Venus of Dreams (65 page)

Chen waited as the crowd dispersed. He had been in the second week of his shift on the northern Bat when Pavel Gvishiani made his announcement. The workers, at first stunned by the news, had absorbed it quickly; their routine tasks had become imbued with a new purpose. The Habbers would help them; they would see settlements after all. They did not concern themselves with how Earth might react, certain that Mukhtar Pavel had either come to some secret agreement with the Project Council or had good reason to believe that Earth would see the wisdom of his course.

Chen had seen how much the spirit of the Islands had changed when his shuttle had landed on the Platform. He had seen Habbers, Guardians, and pilots speaking almost as friends. Six Habber ships were already in orbit around Venus, and a steady stream of shuttles was carrying people and supplies to the Platform as well as robots and equipment to the surface. Impatience, resentment, and despair had vanished; hope had been renewed, old rivalries and disputes almost forgotten. The Project had again become what it was meant to be.

Chen lifted his bag and set off along the path. Happy as he had been to know that the Habbers were helping again, he could not rid himself of apprehension. The Habbers had been here for over two months, and Earth had remained silent. Most took that as a sign that Earth had given in, but Chen wondered if it meant that the Mukhtars were plotting against them, trying to decide what to do. He thought of the Linkers he had known; somehow, he couldn't believe that those on Earth would let this happen.

Two men passed him; only the pins on their collars that showed a cluster of silver circles revealed that they were Habbers. They nodded at Chen; he nodded back, realizing that he no longer had to avoid their company. He thought of Ibrahim, and then of Benzi. His son would not be among the Habbers here; even now, his son was not likely to risk returning to the Islands.

At last he came to a group of tables under ivied lattices; Iris had said she would meet him here. At one table, three workers sat with a Linker; at another, three Habbers were sharing a meal with two Islanders. Once, only workers had assembled in this spot; now, people mingled freely.

Iris was sitting at one of the tables farthest from the path; she was talking to Amir Azad. Chen stiffened; he had hoped that she would be alone.

He approached the two, trying to smile. Amir looked up and murmured a greeting as Chen sat down. Iris had spoken to the Linker a couple of times before Chen left for the Bat; in one of her messages to him there, she had mentioned that she had spent some time with Amir. Clearly, she had nothing to hide from Chen, and yet Amir's presence still disturbed him.

There were others on the Island who had been Iris's temporary companions in the past. Chen could ignore that fact, could even be friendly with the men. He knew that Iris had occasionally sought out others while he was away on his shifts, but those men were only passing entanglements. His jealousy, once so strong, had faded as Iris's love for him had deepened; it had been only his fear of losing her completely that had once fueled his anger. Iris had remained his bondmate; he could not expect her to change altogether.

Amir, however, was different from other men. Iris had cared for him deeply, had even considered having his child, and Amir had repaid her by betraying her when she had needed his understanding most. Chen remembered that only too well, because he had gathered up the pieces and won Iris back. How could she even bear to speak to him? Yet she did, and Chen felt threatened by it.

He picked at the pieces of fruit on Iris's plate as Amir continued to speak. Iris interrupted; musical words flowed from her lips. The two were using Arabic; Chen hated to hear them talk in that emotional, sensuous tongue, which made him feel as though they were sharing a secret pleasure and shutting him out.

"We should use Anglaic," Iris said suddenly. She glanced apologetically at Chen.

"Excuse me," Amir replied. "You two will want time to yourselves now." An odd look passed across the bearded man's face; Chen could almost believe that Amir was jealous of him. The Linker stood up. "I must be off anyway. We're having another conference with a few of the Habbers, and I must prepare myself for it." He left the table quickly.

Iris leaned over and kissed Chen on the cheek. "I've missed you," she said. "Everything's changed so much since you left."

"I noticed. Fei-lin and Tonie asked a few friends to their room tonight. I told them we'd both come. I think they're finally going to tell us they've decided to have a child—they've been waiting long enough. Fei-lin told me they'd talked to a Counselor on the Bat about it, so—"

She touched his hand. "We could do the same thing now."

"Maybe."

"If all goes well with the dome construction, we could all go there together as settlers, and our daughter would still have some years on the Islands first, to prepare herself."

Chen frowned. "I don't know."

"You haven't changed your mind?"

"It isn't that, Iris. I just can't help worrying. This may not last."

"Now you sound like Amir." She nibbled at some fruit. "He's worried too. Earth hasn't done anything, and he wonders what they might be planning. I keep telling him that there's probably nothing they can do at this point—the longer Earth waits, the less they'll be able to do. But Amir's been exploring, trying to get some answers through his Link, and he keeps running into blocks. Apparently our cyberminds here aren't picking up as much information from those on Earth. When a Linker runs into blocks, he begins to wonder what's being hidden."

Chen felt uneasy; Amir's concerns only gave his own worries more substance. "I thought he agreed with Pavel and the other Administrators."

"Oh, he felt they had no choice. But we have, as he puts it, faced the Mukhtars with a dilemma. The Mukhtars don't want to threaten the Habbers, because they don't know what the Habs might be able to do against them. At the same time, if they leave things as they are without coming to some sort of agreement, they're acknowledging that they've lost control of the Project. People will begin to think the Mukhtars are weak, that they can't act, and some Nomarchies still resent the Mukhtars. There could be uprisings on Earth if people believe the Mukhtars are powerless." A line creased Iris's brow. "I sometimes wonder what might happen in Lincoln then. That's one thing that does worry me. Sometimes it seems that everything we do is bound to bring grief to someone."

"Your household may be safer than we are now."

"You do sound like Amir. It's odd—in a way, I'm more worried at hearing this from you than I was from him."

He said, "I don't know why you have to talk to him at all."

Iris reached for his hand. "There's nothing between us now. You know that. I don't think there ever really was."

How could he say what he felt? He would have preferred to see her go to Amir's bed; he had accepted that part of her nature. "Why do you see him at all, then?"

A look of annoyance flickered across Iris's face. He sighed; he had thought that they were past these useless confrontations.

"I don't know, Chen. He seems to need to talk to me now. I haven't encouraged him, believe me, but he says he still has some feeling for me, though I think that's mostly guilt about what happened between us before. He's sorry about what happened, and in spite of it, I can't condemn him. I've been guilty of enough cruelty to others myself. It's time we forgot those old wounds. We can't carry them to a new world, and I don't want to pass on old hatreds to our daughter when she lives."

"I see. I suppose Amir would be useful to you then."

"You know I don't care about that any more, but if it troubles you so much, then I'll try to avoid him as much as possible."

"I won't ask that of you," Chen said. "How can I blame him for feeling the way he does? Just as long as you don't feel that way about him—"

She laughed. "You know I don't. You have to know that by now." She leaned forward. "I haven't even asked you what you've heard on the Bat. Has anyone told you about the progress we've been making?"

"I've heard a little. Not much, though. We've had enough to do just keeping up with our own work."

"Then I'll have to fill you in." She spoke rapidly, almost tripping over the words; as Chen listened, his own worries began to fade, and he began to feel that he had been foolish to entertain them. The Habbers, according to Iris, were making improvements on al-Anwar and Oberg, the two completed domes; it seemed that the domes had already been named. The third dome, al-Khwarizmi, also named for a scientist prominent in Earth's history, would be completed in less than a month. Iris gestured expansively as she talked of planned excavations, robots, improved structural materials for the domes, and ecosystems designed with rapidly maturing plants. The Habbers, interestingly, had not simply usurped the place of supervisors and Administrators; they were sharing their knowledge freely, consulting with the Island specialists at each step. The Islanders would learn much; everyone would benefit from that.

"Once, you hated the Habbers," Chen said during a break in the conversation.

"It's true. But now, I can even feel that everything that happened might have been for the best. Think of it, Chen. Someday, we might even see Benzi again. He might be able to come to Venus."

Chen was almost afraid to hope. His darker mood was beginning to pull at him again. He had entertained hopes before, only to see them dashed.

"Are you worrying again?" Iris asked. "Look at you. Aren't we together? Hasn't everything turned out well after all?"

He nodded, shaking off his mood. "How much work do you have left for today?"

"I've got a meeting with my team in about an hour. A few Habber climatologists are supposed to show us some of their computer models. Apparently they've analyzed—"

He stood up and reached for her hand. "Then we've got another hour. Let's go home, and I'll show you how much I missed you."

She thrust her arm around his waist as they left the table.

As Chen had predicted, Tonie and Fei-lin had made their announcement. Their contraceptive implants would be removed in less than a week; they were planning on a son.

"Using stored stuff?" Olaf asked.

Fei-lin laughed. "I think I still have enough here to make a kid." He cupped his groin.

"Well," Catherine said, "since you're not going to get to work on it tonight, I guess we can all stay."

Eight of the couple's friends had come to the small room. Chen sat on the floor, wedged between Iris and another woman, as Tonie's friend Dorcas passed them a plate of raw vegetables. Catherine and her bondmate Olaf were sitting in the open doorway; the sound of conversation in the hallway outside was dimly audible. Chen listened as the group inside the room laughed and talked. Some of the people here had not come to see him off thirty years earlier, when he had been exiled from the Islands; a few of them had avoided his presence after Benzi's flight from the Project. All of that had been forgotten; as he looked around at these people now, he could almost believe that no time had passed. Olaf had grown only slightly heavier with age, Fei-lin was as lively as ever, rejuvenation had kept Tonie's beautiful face smooth and unmarked. The past had been erased along with the signs of aging, it seemed.

"And when are you two going to stop putting things off?" Dorcas said to Chen. She seemed about to say more when a man suddenly thrust his head through the open-doorway. "Turn on your screen," the man shouted.

Fei-lin was sitting on the bed; he stood up quickly, nearly putting his foot in a bowl of food. "What is it?"

"The screen," the man replied. He disappeared, and Chen realized that the corridor outside the room had grown silent.

Fei-lin turned on his screen. ". . . will be here in one day," a voice was saying. A gray-haired woman was speaking; shadows darkened the hollows under her tired eyes. "We've been ordered to allow these ships to dock here. We must follow that directive." The woman paused and tilted her head, apparently listening to a message through her Link.

"Who is she?" Dorcas muttered. "What's she talking about?"

"I'll repeat the message," the woman said. "I am Kerie Ord, a member of the Project Council on Anwara. I have just been informed that a fleet of eight ships carrying Guardian forces left Earth orbit more than a week ago and will be here within one twenty-four-hour period. All Habber vessels in orbit around Venus must leave this area immediately and return to the nearest Habber world. If the Habbers disregard this request, the Guardian forces have been ordered to attack any remaining ships with missiles. This is not an idle threat. The ships from Earth are armed, and will act."

Fei-lin stepped back from the screen; Tonie reached for his hand as he sat down again.

"There is another message for the Islands from Earth," Kerie Ord continued. "I'll speak it now." She lifted her head. "People of the Cytherian Islands, hear our words. Occasionally, well-meaning people can be misled, and the Habitat-dwellers are always prepared to take advantage of such weakness. We do not seek to harm those who might have felt only that they were acting in the Project's best interest, but the Nomarchies cannot let this incident pass. The Habbers must leave, but be assured that the Project will go forward. There is no shame in acknowledging an honest mistake. The Habbers, by acting as they have without a request from the Council of Mukhtars, have violated our agreement."

Iris's hand was in Chen's; her fingers were icy against his palm.

"The Habbers will fight them," Fei-lin said; his face was taut with rage. "They must have ways."

Iris said, "Their ships here, as far as I know, have no weapons."

"They'll have to do something." Fei-lin looked around at his friends.

"I have one last thing to say," Kerie Ord went on. "Those of us on Anwara were not privy to your actions. Before we knew it, Habber ships were on their way to Venus. We wish you no harm on the Islands, and can even understand why you acted as you did, but we will not oppose Earth—we haven't the means or the desire. You must see that—"