Venus of Dreams (56 page)

Jeffrey let out his breath. "How long have you been planning this?"

"A while. There's nine pilots on the shuttle. We'd talk about it, but we had to be careful. It was just talk when we started, but it grew. It's what we all want. The Habbers might go out to the stars someday, and we could go with them."

Jeffrey seemed stunned. "This was Michael's idea," Benzi said quickly; he wondered what his friend was thinking. "He saw that this would be our best chance. Everyone's going to be watching the screens today and celebrating later. It's why we all volunteered for Platform duty on this shift." Benzi let go of Jeffrey's arms.

"I can't believe it," Jeffrey said. "Never even suspected."

"We had to make sure nobody did. Jeff, I have to trust you now." Benzi took a breath. If Jeffrey fought him, Benzi would have to see that the shuttle took off safely, even if he was not aboard. He owed Michael that much; the man had saved his life. He swallowed. Chen had saved his life too; he tried not to think of that.

"You fool," Jeffrey said. "Get on that shuttle. I'm coming with you."

Benzi stepped back. "Are you sure?"

"I ought to knock you silly for not letting me in on this. Do you think you're the only pilot that feels that way? There's a few more of us, you know. Come on."

Benzi and Jeffrey were barely strapped in before the shuttle began to glide up on the lift. Te-yu glanced at them from her seat across the aisle. "Well, well," she said as she gazed at Jeffrey dubiously. "I see we have a new traitor to the Nomarchies in our midst. You certainly made up your mind fast, Jeff." She paused. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"I'm sure," the red-haired pilot replied.

"I hope you do. There's no way back, you know, no way you could return to the Islands unless you want to face certain punishment. Even most of the other pilots will hate us for this—they'll feel we've betrayed their trust. The Island Administrators are going to be looking for people to blame." She settled back in her seat.

Benzi thought of his parents. He had severed his bond with them; surely, they would not be blamed for what he did. It had hurt him to break the bond, but it had been the only way to give them some protection from blame. He could not, however, shield them from the pain they would feel when they learned that he was gone.

He had told himself that he owed them nothing, that they did not have the right to bind him to them. Now, he felt that he had been too heartless.

"Course is set," Michael said over the comm. "Hope you're all settled." The pilot's voice was calm, as if he were doing no more than ferrying them to Anwara.

Benzi was pressed against his seat as the shuttle thrust upward. On the screen in front of him, the Platform was falling away; soon, it had disappeared into the blackness. As the shuttle fell into its orbit around Venus, Benzi floated up against his straps.

"I hope I didn't make a mistake," Jeffrey muttered.

Benzi turned slightly toward the other young man. "Too late to think of that now."

"They always taught us to act fast, to do something quick if it was necessary. So that's how it went when you told me. I could have tried to stop you, but you would have fought, and a dock where a ship's going to be taking off isn't a place for a fight. I could have walked back out and done what you told me to do, but I might have gotten into trouble anyway, and I always would have wondered afterward if I should have taken this chance. This was the best thing to do, I guess." Jeffrey was silent for a moment. "Did any of the Habbers on the Islands know what you were planning?"

Benzi shook his head. "We couldn't tell any of them. We didn't know what they'd do. They have an agreement with Earth. If they'd known about us and hadn't said anything—well—"

A woman's voice was speaking over the comm; Benzi caught the last of her words. "Well, then what
are
you doing out there?"

"Just taking a look," Michael responded. "Might see something interesting up here."

"It's getting to be a habit with you, Michael. You seem to think every ship on this Project is yours to do with as you like." The woman's voice sounded familiar, but Benzi could not place it; she had to be another pilot on Platform duty. He felt a twinge; her voice might be the last Islander voice he ever heard, the last sound from those he was leaving behind.

He sighed. He had wanted to leave some message for Iris and Chen, a few words of explanation and apology, but had refrained. A message might have given his fellow pilots away too soon. A message might have made it look as though his parents had known of his plans.

He wished now that he had found some way of sneaking a message to them. He had even thought, impossibly, of convincing them to come with him; he had almost given himself away. Iris would only have betrayed him to her Linker friend, while Chen would have pleaded with him to stay.

". . . ought to get a reprimand for this," the woman went on, "but I suppose for such a hero, they'll let it pass. Enjoy your sightseeing."

"So you didn't tell the Habbers," Jeffrey said. "You didn't trust them enough for that, but you're expecting their friends to welcome us with open arms. How do you know they will?"

"They always say anyone can join them. They haven't turned away anyone who did."

"This is the Project, Benzi. They have an agreement. They might consider that." Jeffrey's freckled face was set in a frown; he looked as if he already regretted his impulsive act.

Benzi thought of the distant Habitat that was their destination. He had seen images of the asteroid, which was surrounded by parts of a metal shell. Their shuttle would have to dock at one of the Hab's stationary poles; he now wondered what he would find inside that world. He might find nothing but an exile's loneliness; even the Link that they provided to all might not be enough to make him truly one of them.

He stared at the screen. Against the Parasol's ebony fans, he could see the tiny lights of the northern Bat, and felt guilt as he thought of his father. Lightning flickered on the shadowed planet below, and he remembered his mother, who had mapped Venus's storms but had not understood the storms raging inside her own son.

Colorful bands of light suddenly appeared above the north pole; Benzi caught his breath at the beauty of the aurorae. The lights became a fan of rainbows; the sun's corona haloed the edge of the Parasol. Benzi gazed at Venus one last time as the shuttle's engines thrust them out of orbit.

Several people had left the common room for other parties elsewhere. Iris stood near the door, groggy from hours of drinking wine, expecting Amir to enter at any moment. He would have known she would be here, and even the Administrators could forget their duties for a little while on such a day.

Near her, on the floor, Chantal was sitting with a group of Institute graduates who had wandered into the common room. They were already deep in reminiscences about their Institute days; having dealt with their awkwardness and uncertainty during their first months there, they had gone on to talk of their early blunders in discussions and had then arrived at tales of their first wild journeys into Caracas. Wine, along with the joyful spirit of the day, had lent the stories a cheery flavor; the most appalling and painful events had taken on the air of adventures. The group had now progressed to the Institute's legends—Kevin Tellford, who had been given Linker training after only a year of study, and Hiro Fukuda, who had roamed the Institute with a mangy dog he had found in Caracas; who had insisted on bringing the dog to discussions, who had left the Institute after a famous party during which he had appeared on everyone's screens to give a drunken speech on hedonistic ethics, and who had somehow managed to find his way to the Project as a worker.

Iris sipped her wine. Everyone was speaking of the past, it seemed, steeping themselves in it just before Venus's new era truly began. A knot of celebrants were standing near the screen, speaking to a gathering on another Island. The image on the screen suddenly changed; now, a man was speaking to those nearest the screen, but Iris could not hear his words above the hubbub. A few heads turned; she realized that several people at that end of the room were staring at her.

"Iris?"

She turned. Edris Shaktiar had entered the room. His bondmate Nahid was holding a hand in front of her pretty mouth, and her large brown eyes were wide with concern.

"Iris," Edris said again. "Haven't you heard?" He plucked at his beard. "I guess you haven't. I just heard the story a few moments ago. I thought I should come to you immediately."

Before Iris could speak, Nahid seized her hand and thrust it into Edris's. "Not here," Nahid said; her accent seemed more pronounced than usual. "You tell her outside, Edris, not in front of all of these here." She patted Iris on the arm. "God help you."

Chantal was getting to her feet; Nahid drew the blond woman aside. Edris led Iris toward the door quickly. "Steady yourself, my friend," he muttered as the door closed behind them.

The small hill in front of the residence was a dark slope with the pale band of a stone path; evening had come to the Island. Iris had not realized it was so late. "What is it?" she asked.

"I don't know how to tell you." They walked away from the spiral, then stopped under a tree. "This is bad news." Her hand tightened around the glass of wine she still held. "It concerns your son."

Iris waited.

"He was on the landing Island. It seems he volunteered for this shift there, and—"

She dropped the glass and staggered forward; Edris caught her before she could fall. He's hurt, she thought wildly, and then: He's dead.

"He was on a shuttle. The ship—"

"He's dead!" she cried out.

"No, no. He isn't dead."

She straightened up, but still held on to his hand. "He was with a group of pilots," Edris said. "They took the shuttle up and told another pilot on the Platform that they were going to watch from orbit. No one ordered them back—I imagine that by then everyone was too preoccupied to pay any mind to the shuttle. That shuttle set its course for the Habitat. They must have been planning it for some time, knowing that no one would stop them on this day."

Iris leaned against the tree. "But why?"

"They want to live with the Habbers. They've asked to stay there."

"No. Benzi couldn't—"

"He was part of the plan. Iris. The pilot Hong Te-yu was with the group, and also Michael Anastas, the man who rescued you. I didn't catch the other names, but everyone will know them by now." The bearded man released her hands.

"They'll be sent back. They'll be punished."

"The Habbers won't send them back against their will. I heard that before I came to you. They won't be given up." His lip curled. "They want to be Habbers and forget their bond with the Nomarchies. I suppose they'd call it a better way instead of what it is—disloyalty."

Iris covered her face. Hearing that her son was dead could not have made her more enraged. She pushed that savage thought aside. Her son had hidden his thoughts from her; he had thrown away the hopes Chen had held for him.

"There are Habbers here," she whispered. "We can force the Habitats to give our people back."

"No, Iris. We have no power over the Habs even with them. If they were threatened, the Habbers might cut all ties with Earth and the Project. We'd lose their industries, their tools, the scientific discoveries they dole out to us. They don't need us, but it would be hard for us to get along without them, much as we want to deny it. And think of this too. Benzi would have no place with the Project now. You would only see him punished if he returned."

"He deserves it. He would deserve anything they did to him."

Edris draped an arm over her shoulder. "What a piece of Habber work this day has been. Their engines move our new world, and at that very moment some of our people leap to them."

She should have suspected it all along. Benzi had never cared about the Project. She should have realized—Iris stiffened. "I'll be blamed," she said. "I'm his mother. They'll think I knew." Her fingers clawed at his arms.

"No one will blame you. How can you be blamed? You told me he had severed his tie to you and his father."

That was why he had done it, then. Rage welled inside her; Benzi had broken the tie to protect her and Chen. She took no consolation in that possibility. He had manipulated them for his own ends and had left them to torment themselves worrying about how they had failed him.

She pulled away. "I must speak to someone."

"Come inside. Nahid and Chantal will—"

"No. I have to see someone else."

"Let me come with you."

"You'd better not, Edris. It might not help you if you're seen with me now." She hurried off before he could stop her.

A crowd had gathered in front of the round stone building where the Habbers lived. Iris watched from the trees as a man in the clothes of a worker spoke. "I don't care what you've been told," he cried. "They must have lured them there with lies, and now they won't give them back. They want something, don't you see? They'll take Venus and the Project for themselves, they'll let us do all the work and then they'll just take it for themselves."

"They have worlds already," someone shouted out.

"You call what they have worlds? Some place where the ground's over your head? Thinking they're better than we are." The man spun around and hurled a rock at the building. Soon the stone walls were being pelted by an onslaught of small rocks and clods of dirt. A few people rushed the nearest door and pounded against it with their fists, but it did not open.

Iris stepped back into the shadows. The Islands had only a small volunteer force of Counselors to keep order; they had never needed more. The Habbers would be safe enough inside their building until the mob's rage was exhausted.

She hastened on through the trees, suddenly conscious again of her own predicament. She was the mother of someone who had betrayed the Nomarchies, who had broken every agreement binding him. Amir would understand. She stumbled out from under the trees onto a wide pathway and saw the ziggurat of the Administrators. A crowd had gathered there as well; a woman on the steps was explaining what was happening at the meetings inside, pausing every so often to listen to her Link. Iris ran up the steps quickly, averting her face from the crowd.