Venus of Shadows (52 page)

Dyami sank to the floor. This was something he could barely comprehend; such a disease belonged to older times, eras he had heard about in school or read about on his screen.

"The Administrators ordered a halt to travel," Bettina continued, "so we're going to be on our own for a bit. You'll hear more when the announcement's made later. I don't know — we never expected to have to handle anything like this." She wiped at her face. "Paul and Grazie were so annoyed with Patrick for volunteering to work on the Bats. Now I'm glad he's there — at least he'll be safe. It doesn't appear that anyone there's been exposed."

Risa turned and stared at Dyami. He had never seen such fear in his mother's eyes. She gazed past him at Eleta, then suddenly pulled her daughter to her side.

Twenty-Two

Chimene wandered into the common room, unable to sleep. Only a day after the announcement, the household had seen the flush of fever on Kichi's cheeks. Lang Eberschild had quickly taken the Guide to her room, insisting that he should be the one to stay with her. He was, next to Kichi, the oldest one in the household and had been with her the longest; he would take the additional risk.

It did not matter, she thought. There was little Lang could do for Kichi except to give her what little nourishment she could take and pray that she might be one of those who survived the illness. He would not have long to wait if the disease took its expected course; they would know one way or the other by tomorrow before dark.

They might all be harboring the virus. A pilot later found to be afflicted had been here for their last meeting. Chimene thought of her pupils in the southeast dome's school, of all the times she had hugged a child needing comfort or had shared the midday meal with others. She sat down. She was afraid to go to the screen and call their families, to ask how they might be. She could not bear to think of the men who had recently shared the rite with her.

Kichi should have been in the infirmary, on a breather, with a tube to nourish her; aged and weak as she was, she might still have had a chance then. But the infirmary was already overburdened with people injured during the quake and an ever-increasing number of infected patients. The physicians were being forced to make painful decisions, judging who might have a chance to survive on one of their few breathers, who seemed healthy enough to be able to fight it off, and who had almost no chance at all. Even her housemate, Galina Kolek, who was a physician, could do little for the Guide now.

Galina, along with every other physician and paramedic in Oberg, had been summoned to the main dome's Administrative Center just before the announcement. She had not returned since then but had left a message for the household. Her med-scan was negative; she and her colleagues had been vaccinated. She would have to treat patients and would be living in one of the tents set up around the infirmary until the quarantine limiting everyone to their houses had been lifted.

Galina had not asked, in her message, if anyone in her household was ill, and there was no point in begging her to come here now. If the outbreak was to be controlled, according to the Council's announcement, the necessary measures were clear. The physicians and medical researchers, who were the first line of defense and therefore most likely to be exposed, had to be vaccinated. Next came the patrol volunteers scheduled to be on duty at this time; they had to keep order and make certain that the quarantine was not violated. After the patrol, essential personnel needed to maintain the settlement's installations would be vaccinated so they could return to work as soon as possible. Only then could the physicians deal with the thousands of others who had to be protected.

Yakov Serba had spoken for the Council. "We need your cooperation," he had said in his steady voice. "I know that many of you are frightened, but I urge you to be calm. Some of you will be tempted to violate the quarantine, seek out a friend or relative who is a physician, and beg for help right now. Such pleas will only interfere with our efforts, and I must tell you that anyone who engages in such actions will be brought before a hearing when this crisis is past, and that the penalty for putting one's own welfare above all others will be severe. Any physician or paramedic who doesn't follow the procedures we've outlined will also be brought before a hearing. The patrol has been given the authority to use whatever means are necessary to restrain anyone who violates the quarantine, and offenders will be the last to be vaccinated."

Yakov had followed his warning with words of reassurance. The infirmary's laboratory could, within a week, have sufficient supplies of both a vaccine and antibodies for those already incubating the virus. The quarantine would protect those who had not yet been exposed, while others were probably immune or capable of surviving the illness. He ended with a warning to everyone to avoid close physical contact with others in their households as much as possible.

Gupta Benares had spoken then. Human beings, he pointed out, lived in a sea of microbes that were capable of mutating, of trying to breach the defenses medical technology had erected. Carelessness born of a false sense of security had led to this crisis; to spread rumors that the epidemic might be deliberate would only keep them all from drawing the proper lesson from this event.

Gupta would say that, Chimene thought. Like most physicians, he preferred to believe that almost anything except the ailments of advanced old age or accidents could be averted by medicine and common sense. His words had not convinced her.

A few recent immigrants had brought the virus here; that much was evident. Earth's Guardians would have scanned them before allowing them to leave; they had been brought to Anwara aboard a Habber ship. The infected immigrants had come to Venus from the camp outside Tashkent; why was there no word of a similar outbreak there or at the Wheel, where the new settlers had boarded the Habber ship?

She was sure of the answer; others had seen it, too, before Yakov's announcement. The Habbers had done this. They would not have to use force to bend the Cytherians to their will; they had other means. This was an early experiment, and a warning.

How foolish the Habbers were! Did they really think they could frighten Cytherians in this way? Did they believe people might be cowed into granting the Habbers whatever it was they wanted? The Cytherians would only be more suspicious of them; Habbers still had a lot to learn about her people. Matthew, in spite of his concern for Kichi and others who were stricken, had even pointed out that the epidemic had presented Ishtar with an opportunity. Hadn't they warned people about the Habbers' possible intentions, and didn't this event prove that they were correct? Perhaps Ishtar had been too patient in waiting for people to come to the truth.

But what would Ishtar gain if they lost the Guide? Chimene twisted her hands together. Her face burned with rage at her helplessness; she longed to strike out at the Habbers who had done this and at all of those who had so easily tolerated their presence here.

The air felt cold; she hugged herself with her arms. She knew she should be sleeping; waiting here would do no good. She was about to get up but felt too weak to stand. She heard the soft sound of footsteps as someone entered the room from a hallway; she tried to lift her drooping head.

"Chimene, why are you —" It was Josefa Huong's voice. "Chimene!" A cool hand touched her face.

"I've got it, don't I?" Her throat was dry; the words came out with difficulty. Chimene sank back on a mat and closed her eyes.

*  *  *

Twenty people had died in Oberg, fifteen in Kepler, twelve in Tsou Yen. Anwara reported ten victims; six were dead and four were recovering. Two cases had shown up in Lyata; apparently a pilot had carried the virus there. Ibn-Qurrah had one case, Galileo three, and five of the Islands, including Island Two, reported deaths.

The low figures did not reassure Sigurd. The Island cyberminds had more data now, and he had studied their estimates. A thousand people might die before the epidemic was stopped, perhaps more.

Sigurd stood on the platform that circled Island Two and gazed through the dome at the darkness below. The quarantine here had been lifted earlier that day, but he could see no one else on the platform. The last of Island Two's residents had been vaccinated, but they had lost twelve people already and were likely to lose at least twenty more. Several of the dead had been pilots or workers on the Platform port; the loss of these people could only slow the Islanders' efforts to get additional supplies of the vaccine to the domed settlements.

His Link was silent. The Link would alert him to any unexpected turn of events that required his attention, but for the moment, he welcomed the silence.

He was aware of the rumors; even a few of the medical personnel here were giving some credence to them. Habbers had done this; they were afraid that they might be losing their chance to gain more influence over Venus. The Habbers had seen that more people, even among the Islanders, were growing more sympathetic to Ishtar. What better way to decimate the cult than through the pilots who had to convey new settlers to the domes? Most of the pilots belonged to the fellowship, and a disproportionate number of Ishtar's adherents were among the disease victims. The epidemic would be both a warning and a way to get rid of a few enemies. The Habbers here had unwittingly added fuel to such suppositions by offering to help the medical teams in their laboratories and in tending to the ill; Tesia had pointed out that Habbers were able to resist the contagion. The offer was refused, amid talk that the Habbers might only be trying to infect even more people.

Sigurd did not believe the rumors. Most of his colleagues did not believe them either but were waiting to see if they could make use of them. The situation on Earth was changing once again; a Guardian Commander was becoming a more powerful rival of Ali Akar's on the Council of Mukhtars. Alim ibn-Sharif was one of the Island Administrators who was saying that it might be time to yield more authority to Earth now. Alim had been cultivating the Guide; he knew that Kichi Timsen's followers might put up with more control from Earth if that meant being rid of the Habbers. Alim was also thinking of his own ambitions. Sigurd, who had been so friendly with the Habbers here, might no longer be a suitable Liaison with the Project Council.

All of this musing was bringing Sigurd to a suspicion he was reluctant to face. Only Earth had anything to gain from an epidemic that might drive a wedge between settlers and Habbers. The Guardians might have planned this in secret, but the Mukhtars would also have to conceal whatever evidence they had about such a plot or risk losing a chance to regain control of Venus.

It did not matter that he had his suspicions; he would find no evidence in any records. Perhaps the epidemic was also meant as a warning to him.

"Salaam, Sigurd."

He looked around. Malik Haddad was climbing the steps toward him. Except for a slight hollowness in his cheeks and a touch of silver in his dark hair, the historian looked much as he had years ago.

Malik leaned against the railing. "I just got a message from one of Chimene's housemates," he continued. "My daughter's ill. They don't give her much of a chance — the doctors may be too busy to get to her in time."

Sigurd bowed his head. "I'm sorry to hear it."

"Sorry?" Malik lifted his brows. "After she moved to that house, when I learned she'd been seeing that woman in secret for years —" He paused. "I wouldn't put it past Kichi Timsen to have used my daughter as a spy — a young, impressionable, lost girl who'd be happy to tell the Guide any Island gossip that might prove useful. Maybe you shouldn't be sorry."

"I'm sorry because it grieves you."

Malik sighed. "I suppose Ishtar will have a few martyrs now. It ought to help the surviving members to bring in more prospects."

Sigurd thought of the first time he had met Malik, at Pavel Gvishiani's funeral, and of how he had pitied the former Linker. Malik's disgrace had been caused, in part, by the suggestion in some of his work that human history was marked by a series of discontinuities akin to sudden evolutionary leaps, and the implication that humanity might be on the verge of another such leap. It was a vision at odds with the outlook of the Mukhtars, who viewed human history as a falling away from the perfect state outlined in the Koran.

He felt more pity for Malik now. The man had come to a world where it seemed that people would never escape what they were. Malik was also the victim of his own nature and carried the burden of history inside himself.

Sigurd stared at the dark clouds outside. Before the quake, he had been preparing an announcement; he had been planning to say that more Habbers would arrive to work in the Freyja Mountains and that the pace of construction there would be increased. He would be lucky if the settlers did not demand that all the Habbers be expelled. He should be back in his room, thinking of ways to put a stop to the rumors and to find allies among the settlers who might help him in that.

This was the struggle in which he was trapped — a battle between those who embraced a human nature they believed could not be changed and those who were seeking to transcend it. Yet Earth, even though wedded to the past, had seen the need for a Project that might revitalize the old world with a new vision. The Habbers might have freed themselves from the old world, but they had not reached the point where they could sever their bonds to it completely. If they did so now and abandoned those they might have helped, their society would be rooted in two of the more ignoble parts of human nature — selfishness and the desire to protect oneself.

Each culture was a cell, with Venus as the membrane through which molecules from each cell could pass. Without such an exchange, the cells would die.

The Project, although it would strain Earth's resources to do so, could go on without the Habbers. Earth had tolerated them, almost as if dimly sensing that contact between the two strains of humanity was necessary, something the Habbers already knew. Tesia had shown him that with her love. She and her fellow Habbers had been waiting patiently to press on with this next stage of the Project. To give the Cytherians an industrial capacity that would make them more independent was important; the settlers, freed of being so dependent on others, might then be able to reach out to the Habbers as friends and to Earth as a viable, thriving culture.