Child of Venus (5 page)

“That was fascinating, Ragnar.” Karin Mugabe glanced around the room. “I'm sure we all enjoyed learning about this most unusual part of Earth. Does anyone have any questions?”

Devaki Patel waved her hand at the teacher. “Didn't your people come from a place near Iceland?”

Karin nodded. “Some of my mother's family came from Norway. It might be that, a long time ago, some of my distant ancestors found their way to Iceland.” She shifted on her cushion. “People have always reached out for new places to settle, for lands where they could make new lives. In the old days, they often fought those who had already settled there and took the land from them. Here, we can make a new world together without having to fight anyone.”

“Except Earth and the Mukhtars,” a boy near Ragnar said.

“That dispute was settled.” Karin narrowed her brown eyes, then smiled. “We Cytherians have an agreement with Earth now.”

“Maybe the Habbers'll want to take over someday,” Ragnar said,
looking at Mahala as he spoke.

“They have their own worlds,” the teacher replied, “their Habitats. There's no reason for them to want our world. Habbers are on Venus only to help us.” She paused. “Perhaps we can have Mahala's report now.”

Mahala looked around the room. The other children sat on their cushions, small screens on their laps, faces turned toward the large wall screen. Her report might not seem as interesting as Ragnar's. She sighed, then whispered to her screen to call up the report.

“My grandmother, Risa Liangharad,” Mahala's recorded voice began, “and my great-grandfather, Liang Chen, were with the very first group of settlers who came to the surface of Venus.” Her cheeks burned. What she had said was true, but hearing it from the screen, as an image of Oberg's main dome was shown, sounded like bragging. “My great-grandmother, Iris Angharads, came here all the way from the North American Plains in the year 543 of the Nomarchies to work for the Project on the Islands.” An image of the domed settlements sailing in the thin upper atmosphere of Venus appeared, blurred greenish beacons of light against the darkness, seeds of life. The Islands floating on their platforms of helium cells had been humankind's first outposts here and were still the homes of some fifty thousand Cytherians. “Chen and Iris came from Nomarchies that were very far apart on Earth, but wanting to come here brought them together.”

This is awful, Mahala thought as her voice continued and a map of Earth appeared. Why couldn't she have stayed at home when her report was shown, instead of having to sit through it here? Shanghai's impossibly crowded streets, where Chen had grown up while being trained as a mechanic, were on the screen now. The other children gaped at the sight of so many people gathering at markets and jostling one another in doorways; one street in that city could probably hold more people than the almost twenty-five thousand who lived in Oberg. The scene changed to one of a windswept plain, a vast expanse open to the sky; someone gasped.

Mahala looked away from the wall screen to the smaller one on her lap. Risa had told her stories of how Chen had been sent to a small Plains town in North America, where he had fallen in love with Iris, but she couldn't have fit all of that into her report. There was barely time to show a bit of Shanghai and to say a little about the customs of the Plains, where the women lived in towns, farmed, and reared their children by themselves while the men traveled from place to place. Now she was gazing at a vista of pastel-colored houses crowded together amid olive trees on rocky hills; towers loomed in the distance. This was Amman, where her biological grandfather, Malik Haddad, her grandmother Risa's first bondmate, had once taught in that city's great university.

No wonder Ragnar's report was so good, she thought bitterly. He had to show only one place, while she had to find out things about a lot of places and leave out much of what she knew.

Someone whispered behind her during the part of the report that showed the homelands of Boaz's forebears. The tropical landscape disappeared, to be replaced by a view of Puget Sound, where Sef had spent his boyhood. By the time the scene had shifted to the Great Salt Lake of New Deseret, the home of Sef's ancestors on his mother's side, Mahala wished that she had found an excuse to stay home. Instead of seeming to have learned about a lot of different places, she sounded as though she didn't know very much about any of them.

The report ended with a view of the monument to her great-grandmother, Iris. On the pillar, which stood in Oberg's main dome, Iris's sculpted face gazed out at the settlement that she had not lived to see. She and Amir Azad, the man whose image was next to hers on the monument, had given their lives to save others; people now lived inside domes on the surface of Venus because of them. Everyone knew the story in one version or another, but Mahala had not seen how she could avoid showing the monument, given the prominent place Iris held in Venus's history. Now she wished that she had concluded with something else, maybe a view of Oberg as an approaching airship would see it. Reminding everyone that Iris Angharads was her ancestor seemed like boasting and getting above others.

“That was very interesting, Mahala,” Karin said as the screen image faded. “I'm sure we all appreciated seeing so many parts of Earth. You deserve some praise for organizing and putting together such a large amount of material.” Karin, Mahala thought, probably wouldn't say anything bad about anyone's report, since one of her duties was to encourage her students. “Any questions?”

Ragnar spoke first. “She's got Habbers in her family.” The blond boy frowned as he looked toward Mahala. “She didn't say anything about them.”

“We were supposed to tell where our people came from,” Mahala said, “not where they went afterward.”

“That's because the rest of our people came here and stayed. Yours didn't, at least not all of them. They came here first, and then they left Venus.”

“Just my grandfather Malik and my great-uncle Benzi, and they—”

Ragnar scowled. “They must not have wanted to be Cythe-rians.”

“That isn't fair,” Mahala burst out. “Benzi's here, living on Island Two.”

The teacher held up a hand. “Ragnar, without the help of Habbers, our Project would have been much harder. We wouldn't be living here on the surface if it weren't for their engineering contributions, and we wouldn't have won an agreement from Earth without them. Mahala's great-uncle might have gone to a Habitat long ago, but he came back here to aid us.”

Ragnar opened his mouth; Karin shook her head at him. “Every one of you probably has at least one family member who didn't set the best example,” she continued. “The purpose of your reports is to give you a sense of your past, a feeling for your differences while you see that you're all Cytherians now. What's important is what brings you together, not what might divide you from one another.”

Ragnar was silent, but Mahala could tell he was furious; his face was paler than ever, and the hands holding his screen trembled slightly. It had to be embarrassing to have the teacher scold him, however gently, after he had given such a good report.

Karin motioned at a boy sitting near Mahala. “Shing, we'll have your report now.”

Mahala rushed from the classroom when Karin dismissed them, slowing only when she reached the end of the hall. Usually few students left by this side door, but this time three girls were loitering outside on the path. One of them was Solveig Einarsdottir; Mahala's heart sank. It was just her luck to run into Ragnar's sister.

Ah Lin Bergen motioned to her. The small round-faced girl was Mahala's age and lived in a house near Risa's, but Ah Lin had started school a year earlier, when she was four.

“Come to the lake with us,” Ah Lin said. “We're going to play there and then go over to Ellie's house.”

Mahala eyed the others uncertainly. Ah Lin was all right, but she did not know Ellie Ruiz that well, and Solveig made her nervous. She was tall and had her brother's white-blond hair; at seven, she was two years older than Ragnar, but seemed even older than that. She moved slowly and gracefully, the way an older person might, and her broad-boned, attractive face was so still and expressionless that it was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

“Come on,” Ellie said.

“We found a great spot to go wading,” Ah Lin added. “Nobody ever fishes there.” Solveig said nothing.

“Uh, I have to meet my grandfather,” Mahala replied, “or he'll worry about me.” That lie would only make the others think of her as even more of a baby, but she could not think of any other excuse.

Ellie shrugged. Solveig stared past Mahala. “Maybe some other time,” Ah Lin muttered as they walked away.

Mahala wandered toward the park that bordered the school, already regretting her decision. Why couldn't she be more like her schoolmates? Maybe it was her family. Risa could talk all she wanted to about how one Cytherian was as good as another, but her grandmother and her family were still unusual. Risa was influential enough as a Councilor to have Jamilah al-Hussaini, who was an Administrator and the Liaison to the Project Council, consult her, and even if Risa had not been on the Oberg Council, she was still the daughter of Iris Angharads.

Risa was respected, but her first bondmate had seized the chance to flee to the Associated Habitats, those hollowed-out asteroids and artificial worldlets inhabited by the people who had abandoned Earth long ago, and her daughter had caused her such pain that Risa had wept after telling Mahala about her. That had frightened Mahala, seeing Risa weep; her grandmother was usually impatient with tears and crying. Why couldn't her people have been more like other folk? Instead, they seemed to produce heroic sorts, such as Iris, or else people like Chimene, whom everyone seemed embarrassed to mention.

That was what it came down to, Mahala supposed. She was different from her friends because of her people and what they had done, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

She was turning from the path toward the greenhouses when she heard a muffled sound among the trees. Mahala spun around. Ragnar Einarsson was sprawled on the ground, as if he had tripped over a root.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“What's it to you?” He got to his feet. “I was waiting for you.”

“Leave me alone.” She backed away, afraid.

“You little bitch. My report was better than yours—admit it.”

“Yours was a very good report, Ragnar.”

“Yours was shit. Even Karin knew that.”

“You didn't have to say those things about my family.”

“Why not? It's true. Those Habber people of yours aren't even the worst. There's your dead parents my mother says we shouldn't talk about when we're around you, but I know what they did to my father. They had him beaten because they knew he hated them. He might have been killed if the Revolt hadn't started when it did, and then my mother would have been all alone with Solveig.”

“Leave me alone or—”

“What?” Ragnar stepped toward her; his pale blue-gray eyes were wild. “What'll you do? Go running to your grandmother to tell on me?”

She turned and ran toward the road, then fell. Something heavy was pressed against her; a hand grabbed at her long hair, pulling it hard. Mahala struggled, but the boy had her pinned. He yanked her hair again, making her whimper, then pushed her face against the grass.

“Stop it,” a woman's voice called out.

Ragnar let go; Mahala lifted her head. The strange woman Sef had warned her about was walking toward them along the road.

Ragnar got to his feet. “It's none of your business,” he shouted.

“Maybe it's none of my business if it's a fair fight, but this didn't look fair to me. You're a lot bigger and heavier than that little girl, and it didn't look as if you were giving her much of a chance to fight back.”

Mahala stood up, her knees shaking. Ragnar glared at her, then suddenly raced toward the trees.

The woman stared after him, then moved closer to Mahala. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Mahala nodded.

The woman smiled, looking even prettier; for a moment, she looked almost exactly like one of the images Mahala had seen of Chimene. “I'll walk you to the road if you like,” the woman continued, “but I don't think he'll be back.”

“He'll just come after me again tomorrow.”

“Outrun him, then—you probably could. Just head for the road or the greenhouses. He's not going to come after you while a shift's ending and people are going home.”

They walked toward the road. “What's your name?” the woman asked.

“Mahala Liangharad.”

“You're Risa Liangharad's granddaughter, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you were.”

In the grassy space beyond the trees, Sef was talking to a few men by the road. He caught sight of Mahala, then strode toward her.

“There's my grandfather,” Mahala started to say, but the woman was already hurrying away from her across the road.

“You're a sight, child,” Sef said as he came to her.
“You've got dirt all over yourself.” He knelt and wiped her face with a sleeve;
she winced as he rubbed her right cheek. “And you've got a bruise there.
What—”

“Somebody tried to beat me up.”

“Who—”

“One of the boys. It doesn't matter.” However frightened she was of Ragnar, she did not want Risa confronting the boy's parents. “Anyway, that woman came along and scared him away.”

“So that's why you were with her.”

Mahala nodded. “She helped me, Sef. She can't be as bad as you say.”

“I said she was troubled, not bad.” He took her hand as they walked along the edge of the road. A cart rolled past them, then slowed to pick up the men waiting for it. “Still, there's no reason to go out of your way to have anything to do with her.”