Venus of Shadows (19 page)

"I don't talk about what people say to me — that's one reason I'm trusted. I try to be fair, and I don't take bribes."

"I wouldn't think there'd be much to bribe with here."

"Oh, you'd be surprised," she said. "Nobody'd use credits, of course — that would show up on the records. But people can offer a service of some kind or try to give you something they own. I never accept any of those offers. I listen and I give advice, and if there's a dispute, I make a decision."

"But how can you enforce your decisions?" he asked. "You don't have any real authority."

"If they disagree with me, they can always take the matter to the Council and ask for a hearing. Usually, people will go along with what I advise, because it's simpler and keeps the matter off the public record — no one wants a blot on their record. My advice often works well. People know that."

"They could go to Counselors," he said. "That's what they're there for, to handle certain problems."

"We consult them as little as possible. We take pride in settling our own affairs, but it isn't just that. We don't much trust Counselors, and we haven't got any on the surface — they're all on the Islands, the few of them that are needed there now. We prefer not to give the Islanders any excuse to decide we can't govern ourselves."

"You're all part of the Project. Surely the Administrators concern themselves with what happens down here."

"They're Islanders. They can seem quite distant from our concerns. Anyway, they have to worry about what Earth wants, rather than what might be best for us."

"And why do people come to you?" he asked.

"It started when I was younger," she replied. "A couple of people asked me for advice. I guess they thought I had some special wisdom — they told others, and people began coming to me."

"Perhaps your mother's reputation —"

"That has nothing to do with it." Her voice was harder, "Well, maybe in the beginning — Pavel told me that Iris used to intercede with him for some of the Islanders she knew, and others trusted her judgment, but I've earned the respect I get."

"What kinds of problems do they have?"

"Oh, someone on a team is slacking off at work, or a household has a disagreement about who's supposed to do a chore, or a couple of people have an agreement over how to divide the proceeds from a private greenhouse garden and never bothered to make a record of that agreement, so I have to come up with something that's fair. Those are the easy ones."

"What are the hard ones like?" he asked.

"Someone may want to sever a bond. Usually, people will settle for separating, to avoid the trouble of a hearing and looking as though they used bad judgment in selecting a bondmate in the first place. Often, they just need some time apart to sort things out, but if not, I try to work out a fair arrangement. That isn't easy when you have children and other members of the household involved, along with the problem of where one of the bondmates is going to live afterward. We take our bonds very seriously here."

"Anything else?"

"Sometimes something's stolen," Risa said. "You wouldn't think anybody would steal when it's pretty certain it'll be discovered, but it happens. Usually the victim has a good idea of who the thief is, and I can just go to the suspect and point out how hard life can get when a person isn't trusted. That's usually enough to get the object back, because nobody wants a charge like that on a public record."

"And what if you don't know who the thief might be?"

"I let it be known that if the thief's found out, the matter will be settled in a public hearing. You'd be surprised at how many stolen objects suddenly turn up after that. Besides, having a stolen object is useless if you can't use it openly, and everyone knows it's been stolen — you'd always worry about who might see it."

"But what kinds of punishment do you have?"

"Reparations," Risa said, "payments in credit or goods, or a service of some kind to repair any damage that's been done. If there's a public hearing, a note about the offense in the offender's record. That may not sound like much to you, but we have to trust one another, and when that's lost, you don't get it back so easily. We tend to look the other way if some wrongdoers suffer at the hands of people they've wronged badly enough."

She thrust her hands into her pockets. "It works well enough. The proof is that most of us get along most of the time. We've had only a few cases of violence without cause, and if it looks as though the offender might repeat such acts, we call in a Counselor."

Risa stepped out from the tree's shadow. "We've done all right so far," she continued, "but sometimes I worry about what may come. We don't want Guardians here, and we have no police. We certainly can't spare people to guard prisoners or spare the resources to build a prison. All we have to restrain anyone is a sense of obligation to others or fear for their records and reputations. That's been enough, but it might not always be. It's why some of us aren't too happy about accepting people from those camps. They weren't born here, and they haven't been through the same selection process as those picked for the Project or those who come here from the Cytherian Institute."

"Troublemakers in the camps aren't likely to get here." Malik hoped that was true; he had not been in a camp long enough to know. "People from the camps gave up everything to get to Venus — they'd hardly throw their chance at a new life away."

"And you?" she said. "You wouldn't have gone to a camp, judging by your record, unless everything was taken from you. I don't suppose your choice was entirely voluntary."

"I lost much, but no one forced me to go to that camp."

"Do you want to walk?" she said suddenly. "I can show you a little of the settlement."

"I'd enjoy that." He was about to take her arm, but she moved toward the small path in front of the house before he could reach for her. They walked toward the main path, then turned left. The other houses, like Risa's, sat several paces back from this walkway, with trees shielding them from their neighbors. Four children were playing a game in front of one house; near a greenhouse, a young couple was sharing a meal outside.

"There aren't many people about," he murmured.

"They're doing household chores or having supper or getting ready to sleep. A few will be taking their turn on the darktime shift."

"You seemed to be getting along with Kolya," he said, "and he apparently likes you." She did not reply. "But perhaps another man has a claim on your affections."

"There's a pilot I've been seeing, but I find his talk of Ishtar insufferable. I'd never be able to stand years of listening to it. He's been persistent, but I didn't hear from him at all today, so maybe he's finally getting the message."

"Surely others have paid court."

She smiled at his turn of phrase. "Not really. You sound a bit like a settler already. People do find it strange when you don't make a pledge as soon as possible with a likely prospect. Some women wait until they decide to become pregnant, like Grazie, and others become bondmates first and wait a while for children, but it comes to the same thing. All of us want to leave descendants to live on the world we make — there wouldn't be much point in being here otherwise, unless you're a specialist who can find similar satisfactions in your work."

"Then you'll assuredly find a bondmate in time."

"And what about you?" She glanced sideways at him. "Your record didn't note any bondmate, but then, with your looks, you probably had too many opportunities. There would always have been another woman for you." She had hit close to the truth. "Maybe men, too, for all I know."

He shook his head. "Men never interested me in that way."

"That's just as well. Not that it matters to me, you understand, but many people here brought the prejudices of their old homes with them."

"I suppose it's easier to fit in here if one tries not to offend others too openly, even if there's no real reason for anyone to take offense."

"True enough. As I told your friend Kolya, there are freedoms we don't yet have. It can be a hard life for those who have trouble conforming."

He could now see a lake in the distance, shimmering under the silver light of the dome. "We've just begun to stock the lake with fish," Risa said. "If it's successful, we'll have another source of protein." She pointed to her right. "The school's over there — you can't see it, but it's just past the trees on that side of the lake. We'd better head back — I have to be up early tomorrow, and Theron will want to meet with you."

They began to retrace their steps. "Maybe I should give you some advice, Malik, because you look like a man who's used to the attentions of women. We value our bonds, as I've said. It'd be wiser for you to avoid any entanglements with women who have bondmates — most of them, anyway. There are a few who have different arrangements or provisions in their pledges that allow them other companions occasionally, but they're usually discreet about that. You might meet a pilot who's in Oberg between trips and doesn't mind a bed-partner for a eouple of days, or someone like Tina who scorns bonds, although there aren't so many like her here. And there are the Habbers who work with us here — they don't seem to care about formal ties at all. But you probably shouldn't seek them out unless you have to work with them. Maybe Islanders don't mind being close to Habbers they work with, but they're not like us."

"And are Islanders so close to the Habbers?" he asked.

"Some are. I imagine the only reason the Project Council looks the other way is that they think the Islanders may learn more about Habbers if the Council ignores it."

"Since people here value your advice," he said, "I'll take it. There will be enough other things to keep me occupied, and perhaps I'll find companionship among the unattached."

"Anyone who's unattached will be regarding you as a potential bondmate. Don't mislead anybody about your intentions."

"I'm not a child," he said. "I don't lack experience in these matters."

"You were a Linker. You probably did as you liked."

"I didn't delude my companions. They knew what I was like from the start. Sometimes I wished for something more, but God has not yet ordained such an attachment for me." He moved closer to her and took her arm gently. "There might be a few pleasant moments for you and me while we wait to see what is written for us."

She halted, then withdrew her arm from his. "You'll be living in my house for a while. Things'll be simpler if we keep our distance."

"Very well. I'll respect your wishes." He felt a little disappointed, but the young woman might change her mind when she knew him better. There were pleasures to be had in anticipating a future encounter; when their time together palled, Nikolai might be waiting to claim her.

She gazed at him pensively, almost pityingly. Maybe she was feeling sorry for a man who had come here more as an exile than a settler; perhaps his attributes held no attraction for her. She was one who might win a place on the Council of these people, while he had no credits, few skills, and no position except as a teacher of children; he was hardly what she would call a likely prospect. A dalliance with him would lead nowhere, and she was clearly a practical woman; she might even regret that her household had not requested the sturdy Nikolai instead.

He felt a twinge of jealousy and was surprised that he could feel it.

Eight

The eighth day of Risa's shift at the west dome's External Operations Center began with a minor quake, which the seismologists had predicted for sometime that day. She waited outside the building with her team as the ground trembled slightly, then entered. No alarms had sounded; the damage to their installations, if any, was probably minor. The Maxwell Mountains rarely endured a severe quake; that had been one of the reasons for building settlements here, even though the domes could easily withstand great shocks.

In the consistent, temperate climate of the domes, houses did not have to protect them from weather. Most of the structures were made of light materials, and the houses were only one story in height. Often it was not possible to wait out an expected quake outside, in an open area away from trees. A wall of one house near Risa's had collapsed a couple of years earlier; the residents trapped inside had suffered only a few bruises.

Alasid ibn-Faraki, the head of her team, was reassuring Sarah Shirer, a young woman who had come to Oberg only a few months ago. "That one was nothing," he said as they walked through the hall. "The Center's built to take much stronger shocks than that."

"What if the dome goes?" Sarah asked.

Alasid shrugged as he pressed a door open. "Then it's God's will."

"Or a mistake in engineering," Risa muttered; she did not find Alasid's Islamic fatalism very comforting. "But the Habbers contributed a lot to the dome design, and they don't make mistakes — not about that sort of thing, anyway. Besides, there's no point in worrying about it."

The room where she worked here was filled with screens, consoles, and small platforms that served as desks. Risa sat down on the chair in front other station, checked to make sure that everything was secured against the inevitable aftershock, then picked up her band and put it around her head.

She was viewing the mountain plateau outside through a robot's eyes and seemed to feel its squat body around her as it rolled forward. Lights swept through the thick, dark-mist as diggers and crawlers, ghostly tractors and tanks on treads, moved over the flat, rocky land. The domes of Oberg stood near the center of this wide plateau, which had been carved out near the peak of one vast mountain. The machines moved west, toward a high cliff where Oberg had a small-scale mining operation; the mined materials would be conveyed to the west dome's small digger and crawler bay before being taken to the main dome for refining. The robot was following the crawlers and diggers; if one of the larger machines developed a problem outside, the robot would be there to replace any failing components.

Tiny lines as thin as hairs danced before her eyes. The plate through which the robot viewed the world was already slightly scarred by the hot, acidic droplets of rain that fell through the mist; it would have to be replaced before long. To the southwest, just beyond that edge of the rocky plain, she could barely see a distant, eerie glow on another plateau where the domes of al-Khwarizmi stood. On a shelf of rock near that settlement, one awesome installation was hidden in the darkness, one Risa had seen only on the screen: the vast, square structure where the domes themselves were made. That building dwarfed the settlements and seemed almost like another mountain itself. Habber machines had erected the structure and maintained it. When another dome was ready, the roof would open and a fleet of airships equipped with cables would carry the dome to a prepared site.