Venus of Dreams (70 page)

There was a small screen next to the entrance. Chen went over to the screen, checked to make certain no one was near enough to hear him, then whispered Iris's code.

Her face appeared on the screen almost instantly. "Iris, listen," he said quickly. "There isn't much time. Don't ask me how I know this, just assume I do. An airship is going to leave Island Two and head for the Platform. It mustn't be allowed to land, or the Platform may be destroyed."

Iris's eyes widened. "But why—"

"Don't ask. It's a plot to pressure Earth into backing down or seeing the Project destroyed. You've got to go to Amir and tell him that no airship can be allowed to land at the Platform now."

"But who—"

"I can't tell you that now. Just do it. Go to Amir." Another thought occurred to Chen. "But tell him that he mustn't try to stop the airship from leaving here first. They've got explosive charges. If anyone tries to keep them from leaving, they could threaten this Island. This is important. They can't know they've been found out until they're away from the Island and can't do any harm. Will you do it?"

She nodded; life had returned to her eyes. "I'll go now. Chen, are you all right?"

"Don't worry about me." Before she could protest, or ask any more questions, he had thumbed the screen, blanking it.

He turned toward the bay. If he had any sense, he would leave now, but he had made a promise to Tonie. There was still a slight chance he might be able to help Fei-lin. Chen lifted his head and began to walk past the cradles toward the airship.

Six people had boarded the ship; he did not know how many others might be inside. Ten others were standing below the ramp; they were all workers. Somehow, they had managed to acquire nuclear charges and get them loaded onto the ship without attracting any notice, if what Tonie had told him was true; they probably had weapons as well, since they would need them to subdue the Platform crews. Eleanor Surrey was with the group; Chen was sure that she and the others could not have planned this alone. Someone had helped them, perhaps even someone among the Administrators; they could never have carried out their plan otherwise. He shivered. Whatever he thought of Amir, Iris could trust him, but Chen was already wondering how many might be involved in the plot. Even Amir might not be able to stop it.

He tried to compose his thoughts. Somehow, he did not think the Administrators, even Pavel, were capable of planning such an action. They would never destroy their handiwork unless there was clearly no alternative, and perhaps not even then. Pavel might not balk at sacrificing individuals, but he and the others could not destroy their entire life's work.

Eleanor glared at Chen as he approached; he bowed his head slightly, and kept his face still. "What do you want?" the blond woman asked.

"Have to talk to Fei-lin here." Chen waved casually at his friend. His hand shook a little; Chen lowered his arm and thrust his hand into his pocket.

"Well, make it quick." Eleanor jerked her head up at the airship cabin in the cradle. "We've got a shipment to take over to the Platform, and we've got repairs to make there."

Chen struggled for words; it did not seem that he would be able to talk to Fei-lin alone. He stared at his old friend. "You can't go, Fei-lin." He spoke in Anglaic, afraid that Eleanor would get suspicious if he used the Chinese she did not know. "Tonie's ill. She needs you back in her room."

"What?" Fei-lin seized Chen's arm. "Is she all right? Tell me!" His eyes were filled with guilt and remorse; perhaps Tonie was right about her bondmate.

"She's all right," Chen said, "but she'll need a physician. You should go to her—she'll need you with her. She wants you to come. Someone else can take your place here." If he could only get Fei-lin away from here, at least his friend would be safe. Chen could tell Fei-lin that Tonie had told him of the plot when they were outside the bay; if Fei-lin saw that the plot was doomed, he might be willing to go to the Administrators with Chen. Chen would lie for Fei-lin if he had to, claim that the other man had come to him to expose the plot.

"Is it serious?" Eleanor asked.

"I don't know. I was told—"

"Well, if it is, Fei-lin can't do her any good, and if it isn't, he won't be needed."

"She's my bondmate," Fei-lin burst out.

Eleanor's eyes narrowed. "Something's funny here. I never knew Tonie Wong to be sick. And if it was serious, they would have sent a Counselor here." She motioned to two men. "Grab him," she said in a low voice.

Fingers dug into Chen's arms painfully; he looked frantically around the bay. He could still cry out for help, tell Eleanor she would never land at the Platform, but then she might threaten this Island.

Fei-lin stepped toward Eleanor. "Wait, you don't have to—"

"Get him aboard," Eleanor said. The two men, still holding Chen's arms tightly, hustled him up the ramp. When they were inside, he was dragged to a seat and thrown into it. The other passengers watched him silently from their seats; he saw a few young people among them, including Eleanor's son. They had to be mad if they had dragged children into this.

Eleanor was next to him, standing in the aisle. "Don't expect any help from anyone else in the bay—they'll just think you decided to come along for the trip. You lied, didn't you? Didn't you?" One of the men near her struck Chen in the face, numbing his cheek. "I want to know why. What do you want with Fei-lin?"

He was struck again; his mouth was bleeding. Fei-lin was protesting to Eleanor. The woman, Chen thought hazily, was a bit more perceptive than he had realized; if she guessed what he had done—

Chen spat out some blood. "I heard rumors," he said. "Heard you were planning something, I don't know what. Thought if I could get Fei-lin alone, he'd tell me what was going on and maybe I could talk him out of it, that's all. We always tried to look out for each other."

Fei-lin averted his eyes guiltily. Chen stared at Eleanor, hoping she would believe him; he had told her enough of the truth to be convincing.

"Well, isn't that something," Eleanor replied. "I suppose you thought he'd listen to you, and then you could both march off to Pavel Gvishiani and be heroes."

"Something like that."

"You're stupid, Chen. Can't leave things alone, can you. You think you're something, with your schooled bondmate and your pretty carvings—think you're special. But you're stupid. A smart man would have tried to have us stopped instead of worrying about his friend. A smart man would have told somebody else about his suspicions instead of coming here."

"Maybe he did," one man muttered.

"No," Chen said. His mouth felt cottony; his face was beginning to swell from the blow. "I wasn't sure. I didn't want to get Fei-lin in trouble if I was wrong."

Fei-lin was shaking his head. "You should have stayed out of it." He turned toward Eleanor. "Let him go. He won't—"

"He's in this with us now," Eleanor answered. "I'm afraid we can't let him go. Wait until he sees what we have planned." She waved Fei-lin away; the small man stumbled to a seat. Chen was almost disappointed that his friend had not defended him more, but Fei-lin couldn't fight everyone in the ship, and right now it was more important that the airship leave this Island. He wondered what Eleanor would do when she discovered that she would not be able to land at the Platform.

"Tie him," the blond woman said to her comrades. "I don't want any trouble from him. We're leaving now." She walked up the aisle to take a place beside the pilot.

The airship floated out into the upper Venusian atmosphere. Chen, with bound feet and hands, had been harnessed to his seat. He glanced at the passengers across from him; they had suited up, as had most of the other thirty passengers. Chen swallowed. There would be no suit for him, nothing to protect him if the ship's systems failed. The Islanders could simply let them drift, unable to land; Chen wondered how long the airship could last without recharging its engines.

He was a dead man already. He thought of Iris; she would have warned Amir by now. He should have left the bay when he had the chance. The other passengers would probably take out their frustrations on him when they found out that the Platform crews were aware of their plans.

He had caught glimpses of most of the people in the airship; except for Fei-lin, none was a person he knew well. Most of them were, in fact, people he had usually avoided, people with hard faces and wild or resentful eyes. They seemed just the sort of people one would recruit for a mission like this. Eleanor Surrey seemed somehow to be in command, and she had always been one who carried grudges, but even now, he could not imagine her planning this alone or with any of the people aboard.

He might be wrong about that. He had thought he understood Fei-lin, and yet the man had thrown in his lot with this group. He thought back on all the years he had known his friend, and began to see Fei-lin's cheerfulness and garrulous manner as a kind of camouflage that hid darker moods, but perhaps Fei-lin was less complicated than that. He might simply have been drawn into the plot and been unable to extricate himself later; had he been completely committed, he would never have revealed the plan to Tonie.

Now that Chen knew he was a dead man, it seemed important to try to understand what had happened and why. Fei-lin and the others might have simply become unbalanced; he could see how that might happen. He looked up at the large screen in front of the cabin. They were always closed in here. Domes covered the Islands; Islanders traveled in airships or shuttles, sealed off, with only screens, sensors, and diagrams in place of direct perceptions. On the Islands, however far you walked, you always came to the edge and always saw Venus's eternal, Parasol-created night. When you thought of anything beyond the Islands, it often seemed vague and formless; Earth, the Habs, Anwara, and space were encompassed by the phrase "out there" or "outside." The screens might show you one thing, but your eyes often contradicted it; it was as if the screens created another reality somehow. There were always intermediaries; while working, a machine or scanner or cybermind told you something, and you acted on that, and then had your judgment confirmed by another device.

Chen struggled with these slippery thoughts, trying to make them coherent; too many of them seemed just beyond his reach. For a moment, he understood the people aboard the airship; even the destruction of an Island, when they thought about it, must seem like something that would happen on a screen, something a machine might verify for them, not an event that would actually affect them.

The Islands were always the same. The climate never altered; most of the Islanders measured their progress by what they were told rather than what they themselves saw. Earth had been more—Chen searched for the concept—more chancy, more indeterminate. He wondered if he could even endure Earth now, after being here for so long. When he had first returned, he had imagined himself disappearing among the crowds, becoming hidden even from himself. The Islanders were not only becoming prepared for Venus, they were also becoming unfit to live anywhere else. Earth, by now, would have overwhelmed most of them.

He glanced at the passengers nearest to him. Of course they were mad, but Earth had made them that way. They could not live anywhere else any more, so they would die instead. There was a logic to it.

Everything was a dream. They stared into the Cytherian night and dreamed. The settlements might have given them a chance to awaken, when the future Cytherians looked up through their domes and again saw the light of the sun.

His thoughts were fading. Chen tried to cling to them, but they were like gossamer threads dissolving inside him. He did not have the tools to think them out properly, or to hold on to them.

He became conscious of his body again. One side of his face felt paralyzed, his mouth was sore, and his wrists stung whenever he moved his hands. His hands were tied tightly in front of him; his legs, also bound, prickled.

A woman moved down the aisle, passing out weapons; she pointed one wand playfully at Chen as she passed. Chen gazed at the front of the cabin. The screen above the pilot was black; the pilot was hunched over her panels. Chen caught a few of her words; she was already calling to the Platform. He stiffened in his seat.

The pilot sat up, whispered to Eleanor, and then slapped another panel.

The amplified voice of a man filled the cabin. ". . . can't land," he was saying. There was a pause. "I repeat—your airship will not be allowed to land on the Platform. If you attempt to approach us, action will be taken against your ship. You cannot be allowed to land here. Neither can you land elsewhere unless you jettison all cargo and prepare to surrender yourselves."

Eleanor released her harness and stood up. Her face was livid as she stumbled down the aisle to Chen. "You warned them," she shouted. "You told them after all. How did you know?"

Chen was silent.

"How did you know?"

He glanced at Fei-lin, who was on his feet. "I guessed."

A man slapped Chen. Fei-lin grabbed the man by the arms. "Leave him alone," Fei-lin cried.

"We ought to jettison him," someone shouted.

"No!" Fei-lin protested. "Don't you see? He's a hostage now." He gazed apologetically at Chen.

"As if anyone cares what happens to him," Eleanor said, but her eyes had narrowed and she seemed to be thinking. "We might still be able to pull something out of this," she muttered in a low voice.

Eleanor turned around. "Teofila," she shouted at the pilot, "can you take this ship down to the surface?"

The pilot nodded.

"Then do it. Now. Head for al-Anwar. The bay'll admit our ship automatically, and once we're inside, we won't be stopped."

"But why there?" a young man asked.

"Use your head," Eleanor replied. "We can still threaten a dome, can't we? And there are people down there, Habbers among them. They could be useful. We'll have hostages, you see. Maybe the Habs will act then, and put some pressure on Earth. Are we agreed?"

A few people standing in the aisle nodded; they had no real alternative. If they gave themselves up, Chen knew, they were lost.