Venus of Shadows (14 page)

"I didn't go into Caracas," the other graduate said, "until I'd been at the Institute for almost a year. Even the students from Earth were cautious about trips to the city. We heard all kinds of lurid stories about thieves who'd get someone into an alley, torture him into giving up his codes, and then steal bis identity bracelet and clean out his credit before anyone knew the difference. Sometimes the victim was even killed."

"Well!" one woman muttered. She sounded quite appalled at Earth, as she had every right to be.

"I notice," the first young man said softly, "that one of our pilots is sashed. Has Ishtar become more popular since we left?"

"Not really," a woman's voice replied. "A few here, a few there — it's still a fairly small group, thank God."

"That's reassuring," the graduate said. "I could never stand their proselytizing or those ridiculous meetings. I went to one once, out of curiosity. We were given what they call a lecture — I never heard such distortions of history." Risa found herself liking the young man.

She settled back in her seat. Chen had hoped that Risa might be chosen for advanced training, and even for the Institute, which her mother had attended. Instead, she had left school at fourteen to apprentice herself to a maintenance worker, dashing her father's hopes. Chen had a lot of faith in the value of education, perhaps because he had been given so little. He had railed at her for not trying for more, especially since her schoolwork had been good.

She had learned what she needed to know; her work had included lessons in soil science, botany, geology, and some elementary chemistry and physics; she knew how to read and could pursue other lessons from time to time. She could not see that becoming a specialist would make her any more valuable to the Project; learning practical skills made more sense. Chen had accused her of being like her grandmother on Earth, and that was a failing in his eyes; he had often told her how proud Angharad was of her ignorance of what she called useless learning.

The airship shook a little; riding out the fierce winds that still raged below the Islands took some skill. She relaxed a little; the bay workers had been very careful with maintenance since the latest accident a few years ago, which had involved an airship on a routine trip to the Platform from Island Two. A pump had locked, the ship's helium cells had filled with atmosphere, and the dirigible had descended precipitously and crashed. Most Cytherians remembered that accident well, since several Administrators had died.

She shifted in her seat, anxious to be home.

On the screen, the four domes of Oberg shone through the misty blackness, blisters on the planet's hot surface. The roof to the bay adjoining the main dome was open as the airship slowly dropped toward one of the egg-shaped cradles below. When the ship was securely clamped to its cradle, the roof began to slide shut. The passengers waited in their seats as air cycled into the bay.

"Welcome to Oberg," a woman's recorded voice said over the airship's comm; Evar took off his band. "Please wait until the wall separating the cradles from the rest of the bay has been lifted, then go directly into the main dome so that the unloading of cargo can be expedited. I trust your journey was a pleasant one."

The passengers ignored the voice as they rummaged for their belongings. Risa moved toward the door ahead of the others, hoping to avoid Evar. She hurried down the ramp at the side of the cradle and walked swiftly through the cavernous bay. Gantries, cranes, and consoles lined the walls; to her right, a wide closed door sealed off the area where some of the diggers and crawlers used in surface operations were stored.

An entrance twenty meters wide and thirty meters high was ahead, at the far end of the bay. Its door, a vast sheet of metal, was only partly open; she nodded at the members of the bay crew as she passed.

Near the entrance, she saw that it was still light inside the dome; a large disk of light embedded in the dome's center gave the settlement twelve hours of daylight, followed by a dim, silvery glow that passed for night. She left the bay and entered the main dome.

On the grassy land near the bay, twenty tents were pitched to house arrivals who had not yet found permanent residences. In the distance, under the center of the kilometer-high dome, stood the broad, three-story windowed building that housed the External Operations Center. Laboratories, along with the Refining and Recycling Center, were closer to the western side of the dome, not far from the community greenhouses.

She drew in her breath, welcoming the familiar scent of grass and trees. The land inside the main dome was flat, with only a few hills, and dotted with trees; carts carrying workers and crates rolled by along the flat main road that circled the land under the dome.

Her arm was jostled; she looked up into Evar's blue eyes. "Glad I caught up with you," he said. "Feeling rested enough to have me over for supper later?"

"I'm not going to my house right away, and I may get home late," she replied.

"Then maybe I can come by after supper. Now that Noella's moved out, you have plenty of extra space, so I can always stay in her old room when you need time to yourself."

She had space for him in her house, and of course that space had to be made available. It made more sense than having Evar stay in the more cramped quarters of the pilots' dormitory between trips, and she would have been the first to comment disparagingly on people who built houses with more rooms than they needed. She sighed as she thought of the days ahead. Evar could continue to ingratiate himself with the rest other household, and soon they would grow accustomed to his presence. It would seem only natural for him to come there again between trips, and even more natural for Risa to agree to some sort of pledge at last.

"My father told me in his last message that he wants to bring in someone who might take on some of our household work. He's thinking of one of the new immigrants. He feels a little guilty that we haven't taken one on, even temporarily, and he'd probably like to hear some talk of Earth."

"Well, he hasn't taken one in yet, has he?" The young pilot smiled. "I'll see you later, after dark." He marched away toward the pilots' dormitory before she could say anything else.

*  *  *

Risa raged silently against Evar's obstinacy as she walked toward the main dome's eastern wall. She would have to be firmer with him. A few days of barring her bedroom door ought to do the trick, and then —

She would be alone again. Not many men had ever had the patience to break through her wall. In fact, there had only been Evar and, before him, a young mechanic named Rafael Tejada. Bettina, her father's companion, had often wondered about Risa, but Bettina came from the North American Plains and thought any woman without a strong interest in bed-partners was abnormal. Plenty of men came to Risa for advice on their problems and disputes, but she knew most thought her cold. Her problem was quite otherwise; her needs were strong, but she feared surrendering that much of herself to any man.

Evar could satisfy her and leave her mind unclouded by thoughts of him the rest of the time. She might have settled for that if it weren't for his insistent, almost interminable talk of his cursed cult.

She moved under a grove of trees, still and silent in the windless dome. The low wall that circled the dome was visible; the transparent dome, made of a ceramic developed by Habber technology, revealed the blackness outside. Rods sunk deep into the crust of the planet anchored the wall and drew on geothermal power to maintain the structure.

She was near the monument to her mother; Chen would expect her to stop before going home. He would ask if it had been polished lately or if any visitors had left a tribute, and she would have to have something to tell him.

Five women stood around a small metal column. A worn-looking wreath had been left at its base, and she could safely tell her father that there was no need for him to come and polish the monument himself. As she was about to leave, one of the women motioned to her.

"Excuse me," the woman said, "but do you know how to read?" Risa nodded reluctantly. Most of the people who had grown up with the Project knew how to read; these women had the rather disoriented look of recent arrivals.

"Could you read this inscription to us?" the woman continued. "We were told about it when we got here, but we'd like to hear the words."

Risa wanted to refuse. She had read the inscription often enough; she hardly had to glance at the Anglaic lettering. "In honor of Iris Angharads and Amir Azad, the first true Cytherians, who gave their lives to save our new world." She swallowed. "They shall not be forgotten. May their spirit live on in all those who follow them. They rest forever on the world they helped to build."

The woman sighed. "They were very brave. We heard their story, of course."

Risa stepped back. As a child, she had often come to this spot whenever she saw people viewing the monument. Someone would be reading the inscription, or she would be asked if she could read it to the group. She had enjoyed following her recitation with a statement sure to elicit attention.

"I'm her daughter," she would announce dramatically. "Iris Angharads was my mother." This usually brought gentle sighs, pats on the head, an occasional treat, and sometimes a few questions about Iris, which Risa answered as well as she could.

More sympathy always followed whenever she admitted that she had never known Iris. She had been brought to term in one of Island Two's ectogenetic chambers and born in 570, two years after her mother's death. Chen and Iris had stored their sperm and eggs against the day when Iris was ready to bear another child. The Islanders, knowing that Chen had averted a grave threat to the Island Platform, had been willing to honor his request for a child — all that would remain to him of his lost bondmate.

Risa had not minded such attention when she was younger, but that was before Iris's memory had become burdensome. Whatever she did, there were those who would compare her with her mother. The comparisons were never made to what Iris had actually been but to the symbol she had become. Risa found the monument and everything connected with it morbid now. It might have been more sensible and meaningful to honor those who had lived out full lives working to transform Venus, rather than dwelling on two people who had, in the end, done less than others.

She gazed at the two sculpted faces on the pillar. Chen had made the carving used as a model for this monument. Amir Azad's eyes were partly closed, as if death had brought him peace; Iris's large eyes were open. Her strong-featured face was that of a very young woman, although she had been in her forties when she died. Chen had told Risa often of how he had failed to carve his dead bondmate's face, until he finally captured a vision of the girl he had first loved, who had dreamed of coming to Venus.

Chen often dwelled on his memories of Iris even now. Her records, messages, and even her school papers were preserved on a microdot panel he had brought with him to Oberg sixteen years ago. Risa had viewed her mother's image while Chen told her stories of their life together. He might have done better to forget her. He did not even seem to mind that Iris's monument also honored Amir Azad and that the two had once been lovers; Iris had been a Plainswoman, and her bond with Chen had not kept her from the beds of other men.

But Chen had also forgotten the real Iris and seemed to remember only what he chose to recall. Even his companion Bettina had not vanquished Iris's ghost.

Whenever Risa had stood here and told people that she was Iris's daughter, at least one would comment on the resemblance. She had not minded such comparisons then; later, she had found them absurd. She had her father's black hair and his almond-shaped brown eyes; she might have been any woman's daughter. Lately, however, she had noticed how her prominent cheekbones, full lips, and strong chin were like the features Chen had molded for the monument.

She hurried away from the column. The resemblance was not so marked that these women would notice it, but she had lingered there long enough.

Several paces away from the column, two other memorial pillars with holo portraits of Oberg's dead stood near a glade. There had not been many such deaths yet; it would be some time before the space on these pillars was filled. She passed them and entered the glade.

Birds twittered above her. The small birds fed on both the worms used to enrich the soil and the insects that pollinated the flowers that lent some color to the landscape; cats that some of the settlers kept as pets preyed upon the birds in turn. Cat births were even more closely regulated than those of the settlers, lest the settlement be overrun by them.

The peace of the wood soothed her. New arrivals often complained about devoting space to trees and shrubs rather than building more dwellings for settlers. Later, most of them learned to appreciate such spots and preferred to complain about the still newer immigrants.

She left the wood. Ahead of her stretched a plain of houses; many of the residences had small, glassy greenhouses adjacent to them. The houses were one-story, flat-roofed structures made of light prefabricated plastic or ceramic walls. In the regulated environment of the dome, the settlers needed no more protection from the elements. Small streams flowed in narrow channels, fed by liquid collected from the steady rain outside the dome; that liquid was collected in receptacles and channeled under the dome's wall to be cleansed and chemically altered. These streams had recently been restocked with a few small fish; a group of children were loitering on one of the walkways bridging the stream, trying to glimpse the fish below.

Her destination was a house overlooking the main dome's small infirmary and biological laboratory. Risa hesitated for a moment, then approached the front door. Chen disapproved of her visits to this house; she shrugged the thought aside. Pavel would want to know she was back.

She pressed her hand against the door.

*  *  *

The door opened; a dark-haired man in gray workers' clothes ushered her inside. Two other men sat on the floor at a low table in the center of the room; they looked up from their game of cards.