Venus of Dreams (77 page)

"I don't know."

"I brought you some soup, wine, and rice."

"I don't want it."

She sat down on the floor, poured the soup into a small bowl, then handed it up to him. He sat up in bed, realizing he was hungry, and took the spoon she gave him. He ate, tasting hot vinegar and bean curd and the meaty flavor of mushrooms; his body, craving the nourishment, was forcing him to live.

"You probably haven't seen what's going on," she said as she poured wine into two small goblets. "There's a delegation from one of the Earth ships here to handle the provisions of the new agreement. We'll have almost everything we'd hoped for. The Mukhtars have been able to make an agreement without looking as if they were forced into one." She sipped her wine. "Of course, they were, but they'll never admit it."

"The Island Administrators brought them to agree?"

"There's a rumor that the Habbers pushed them to it, said they'd stop supplying Earth with any more resources or help unless the Mukhtars agreed. It was sort of like another blockade, I guess. Earth needs those resources, so they agreed."

Chen gulped his wine and handed his goblet back to Tonie. "It's too late."

"I know. We both have people to mourn. I'm carrying Fei-lin's child now."

"So you'll have his child after all," Chen said bitterly.

Tonie bowed her head. "I'm sorry. If I hadn't come to you, maybe—"

"No, Tonie. You did what you thought you had to do."

"I could have handled it another way. I waited too long."

"You tried, Tonie. You tried to stop Fei-lin."

"I should have gone to someone as soon as I knew. They won't punish me now, you know, because I did finally go to Amir, even though it was too late, and there was nothing more I could do."

He could feel nothing for her, nothing for anyone else. She had lost Fei-lin; she had been punished enough.

"Back in my village," he said, "some of the old people used to say that you were a fool if you expected kindness in the world. I used to think that was just an excuse for their cruelty. Now, I see they were right."

Tonie handed him chopsticks and rice; he took them reluctantly, but did not eat. "You must heal yourself, Chen. The Project will go on now, and there'll be more work for all of us."

"That's no concern of mine." He leaned over and put the bowl back on the tray. "I can't stay here. I'm going to ask to be sent back to Earth. I can find work on a space station, or work on an asteroid mining crew. I don't want anything to do with this Project."

"Do you think Iris would have wanted that?"

His heart throbbed as he recalled Iris's last farewell. He drew up his legs and rested his head against them. "I can't live here without her. She'll haunt me."

"She'll haunt you if you leave. She loved you, she worked for the Project, she died trying to preserve it. You must know what she would want you to do."

He was silent.

"Go ahead, then," she continued. "Make your request. But some of your friends may ask that your request be refused while you're still grieving. A Counselor could argue that you aren't in any state to make such a decision."

"That's not their business."

"It is. Iris is dead. There should be someone to speak for what she would want."

"Get out of here, Tonie."

"Chen, I—"

"Get out." He lay down again, turning his face to the wall. At last he heard the rustle of Tonie's clothing as she stood up and left the room.

Chen petitioned to leave the Project. His request was refused. He petitioned again. His old Counselor, Betha Simmes, came to see him, spoke gently, then told him that he could not leave the Islands for another year. The Project had too much to do to make up for the loss of one dome; they could not afford to lose experienced workers at this time. If he petitioned again after the year was up, they would let him go then.

He went back to the northern Bat and put in his time on his shift. His friends had told him that the work would help him heal, but the Bat only reminded him of the time he had believed he had lost his bondmate and son, only to find them again. He had rescued Iris, had believed that she would always be safe after that, but Venus had claimed her soul after all. When he returned to the Islands, he remembered that Iris would not be there to greet him, and nearly wept on the ship carrying him back.

During his next journey to the Bat, he found that a woman named Miree Jond had joined his team. She was slender and bony where Iris had been round and fleshy, but her eyes were green and, in certain kinds of light, her dark hair had Iris's muted reddish tones. Miree became his lover for a little while. When he was tired enough, or drunk enough, Miree seemed to merge with his memories of Iris, but soon the slight resemblance became too much to bear, and only reminded him of what he had lost. He and Miree drifted apart; though he missed her for a while, he did not miss her very much.

Once, in the corridor outside his quarters on the Bat, a white-haired man passed Chen in the hall. Chen found himself staring into the face of Pavel Gvishiani. The flesh sagged on Pavel's old face; he wore a worker's gray garb, and a tiny white scar marked the place on his forehead where his Link had once gleamed. Chen let him pass without speaking; there was nothing to say.

Chen was sitting just outside the entrance to the workers' residence. A few groups of people had begun to gather there, as usual, in the hour before the dome's light would fade. The others had not asked Chen to join them; during the past months, he had made it clear that he preferred to be alone.

A few paces away, a male Guardian was talking to a young woman. The Guardian stroked her frizzy black hair; the woman dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Another farewell, Chen thought, and another Guardian who had likely been told by the Administrative Committee that he had no skills the Project could use. Most of the Guardians would be returning to Earth; there was a rumor that the Island Administrators had promised Earth secretly that most of the Guardians would not be accepted here. The Mukhtars had to maintain discipline among the force; it would not be wise to let future Guardians think that they might be rewarded if their commanders became bold enough to challenge Earth's authority.

The Mukhtars always kept their public promises. The problem was that they drove a hard bargain. The Mukhtars had promised that Guardians could remain if the Islanders would accept them; Earth had not promised that the Islanders would do so.

There was now a new force of Guardians stationed on the Island Platform. Chen had glimpsed a few of them on his way back from the Bat. They were hard-eyed men and women, reminders of Earth's authority. They would not spend their time off duty on any of the Islands, where they might become too friendly with the Islanders, but on Anwara. They did not seem the sorts one would want as friends anyway; the Mukhtars had selected them carefully.

A woman was walking toward the entrance; she stopped in front of Chen. She wore a white shirt and pants; the silver circles of a Habber were pinned to her collar.

"Liang Chen?" she said as she gazed down at him. He nodded. "One of your friends over there pointed you out to me, but of course I recognized your face. You won some honor for yourself with your courage."

"I did nothing."

"You saved the Islands from a deadly danger when you warned of the plot against the Platform."

He was silent. He did not want to hear about that any more.

"May I sit down?" the Habber asked.

Chen shrugged. She sat down at the edge of the path, then ran a hand through her long brown hair. "My name is Erena. I met your bondmate only a couple of times, but my people here will remember her bravery."

"And I'll remember that she might be with me now if your people had tried to save their own."

"I am sorry for that, but you must see that we couldn't have done so. People would have seen that, by threatening some of us, they could bend the rest of us to their will. None of us would have been safe here in the future. We would have had to leave the Islands and give up aiding you. But I didn't come here to speak of that," Erena continued. "I have a message for you, from one who dwells in a Habitat. He wanted to send it to you directly, but you see how it is. Earth has become more reasonable, and we do not want to provoke the Nomarchies by taking too many liberties."

"What's the message?" he asked.

"It is from your son, Benzi Liangharad. This is what he says: I grieve for my mother. I know how bravely she died. But I grieve for you, too, Father. I was told that you had a life together during those years after I left you, and though you lost me, your renewed bond must have brought you some consolation. I hope it consoles you now, that you had those years, but I also know how it must make you ache that you had no more."

The Habber's face had changed while she was speaking. Chen could almost imagine that Benzi's dark eyes, rather than Erena's pale ones, were looking out of her face in the steady gaze he remembered.

"I wish that I could be with you now," the Habber went on. "I wish I could speak to Mother again and heal the wounds I inflicted on her. I wish I could help you through this time of mourning. But I promise you this—that someday, when the rift between our worlds and yours is completely bridged, I'll stand on Venus and see what you have built. Remember me, Father, when you think of her. Part of Iris will always live on in me."

Chen waited.

"That is the message," the Habber said.

Chen said, "He'll never live long enough to be allowed to come to Venus."

"Don't be so sure. We live long lives in the Habs. Do you have a message for him?"

He was silent for a few moments. What could he say to Benzi? Could he tell him that he would build nothing on Venus, that his dream lay buried with Iris's bones?

"Tell him," Chen began, then paused. "Tell him that his mother will always be alive in me too."

"Is that all?"

He nodded. Erena sat with him for a few more moments, then rose and walked away.

Benzi was only another stranger, so distant from the Islands now that he might feel no more than a mild regret at the death of a woman he had hardly known even while he had been with her.

A time came when Chen realized that days had passed with only intermittent thoughts of Iris to disturb him. The Project had claimed him once more, had drawn him out of himself. He had been doing his work without thinking of what it was for, using it only as an escape; now he was doing it for its own sake, for the Project.

He had come to the edge of the Island. He leaned against a railing and forced himself to gaze into the black clouds that concealed Venus. In less than two months, he would be able to leave Venus forever, if he chose to do so. He gripped the railing. Both the Project specialists and the Habbers were saying that at least one dome, Oberg, would be ready for habitation within ten years. Earth was already seeking out new people to replace the Islanders who would be the first to settle on the surface.

Iris, what should I do? he thought. Here, the pain of losing her would always be with him; he would never completely escape it. But he now knew that he could answer his question for himself. To leave now, to try to forget, would be to inter her dream with her bones; Iris would endure another death.

A pale-haired woman detached herself from another group standing on the platform and walked over to him. He gazed at her familiar face. "Hello, Alexandra."

Alexandra Lenas smiled. "Chen, you've been avoiding me."

"I've been avoiding a lot of people." Especially, he continued silently, the ones who were Iris's friends.

"I left you a couple of messages recently."

"I know," he said. "I haven't been answering most of my messages, either. I was going to reply to yours soon."

She propped her arm against the railing. "I heard from some people that you might be leaving the Project. Is it true?"

He shook his head. "No, it isn't true, not any more."

"I'm glad to hear it. You could be one of the first settlers, you know. Everyone would agree that you deserve to be after what you did."

"I didn't do anything. If I hadn't—" He pressed his lips together. That was the thought that still tormented him, that if he had not foolishly allowed himself to be captured by Eleanor and her group, Iris might still be alive.

"I think you know what I wanted to talk to you about," Alexandra said. "Iris is gone, but you can still have the child you two were planning to have. I have your genetic material in our facility and, under the circumstances, you would have no problem petitioning for the use of an ectogenetic chamber. I've been waiting for you to tell us what to do."

He had forgotten the child. "I don't know," he said.

"If she were born within the next two years, she'd have some time here before people start moving to the surface. She'd be old enough then for a little training before she leaves, but still young enough to adapt quickly." Alexandra paused. "Iris sometimes talked to me about that child. I know she worried about whether or not she could bring up another child. She used to say that she might only fail again as a parent, but at the same time, she wanted her line to continue. That means a lot to most of us, to those of us who come from Earth's Plains."

Chen was silent.

"You'd find consolation with a child, Chen. Iris would have wanted it."

He turned away. "I don't know. Part of me agrees with you, but the other part—" He could not put his feelings into words. The child would be an ever-present reminder of his loss.

"You needn't decide this right away," Alexandra murmured, "but I can't act without a request from you. Please consider it."

"Very well." He could promise that much.

Alexandra returned to her friends. Chen stared at his hands and flexed his fingers. He had not carved anything since Iris's death; now, he longed for a piece of wood and the feel of his chisels in his hands. He had promised Iris that he would carve her face. A lump rose in his throat as he realized he could no longer recall her face as it had been the last time he saw her; he kept seeing the girl he had met in Lincoln.