Venus of Shadows (84 page)

Lena shook her head. "I'll speak for you at any hearing. I'm sure you would have prevented those cruelties in Turing if you'd known — I have to believe that. Some of those close to you misled you and cut you off from many in the fellowship, and maybe there's a lesson for us in that. You did stand against them finally." Lena took her hand for a moment. "I have to speak for you — you were my friend. You might not be here now if I hadn't helped you out all those times you were sneaking off to see Kichi."

"Should you regret that?" Chimene asked. "Kichi chose me, and she was guided by the Spirit. There has to be a reason for all that's past."

"I don't know." Lena was silent for a moment. "You were so young when you became the Guide, and others were able to lead you away from the truth. Maybe the Spirit's trying to show us that there's more to the right way than we were able to see. Kichi always spoke of being patient, the way we must be to terraform a world, and maybe you lost sight of that, being as young as you were."

"Why, Lena. You used to say you had many doubts about the Spirit."

"I still do. Talk of the Spirit never moved me quite as much as speaking of how we could be brothers and sisters, sharing what we had willingly and working for a common end. We talk of barriers, but how many have we raised ourselves against those around us? I had too many doubts myself to believe that pressuring or forcing people to come to us was right — it seemed to me it might be better to set an example and let them come to us instead of giving them an excuse to hate us. I couldn't even see why we had to fear the Habbers after they'd done so much to help us here. I've tried, but then I think of what they must know and how it could help us make the perfect world we say we want."

"You're steeped in error," Chimene said.

"You can say that? Look at what your mistakes have brought. Maybe it'll be good for the fellowship to see the Guide admitting her mistakes and showing us how easy it is to fall into error while seeing it as truth, how easy it is to destroy in the name of love."

"My hearing would destroy the fellowship. How could my people ever trust me again?"

Lena said, "We claim we value truth. If the truth destroys Ishtar, then it means our truth is a lie or a delusion. But I refuse to believe that it will. We can't let what's essential about Ishtar be destroyed, and the important things aren't the rite, the meetings, or all that business about breaking down barriers — it's our bond as Cytherians, trying to make a world that's better than the one our people came from. If some people come to reject you after a hearing, the rest of us will simply have to go on and try to set a better example that might win them back."

"If I lose the love of my brothers and sisters —" Chimene's shoulders slumped. "There'd be nothing left for me."

They did not speak for a while. Lena's gray eyes glistened; she dabbed at her face with a sleeve of her plain gray shirt. She isn't seeing me as the Guide at all, Chimene thought, only as someone to pity, an old friend who's made mistakes. Many would see her that way after the hearing; that prospect was as painful as having to face the hatred and accusations of others.

"I should go," Lena said at last. "Maybe I can bring Carlos and the children for a visit soon. That might cheer you a little."

"How is your bondmate?" Chimene asked automatically, not really anxious to know.

"As vigorous as ever. Even now, he says there's no one else he'd rather embrace during the rite." A little of Lena's old, slightly mocking tone had crept back into her voice. "Actually, we're not bondmates now. We never renewed our pledge, even though life is exactly as it was. I guess that's my way of trying to follow the right path, living without things like bonds while having most of the advantages of one." She stood up, "Maybe there should be no fellowship of Ishtar — I mean no organized belief. We could keep what's important without that."

"Farewell, Lena."

"Don't sound so final." She leaned over and patted Chimene on the shoulder. "You shouldn't have let us drift apart these past years. I might have helped you when you needed a friend — a real friend, not somebody who either worshipped you or was trying to deceive you for their own ends." Lena moved toward the door. "How odd it is that I can still care about you after all that's past and all I've heard. Maybe it's because you always needed love so much."

"Farewell," Chimene said as the door closed.

*  *  *

Her mind was very clear now. The solitude of her days had given Chimene time to think. The Spirit was guiding her now, and she saw what was needed to preserve both the fellowship and the love her people bore her.

She stood up, crossed the room, and stared at the clothes hanging from her rod before selecting her favorite red robe, then hung the pendant with the black stone around her neck. As she walked to her desk, she pondered what to say. A short statement would be best, more effective than rambling words or elaborate phrases.

She sat down in front of her small screen, then pressed a button to make her recording. "I speak as your Guide," she said, "as one who has always loved the people of this world. Yet I wandered from the right way. I came to love those who betrayed me and turned from those who truly loved me. I allowed evil to be done in my name and blinded myself to the truth. I have repented of what I have done and atoned for it. The Spirit has forgiven me, but I pray that you will as well."

She paused, then leaned closer to the screen. "I have returned to the true path, but much lies ahead for our world — uncertain times, when the truth may be obscured as we try to heal our wounds. I cannot guide you through these times. That must be done by another, someone who will not be so ready to imagine she hears the voice of the Spirit in the mouths of those who are false. You need, I think, one who shares the doubts and uncertainties of many of you and will understand and sympathize with your own. I have waited for the Spirit to reveal the next Guide to me, and I have seen her. She is a woman named Lena Kerein. She claims her faith is weak, and I have known her to question our most deeply held beliefs, but do not doubt her devotion. She will be a Guide in whom you can see what is best in yourselves."

Chimene took a breath. "Ishtar has always demanded much of its followers and of the Guide. Much as I love you, I am now unable to remain with you. You must build on what I tried to accomplish."

She turned off the screen. Kichi had spoken truly when she said that every obstacle, viewed in a certain way, presented an opportunity. At a time when she might have despaired, Chimene had still been able to see what the Spirit asked of her. Ishtar would be preserved, and Chimene would have the love of her people. She would live on, always beautiful in their memories, leaving behind a child who might one day guide her brothers and sisters herself.

The small dagger Mukhtar Kaseko had given her lay next to her hand. She picked it up and felt only a momentary twinge before she slashed at her throat.

Thirty-Four

The meeting was drawing to a close. Benzi glanced at his fellow Habbers. Balin's sharp-boned face betrayed no expression; Robira gazed calmly in Kaseko Wugabe's direction with her wide-set gray eyes. Czeslaw and Aaron were watching Tesia as she paced in front of them.

Kaseko glowered at them all from his chair. The blond Commander's thin lips were tightly pressed together. Others of Kaseko's people were seated behind him on cushions, but the Mukhtar had spoken for all of them, as Tesia had for the Habbers.

Benzi shifted a little on his cushion. The Mukhtar, in spite of his impressive height, bluster, and forceful voice, seemed like a child, a bully who threatened and was quick to take offense. Appearances meant so much to him; during all of their meetings, there had been chairs for him and the Guardian Commander, while the Habber delegation had to sit on cushions, gazing up at him as if they were supplicants. Tesia had tolerated this for the first few meetings; they had not wanted to provoke the man. Then Kaseko had begun to give way, and Tesia had taken to standing to make her points. Now she was pacing, halting every so often to move closer to the Mukhtar and hover over him as she spoke.

Tesia stopped in front of the Mukhtar's chair. "You've been both reasonable and fair," she said. "I think we can begin to prepare a public agreement that will serve both your interests and those of the Cytherians. Some details will have to be worked out later, and the Cytherians may have some questions after they've elected their represen tatives and the Island Administrators have organized themselves, but I shouldn't imagine they'll affect anything essential."

Kaseko scowled at her; he would probably see any agreement as a humiliation.

"I should think you'd be pleased," Tesia continued. "The agreement will show that your presence here helped to bring about the removal of a group who were oppressing their fellows and endangering the Project's future. Many will think it quite clever of you to have come here and played upon their lust for power by offering to be their ally, knowing that the Cytherians would finally rise up against them when their betrayal was made obvious. And you achieved your ends without the great cost of having to use your own forces to settle the matter. Both Earth and Venus will be grateful to you."

"If anyone believes it," Kaseko muttered.

"We must see that they do," Tesia said.

"Oh, yes, and that they'll also believe that your ships came here at the behest of a few panicky Cytherians who thought I was ready to attack them, and that you threatened me into these meetings only to find that we both had the same end in mind." The Mukhtar pulled his white robe closer around himself. "Some may find that hard to swallow, even if there's some truth in it."

"Not at all. You'll be seen as quite magnanimous, dealing with foolish Habbers who either run away from trouble or overreact by anticipating threats that don't exist. You can make us look quite silly for rushing here when we didn't have to do so."

"You think allowing yourselves to be mocked can erase my own disgrace?"

"There's no shame attached to you," Tesia replied, "in either the proposed agreement or the actual facts. You saw an opportunity to impose your rule on Venus with a minimum of trouble by allying yourself with certain Cytherians who would do much of your work for you. You lost that gamble and realized a battle would gain you nothing and cost much. Now you have an opportunity to win goodwill among Cytherians by portraying yourself as one who had their interests at heart and wanted to free them from oppressors."

"That is hardly going to help me with my colleagues," Kaseko said. "They know I hoped for more."

"But you've accomplished a great deal nevertheless, Mukhtar Kaseko. You've saved the Project, and everything will be as it was."

With, Benzi thought, a few differences. Earth's Project Council would remain on Anwara, but a Liaison chosen by the Island Administrators themselves would be one of its members, with the power to make final decisions. Other members of that Council would be chosen by both Islanders and dome-dwellers. Earth might have some influence, but the Cytberians would make their own decisions.

A Habber ship would remain in orbit around the planet, ostensibly to continue studying the process of terraforming and its effect on the world below — so the agreement would state. That the ship would also be a protector could be left unsaid. Other Habber ships would carry any resources Venus needed, and that Earth had problems providing, to the Cytherian satellite if the Project Council requested them. Earth's Cytherian Institute would continue to provide the Project with specialists, but more of its students would be chosen from among the settlers themselves. The Habbers would also make more of their resources available to Earth, which could only benefit a world that had stripped itself of so many.

Bribes and threats — that was what they had used against the Mukhtar. Threats to disable Anwara and to cut off the flow of small asteroids Habbers hurled toward Earth's Lunar plants, where they could be more easily mined; bribes of more aid in any agreement. They had won some freedom for the Cytherians, Benzi thought, but they had not won much for themselves. Habber vessels would once again ferry a few hopeful settlers to Venus, but the Habbers themselves would be only observers in an orbiting ship or pilots bringing settlers and supplies, with no other role on this world unless the Cytherians themselves asked them to return.

Perhaps they would not. Maybe they would prefer being free of people who seemed so alien and who made them question the fears, emotions, and parts of their nature they preferred to accept and rationalize. They had the right to choose; Habbers had to allow them that choice, but for his people and the Cytherians, it might be a defeat. Habbers would lose that contact with a young, striving culture and become more insular. Cytherians, dreaming of their future world while trapped behind their domes, might turn on one another again; the cauldron could boil over once more.

Small wonder Earthfolk and Cytherians were bemused by Habbers. They might have been even more puzzled if they glimpsed his people's hope — that Cytherians and Habbers might one day move freely between the two societies, bridging the mental distance that lay between them. Cytherians needed to look beyond their world even during the struggle of creating it; Benzi's people needed to remember what they had once been.

"I've never understood what you people wanted," Kaseko said then.

"I doubt you would even if I explained it to you," Tesia replied.

"Power, of course — but you'd also like them to see you as friends — so noble, so caring. You can't even admit openly to what you really want — you have to pretend you have some higher aim."

"You would see things that way." Tesia pulled at the collar of her pale yellow tunic. The strain of the days of discussions was beginning to show; her face was drawn and white. "I suppose you're wondering what will be waiting for you when you get back to Earth. I wouldn't worry about that too much. You have Guardians to enforce your will if necessary."