Venus of Shadows (45 page)

"I shouldn't have come," Chimene replied. "I didn't know where else to go. I —"

"You mustn't say that. Haven't I told you that I'm here when you want to see me, or that I'll make the time to see you when I can? I don't ever want you to feel that you can't share anything with me."

Chimene sank to the floor; Eva seated herself next to her. Matthew Innes's gray-green eyes gazed at her kindly. Like Eva, he was young, with pale blond hair that was nearly white. He had joined Ishtar only a few years earlier, as a recent immigrant from the camps; his devotion to the group was so great that he had quickly become one of the Guide's inner circle. Chimene felt a pang of envy. She longed to be like Matthew and Eva, and all of those closest to the Guide — handsome, confident people, secure in their faith and united by the love they had for one another.

"I can't go home," Chimene said. "I have to stay here for six months, and I can't live here now. I couldn't stand it. But if I say I want to go back to Island Two now — I don't know what to do."

"Is that what you want?" Kichi asked. "To go back?"

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

"But why?"

Chimene looked around at Eva, then lowered her eyes. "You may speak freely in the presence of my companions," Kichi continued. "Eva and Matthew are my sister and brother in Ishtar — my concerns are theirs. What has your household done to make you so unhappy? What grieves you so much that you had to come to me? It hurts me to see such sadness in one who deserves only joy."

A lump rose in her throat; she was unable to speak.

"There are barriers enough that separate us from the world that will be ours," the Guide said, "domes that surround us, ships that enclose us whenever we venture outside, screens that show us images of things we cannot touch. There must be no barriers between us."

"It's Sef." She had loved the sound of his name once. "Sef Talis. He's been living in my mother's house — they're going to be bondmates." She could not hold back her tears.

Kichi reached for her; she clung to the Guide as she spoke of her dreams, her love for Sef, her hope that he would somehow see it and be willing to wait for her, her pain at his betrayal of her secret longing. "He'll never love me now," she sobbed. "She took him away — she tries to take away everything I want, and I couldn't tell him, he doesn't know —"

Kichi wiped her tears with the sleeve of her shirt. "He thinks I'm a child," Chimene gasped. "He'd just laugh if he knew."

"Chimene, my dear. I know how you feel. You have so much love in you — I understand what it's like when you want to give it to one who can't receive it. This is the first time you've felt such love, isn't it? How I wish it could have brought you some happiness."

Kichi did understand. Chimene rested her head against the Guide's chest. "I'm so sorry," Kichi went on. "So many men will love you — they will, you know. How unfortunate it would be if the hurt you feel now scarred you and kept you from sharing your love with others." The Guide stroked her hair gently. "You mustn't allow your love to become bitterness and hatred. Perhaps this Sef also has love that he needs to share — I must assume that he does, that he's worthy of what you feel for him — and that's why he's given it to your mother. I wish he could have gone to you, but your time for such love will come when you're a woman."

"It isn't fair — being too young, having to wait."

"Chimene, if this man had known of your feelings and hadn't been willing to wait to take what you can offer, he would only have shown himself unworthy of receiving it. He would have been seeking only his own satisfaction, and your capacity for love would have been destroyed, more surely than if he had mocked you or scorned you."

Chimene twisted in her arms. "You always say there shouldn't be any barriers."

"The Guide speaks the truth," Eva said softly. "You're like the world we live on, still being formed, not yet ready to feel the rays of the sun — if they touched you now, your heart would become as barren as the rocks outside. Venus will feel the sun again when it's ready to yield life, and it is the same with you. Barriers must fall when it is time for them to fall."

"You should rejoice that you can feel love," Kichi said, "whatever pain it brings you now. Be grateful that this man has shown that he can love. Love for others often grows out of love for one. Keep love in your heart and let Sef share what he can, the love of a father for a child. The years will pass, and maybe he —"

"But he'll be her bondmate."

"Bonds lapse," the Guide said, "and they are barriers we can learn to transcend. You needn't give up your hopes. Sef loves a part of you by loving your mother, and you can show him love by honoring that pledge for now. More for you may come later — you may even be the one who guides Sef to Ishtar."

Her tears were gone. Kichi's words had revived her dream. A bond meant nothing; the Guide had never restricted her love with bonds. Chimene's sorrow had grown out of seeing barriers where they did not have to exist. If she loved Sef enough, all the barriers between them would disappear; she could still hope that when she was a woman —

She looked up at Kichi as she recalled the rest of her words. "What did you mean," she said, "that I might guide Sef to Ishtar? I'm not even in Ishtar myself."

"You have reached out to us."

"To you, but the rest — I don't know if I can believe in it. I think about it, and then I have all these questions. Even if Risa didn't care, I don't know if I could join, trying to believe and not being able to."

"But many of us began that way," Kichi responded. "I did myself. Do you know how I became the Guide?"

Chimene knew part of the story but waited for Kichi to continue.

"I came to the Islands from Earth in 570, not long after Pavel Gvishiani's disgrace. It was a time of great hope for the Project — a battle had been averted and the surface would soon be settled. But I couldn't share the joy of others. I believed in nothing then. I saw Venus as no more than my planetary laboratory, a place where I could study the movements of tectonic plates that had been locked for millions of years. I never supposed that Venus might create fault lines within my own soul or unlock my heart."

She paused. "I joined Ishtar because a man I wanted brought me to the group, and I supposed that making this small concession might entice him to my bed. Ishtar was a small group then, and most of its people were superstitious workers. Anna Deriss was their first Guide, and even she was only an old woman who babbled about a planetary Spirit and the need to placate Her. She and her followers often went to the platform around Island Two, where they would peer through the dome and offer prayers to the spirits below. I rarely went there with them — when I did, my only prayer was that none of my colleagues would see me in the company of such deluded fools."

Chimene nestled in Kichi's arms. The Guide had never told her this much about her early life before.

"What I didn't know is that my lover had more love for me than I knew. He saw that there was a void in me and that it was growing. Soon, even my work meant nothing to me. Those around me seemed trapped in an illusion — the world they wanted would bring them only a pointless struggle and then death.
My work would be used only to create a world that would mirror the emptiness and despair I saw in myself."

"What did you do?" Chimene asked.

"I went to a Counselor, of course. She spoke of fatigue and the need for a short rest, and when that didn't help, she sent me to a psychological specialist, who muttered about depressive tendencies and chemical unbalances and passed me on to a physician. He gave me an implant that altered my moods slightly, but it didn't really change how I felt — it only masked my symptoms. My team began to complain about my work.
My position became precarious  — after all, if I began to cost the Project more than my work was worth, my Counselor would eventually have to take further steps." Kichi laughed softly. "Advice, they call it, when they're telling you what to do."

Chimene thought of her father, who also seemed unable to feel hope. Often she had awakened, opened the curtain around her bed a little, and peered out to see Malik sitting in front of his screen, his head bowed, his body slumped and weary.

"I didn't want to go back to Earth," Kichi went on. "That would have been admitting that my life was over, that I would never be more than I was. I wanted to give myself wholly to this world, yet something held me back. I wanted to reach out to my lover, but my despair and demands on him were poisoning his love, and I saw I might lose him, too."

The Guide was silent for a long time. "Anna began to visit me in the evenings," Kichi said at last. "She didn't speak to me about Ishtar — in fact, she rarely said much at all. Sometimes she listened and sometimes she only sat with me while I brooded, and then, one day, she told me her thoughts. She had been waiting for the Spirit to reveal who the next Guide would be, and now she knew — she had been led to me."

Chimene knew that part of the story. "And this was enough to change you?"

"Oh, no. I thought she was deluding herself. Only my gratitude for her companionship kept me from mocking her then. She knew I didn't believe, and yet she offered me her love and the opportunity for her guidance. I had nothing to lose by accepting it, and I was sure she'd realize her mistake eventually."

"But you came to believe," Chimene said.

"Yes, I came to believe. The Guide's love, along with the love of those closest to her, healed me, but that healing was a struggle. I had seen Ishtar as a rival for my lover, its women as others who would take him from me — I had to see past that barrier and understand that allowing him to give his love to others left him freer to love me more. Even then I still balked at Anna's talk of the Spirit — that was the last barrier that fell."

Anna's simple, childlike faith had reflected a deeper truth. Time itself was an illusion, a barrier that could also be overcome. The Guide and her followers were able to apprehend the Spirit that the minds of future Cytherians would create, and with Whom they would all converge. During their most important rite, they could capture, for a brief instant, the time when all would be united in Ishtar with no barriers.

"Some can believe in the Spirit easily," Kichi murmured. "They don't need to be told that our concepts of space and time are limits imposed by the way our minds perceive the world, or that a mathematician or physicist might see all time as one instant, or that each of us may be only one aspect of a Mind that is a Unity. They sense the Spirit's presence, and that is all they know — their minds aren't as cluttered with some of the illusions we call knowledge. The Guide was one such person, but as I drew closer to her, I saw why she had been led to me. Worthy as Anna was, she could lead only those much like herself to the truth. She believed I might be able to bring many others to the fold because I understood the intellectual barriers that stood in their way."

"And that was when you believed, when you saw that?" Chimene said.

"No, my dear. Anna died, and I became the Guide while I was still trying to find my faith. My despair then was greater than any I had felt before. I was a fraud, pretending a belief I didn't feel — I had been chosen to guide others and could do nothing for myself. The disciplines that a Guide must practice seemed no more than a sham. I decided to give it up, to tell my brothers and sisters that another would have to take my place, and then, in my darkest moment, as I prepared to reveal the deepest doubts I had always hidden, I glimpsed the Spirit and knew that Anna was with Her. My doubts fell away. I was truly the Guide at last."

"Lock yourself in this moment of time," Matthew said, "and there is no Spirit, for we haven't yet created the Spirit. Open your soul and time falls away, leading you into Her Presence."

"Do you understand, Chimene?" Kichi asked. "The Spirit's potential lies inside all who will become Cytherians. It lies inside you."

Chimene wanted to believe. Whenever she was with Kichi, she almost thought that she could, but she knew that later, she would ponder what she had heard and her doubts would return. "I want to believe," Chimene said, "but I don't know —"

"If you want to believe, then one barrier has been removed." The Guide hugged Chimene, then released her. "I once asked Anna how I would know who was to follow me as the Guide. She said I would know her when I saw her, that I would see the light in her soul, that I would be guided to her. When I found my faith, I accepted that, and yet years passed without such a sign. Once I thought that a child of my own might prove to be the next Guide, but in the end I chose to have a son and not a daughter. I didn't want to be misled by genetic ties or have a particular love overshadow the love I had to give to all."

Kichi reached for Chimene's hands. "I've waited," she said, "and I've prayed, and now I know I've found the one who will follow me. You are that person, Chimene. You will be the next Guide."

Chimene started in shock. She tried to pull her hands away, but the Guide's grip was strong. "You have a Guide's beauty, the beauty that can bring others to love the Spirit. You have the mind that can reach out to those who doubt. You have the soul in which I see my sister. You are my successor, Chimene — I've seen it."

"But I can't be. I'm not even —"

"You will join us, and I promise you that your faith will come. It may come to you at a dark time, as it did for me, or you may surrender yourself to it at a moment of joy, but I know it lies within you. Your love will grow until it encompasses our world, and all of your brothers and sisters will love you."

Could it be true? Could she imagine such a destiny for herself? Could she ever become like Kichi, serene in her love and certain of the love of others? Her chest swelled; she could not tell if she was feeling joy or pain.

"You will come to us." The Guide's voice was so all-encompassing that it might have been coming from inside Chimene's own mind. "There is so much I have to teach you in the time I have left before my soul is freed by my body. You'll come to us, Chimene — you are one of us already in your heart."