Venus of Shadows (34 page)

It was easy to understand Kichi's motives for professing her faith, and yet Risa had heard no rumors indicating that the Guide's beliefs were less than sincere. Could the woman have worn a mask for so long without ever letting it slip? Had the pretense finally become real to her?

"You do have a right to be concerned," Risa said at last. "Some will probably see Nora as a martyr to Ishtar. She should have complained about those men instead of asking them to her home, but then she wouldn't have had much chance of getting them into your group. You'll get your chance to speak at the hearing if there's anything you want to say."

"It'd be better if I say it to you now. I've been telling you and the Council that we were willing to organize patrols, keep an eye on things, offer people some protection, but you wouldn't listen to me. If we had, maybe those men wouldn't have risked doing what they did."

"That would be like having Guardians here," Risa said. "I suppose you want to bring that up and make it seem we were negligent."

"I'd rather not," Kichi murmured, "but you could make the suggestion. You'd have support for it — people will need to feel safer after this incident. Ishtar will be happy to organize the patrols, but the Council has to give them some authority to act. It would also solve the problem of what to do with those three men."

Risa frowned. "I don't see how."

"They can't be freed, and you have no place to send them. You'll have to strip them of everything and have them confined, it seems to me. We could build a small place for them, program the scanner in the doorway so they can't leave, have their identification bracelets permanently attached to their arms or embedded so we'd know immediately if they found a way out, and take the additional precaution of posting a guard. We could find work they'd be able to do in confinement or under guard, and the credits they earn would go to Nora's household. They'd never be free again. That would be punishment enough for their deed."

Kichi wanted a prison here, and her proposed punishment seemed worse than death. Their world would be poisoned if such places were allowed to exist. They would be tempted to lock away others in time; it would be such a simple solution but one with risks Kichi had not considered. Such confinements would need to be foolproof in a place where everyone's life depended on the maintenance of the domes that surrounded this community. Those condemned to a perpetual imprisonment might have little to lose by threatening an entire settlement, and prisoners clever enough could probably find ways around scanners, tracers, and guards. Oberg was vulnerable in so many ways. The airship bay could be seized, the water that was chemically treated and channeled into the domes poisoned, the installations sustaining their air supply destroyed.

The settlers would be creating a class who would have every reason to hate them and who might pose a danger in the future. Guards and prisons would only make a mockery of what they had tried to achieve. Yet condemning the men to death was also an admission of failure.

Risa shook her head; no, that wasn't the same. They would expel the evil from their community and, with that example, make it less likely that it would ever return.

"You talk of how we should all be brothers and sisters in Ishtar," Risa said. "Somehow, what you propose doesn't seem in keeping with that."

"But it is. They would have the chance to reflect on their deed, repent, and come to the truth. Their fate needn't keep them from becoming our brothers in time. They may not have freedom in this world, but they could win it in the next, when their bonds fall away and they're one with Ishtar."

Risa shuddered. Kichi was not thinking of their souls. What a triumph it would be for the Guide to win such people for her cult; what pleasure in having captives who would have few ways to resist.

"And you intend to propose this at the hearing?" Risa asked.

"I think not. Even if suggestions for how to resolve a problem aren't out of place there, I've always felt that it makes more sense to offer them to a Councilor ahead of time, so you have a chance to take them under advisement."

Risa pressed her lips together. Of course Kichi wouldn't speak at the hearing, when even Ishtar's followers were likely to demand death for the accused. She wanted Risa to make this suggestion to the crowd and take full responsibility for anything it brought.

Her resolve stiffened. She would not allow the Guide to use her. "Thank you for taking the trouble to speak to me, Kichi. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to enter a message for me. I must get home."

She hurried from the bridge. The recording of her interview with the three men would have to be reviewed, the evidence assembled, and the hearing organized, while her team would expect her to make up the work she had missed today. She and her colleagues might be sentencing three men to death; she felt the weight of that possibility. Kichi's alternative could spare her from such a choice but might lead to something even worse.

She came to the main road and followed it toward the tunnel. She suddenly wanted to flee this time, to vanish from this world altogether, to return when the clouds had parted and sunlight touched Venus. She imagined herself in space, hurtling toward the speed of light where time slowed, letting the lives of generations slip past her. She saw herself returning to those Cytherians who would live in the garden created by their ancestors. She yearned for the future that she would never live to see, and knew then what she would have to do.

*  *  *

Risa stirred under the coverlet. A cylinder of light glowed in the corner; Malik had not yet come to bed. She closed her eyes and waited until she heard the door slide open.

She sat up. "I thought you'd be asleep," Malik said as he began to undress.

"I've got too much to think about to sleep."

Malik's skin was golden in the dim light. His back arched as he pulled on the light tunic he usually wore to bed. Noella claimed that sex with a bondmate palled after a while unless one worked at it, but Risa had not found that to be true. Malik could always arouse her, even after the bitterest exchange of words, even when she sensed that his mind was elsewhere as he held her.

"Katya left a message for me," he said. "Katya Osipova."

Her desire cooled a little. "I know the woman you mean."

"I called her after everyone went to bed. She wanted to give me a statement. It's recorded, and she'd like —" He sat down on the bed and turned to face her. "It's about her brother. She wants you to read it at the hearing."

"I don't see why. We'll certainly show anything she wants to record, or she can deliver it over the screen then. She can even come to the hearing in person — under the circumstances, she could probably get space aboard an airship."

"She's afraid to come, Risa. Your Council's making such a spectacle of this thing that she might not be safe herself, and she's worried about how Alexei might react to her presence — it'll be hard enough for him to know she's watching elsewhere. Composing the message was difficult for her, and she's afraid she'll break down if she tries to read it herself. She pleaded with me. I promised I'd speak to you."

"I have to decide this matter," she said. "I can't read statements made by those wanting to speak for the accused — why, it would look as though I'm pleading for mercy. If she can't read it herself, let her find someone else to do it." Here was still another person who wanted to use her, Risa thought.

"Not many would be willing. You could make an exception for this."

"Her brother will have his hearing. We'll listen to everything that's said and then make our decision. It's more than that wretched man gave to Nora Toland. If you really want to help your friend Katya, tell her she ought to forget her brother instead of staining her own reputation with some sentimental plea in his defense. She's going to have to live among people who will despise him."

"How merciless you are." A muscle near his jaw twitched. "I heard quite a bit of talk today. People were saying you'd already decided what you'll do — all they were wondering about was the means of execution. I said they were mistaken, that you'd keep an open mind and decide only after you'd heard everything, that you'd be just. But I see now that I was wrong. You've already made your judgment, and what Katya says will make no difference."

Risa clutched at the coverlet. "You show a lot of concern for a man who let a woman die and thought he could get away with it."

"Do you think I care about Alexei?" he said hoarsely. "I saw what he was long ago, and I pitied Katya for caring about him. I'm worried about what this decision will do to you. You're so lost in your vision of what this world
is
supposed to be that you no longer care about the means you use to bring it about. You've grown harder, Risa, and after this — well, it'll get easier for you to sentence people. There won't be anything to hold you back."

"Maybe I am hard," she responded. "Maybe I have to be. You've never tried to ease my burden — you just endure me and feel sorry that you're stuck with me. I can't count on you, and you've never really loved me."

He stared steadily at her; he was not denying her accusation this time, as he always had before. A lump rose in her throat; she swallowed. "The point of this hearing isn't just to punish those men," she went on. "It's to make sure this never happens again, that an example's set —"

"Do you think you can frighten people into being what they should be? Perhaps you should have made time for more historical study, and you might have learned better." He turned his head away from her. "And now your Council's turning this hearing into some sort of festival. What a diversion this will be for your citizens. You should have heard my pupils — they're all looking forward to it and praying that their parents will take them along so they can say they were there."

"It may do them some good to see it," she said. "They should know how evil deeds are rewarded."

"Their parents will have to decide that, but I won't have Chimene watch that hearing. She's staying home, and I'll put a lock on the screen if I must."

Risa drew in her breath. "She's going," she muttered. "I won't have people say that I couldn't make this decision in front of my own child. She's not going to think that I have any reason to be ashamed of what I do or to keep her from seeing it. She'll see the kind of men they are, and she'll learn a lesson from it. You've always protected her too much, but you're not going to do it this time."

"Risa —"

"She's going, and you're not going to stop it. If you try, I'll see you out of this household before I let you shame me in front of my daughter and make it seem I'm in the wrong, and I won't let her leave with you. You'll see what she thinks of you then, when you're gone —"

Her voice caught in her throat. She had expected to see rage; instead, his face was weary and resigned. She had said too much, had pushed him past anger into disgust and indifference. His dark eyes seemed to bore through her, as though she had suddenly become invisible to him.

"I didn't mean it," she said hastily.

"Why, how can you say that?" His voice was light and tinged with mockery. "You almost always mean exactly what you say. It's one of the things we all admire in you — your honesty."

She twisted the edge of the coverlet in her hands. "Anyway, she'll want to go, especially if most of her friends are going. She'll wonder why you wanted to keep her away from something so important. It isn't good to shield children from too much. You can see that, can't you? You want her to be able to make up her own mind, don't you?"

"Oh, yes." He was still speaking in that same high-pitched tone, as if he were only bantering with her. "Perhaps you're right. I certainly don't want to keep her from drawing her own conclusions."

"If you don't want to come yourself — well, I'll understand." She had to grant him some sort of concession now. "If anyone wonders why my own bondmate isn't there, I can think of some excuse."

"Oh, no. I never intended to stay away myself. I'm willing to see you and the Council deliver your verdict. You should have your bondmate there. I know you won't shrink from having me view the decision in person, and it can scarcely alter my feelings toward you." He got up, pulled back the coverlet, and got into bed with his back to her.

"Malik, I'm sorry," she said. "You understand, don't you? Please forgive me." I need you now, she wanted to say. I know you don't want me to face this, but I can't turn away from it now. You'll see I was right, you'll see that nothing else could have been done. Why can't you give me some support now?

She touched his arm, then reached around and gently caressed his chest; he recoiled. He had never rejected her advances before. She withdrew to her side of the bed; he did not move. She sensed him lying there, awake, indifferent and walling himself away from her.

Fifteen

Chimene clung to her mother's hand. She had never seen so many people in the tunnel at once, but almost everyone seemed to be going to the main dome. Some people weren't going, of course — the ones who were needed on darktime shifts or who had to look after babies, but they would see it on the screen. Todd Hansen-Barini wasn't going because his household didn't like crowds; he had complained at school about that.

At first, it had been hard to keep up with her mother, but now, in the press of bodies, they could hardly move. "Let Risa Liangharad through," someone shouted up ahead. "Let the Councilor through." A space began to open up in front of them, allowing Risa's household to pass.

Her grandfather had decided not to come. Chen was old and had said he was too weary for the walk, but he hadn't seemed anxious to come anyway; he had looked worried when he hugged Risa before she left. Malik seemed upset by the hearing, too; he had been very quiet while the household was preparing to leave. Her teacher Yoshi Shigeta had told the children how serious a matter this was, and maybe that accounted for her father's mood, but Malik had also known the sister of one of the accused on Earth.