could be enough to condemn a man to death. The device would be a constant temptation.

It was the Mukhtars who were responsible for bringing him to this evil. Why couldn't they see what the Project needed? It had begun as one man's vision, and now it was bogged down in the constant bickering of committees. It needed another strong man to bring it to fruition. Here, they called Pavel a Mukhtar; he should have been given the power of one. Instead of appeasing the Project Council, he could have been ordering people to follow commands openly. Instead, he had to cajole and persuade one committee after another while keeping all of their different and sometimes conflicting aims in mind. He had to watch his fellow Island Administrators while wondering which of them might be conniving with others or with members of the Project Council on Earth to push Pavel aside.

Why couldn't the Mukhtars and the Project Council see what the Project required now? It needed more help from the Habbers. It needed their alloys to build safer domes; it needed their more sophisticated and durable robots to construct them. Earth had swallowed its pride before, when the pyramids below had been erected on Venus's equator; surely, it could do so again. In the centuries to come, no one would care what the Habbers had contributed; Earth's stamp would be on the new world, and Venus would be Earth's creation. It might be, perhaps, what Earth could have been.

Pavel rose, then picked up his package. He did not need it now; perhaps he would never need it, but if the Project's outcome ever depended on that weapon, he would be prepared to use it. In the meantime, he would try to put it out of his mind. He gazed at the container he held and felt suddenly that it had already contaminated his soul.

Three people sat on cushions around the low table with Iris, leaning on their elbows as they studied the diagrams on their flat pocket screens. A larger screen covered part of one of the walls, revealing a murky, black sky. Lightning flashed in the sky; a spark swelled, blossomed into a bright flame, and then faded.

There had been another volcanic eruption in the region of Beta Regio. That was not surprising in itself; those massive highlands were one of the centers of Venus's volcanic activity, which allowed heat to escape from the planet's interior. The violence of this eruption, however, had not been expected. A probe on the surface had gathered data and images through lenses sensitive to infrared light before it had been engulfed by a lava flow.

"You could use an observer," Iris said, breaking the silence. Aryeh ben-Samuel looked up; Nelli Kazan arched her thin, dark brows.

"Nonsense," Marc Lissi murmured. "We'll send a drone, have it collect some atmospheric samples. We can analyze them here and then let the microbiologists have our findings. It's up to them to decide if the sulfur emitted by that eruption has affected the atmosphere enough to require additional seeding."

Iris gazed back steadily at Marc's handsome, olive-skinned face. "Drones are harder to control, and we've been losing too many. I could go out with an airship pilot and come back with your samples. In the meantime, I could make a few observations."

"But why risk it?" Nelli said. "You'd have to drop fairly low, near the cloud layer, to collect anything we could use. With the winds, that's too dangerous."

"I've been almost as low before." Aryeh and Nelli had only recently been added to Iris's team; they would take their cues from Marc, the team's head. "My observations have been of use in the past." Iris gazed steadily at Marc.

Nelli shook her head. "This eruption might have been much larger than others, but—"

"You can use samples, and maybe an observer as well. I'm willing to go." Iris paused. She had argued with the other members of her team before; they were all too willing to rely on drones and what she considered secondhand observations. They were cautious, like too many people here, unwilling to take any initiative that might provoke the Administrators who held authority over the Project.

Iris had come to rely on her observations and intuitions, however embarrassed she sometimes was to admit that openly. Often, she was only dimly aware of how such intuitions aided her in reaching her conclusions, but she had learned to loosen the reins on her thoughts. During her years on the Islands, away from the fear of failure that had haunted her at the Institute, she had come to see how useful she could be to the Project.

Others were more brilliant than she, but Iris had discovered her own gift. Her models were more useful than others' in making predictions. The cyberminds, of course, created the models, the formulas, images, and descriptions that mapped a planetary system, but they could only work with the data their probes and the Project's specialists provided. Iris could sense when some seemingly insignificant factor might have been neglected in a model; her observations aided her in intuiting what might be missing.

Often, her predictions were unimportant. Occasionally, they had been valuable. She had predicted a temporary change in wind velocities and patterns at the north pole of Venus, and a change in the programming of the automatic ships landing there had prevented the possible loss of a few of those ships. She had estimated, after a previous series of volcanic eruptions, that the level of sulfuric acid in the atmosphere would decline without an increase in the rate of atmospheric seeding, and had saved the Project the cost of that additional and unnecessary expense. Other climatologists had disagreed with her conclusions; but Marc had passed her thoughts along to his superiors. Marc, however disagreeable it might be, had come to rely on her, and others, in turn, relied on him.

It was a pity, she thought now, that her intuitions had failed her in her own life. Her need for calm, peaceful hours in which to consider her models and intuitions had blinded her to the mental climate of her bondmate and son. She had not predicted their behavior, but could only trace its causes in retrospect.

Aryeh ran a hand through his thick, dark brown curls. "You take too many chances, Iris."

"I do what works for me," she replied. "Look at it this way. At this point, it would cost the Project less to replace me, a pilot, and an airship than to replace all of the drones we've already lost."

"I think you and I had better talk," Marc said. "Alone." Aryeh and Nelli stood up; Iris thought she heard Nelli sigh as the two left the room. "I have to answer for my team," he went on. "There's been some concern about you in higher circles. I can't continue to let you do foolish and unnecessary things."

"You could settle that problem easily. You could disclose how useful I've been to you before." She wanted to say more, but held back. She had been content, during her early years on the Islands, to let Marc present her conclusions as if they were his own. She had been an inexperienced Institute graduate, while he was the head of the team. She had been satisfied with knowing she was useful, and that her work would benefit the Project. She had been happy to have Marc on her side, and had not minded how much credit he took for himself. He had allowed her to work in her own way.

"I'm responsible for this team. I don't think, in this case, that we need your observations."

"You don't know what I might find out. A drone can't do certain things. Sometimes, you need people on the spot."

"You're superstitious, Iris. You have a misplaced faith in the power of human beings and their perceptions. You won't see any more than a drone would. You'll be in an airship, and you'll be observing on a screen."

She stared at him. This was the kind of statement Marc used to make, before she had proven herself. "I hope you're saying what you really mean," she replied. "I hope you're not just worrying about what some superior might think of you. What is it you care about, Marc—your position, or the Project?"

"You ought to speak to your Counselor," Marc said. "Don't look so affronted—I say that out of concern. I don't mind bravery, but recklessness is counterproductive, don't you think?"

"It wouldn't be recklessness if we had better ships and more equipment."

"We've been around and around about that. We do the best we can."

"Oh, yes. Earth won't give us this, Earth can't afford that. Sometimes I think that a few of the people in higher circles don't want us to make too much progress. If we did, they might not have anything to do."

"My, my. When you were fresh from the Institute, you couldn't praise the Nomarchies highly enough."

"When I was fresh from the Institute, I didn't think Islanders were the kind of people who put their own interests ahead of our work. Someone's probably looked at my record and finally noticed that my observations entail a slightly greater expense for the Project. You could speak up for me, and tell exactly how I've been useful to you, but you won't, because then your own position might be in jeopardy. Someone might wonder who the head of this team should be."

Marc drummed his fingers against the table. "I've been thinking. Since you're so obviously restless, there is one thing you can do for me." She was immediately suspicious; he hadn't even responded to her accusation. "Find an airship that'll take you over to Island Eight, have Sean Fitzwilliam introduce you to some of the geologists. You can stay for a day or two, see how you get along with them."

Iris drew her brows together. "And why do I have to get along with them?"

"I've been thinking of bringing Sean back here, replacing him there with someone else. I'll have to clear it with the Administrators first, of course, but you might be a good choice to go there."

Iris stared past Marc at the blank screen behind his head. So Marc wanted her on Island Eight, as a liaison with the geologists there. She would have to keep up with their work, inform them of what the climatologists were doing, and function as a link between the two groups. The two teams could have kept up with each other through screens and bands, but there was always a chance that a person on the spot might see a connection that would otherwise be missed.

It had not mattered to her, when she first arrived, which Island she was assigned to, but she had ended up on Island Two because that was where most of the climatologist teams were housed. She had come to enjoy life on this particular Island. Island Two's Administrative Committee clearly dominated those on the other Islands, and there were a few small benefits in that—quicker decisions from Administrators when requests were made, more contact with visitors from Anwara or Earth who might be influential, more of a feeling of being at the Project's true center.