Venus of Dreams (17 page)

"That was long ago," Iris said coldly. "We don't rule now. The Nomarchies want to keep us the way we are, feeding them and thinking we're still free. That's why we have mind-tours and games and spend our time seducing men, so we won't have to think about anything or want anything else."

"You wretched child." Angharad shook a fist. "I've heard enough. I'm going to call Celia Evanstown, if I have to, and tell her I want your lessons discontinued for the good of our commune. And I'll call in a specialist too. Maybe a psychologist or social engineer can force some sense into you."

"You can't stop me, Mother," Iris responded. "I'll pay for the lessons myself if I have to. I earn my own money now, and I'm a woman. Once I give the commune its share, you can't tell me what to do with the rest." It was an idle threat; at the level she had reached as a student, she could afford only a few of the courses she would want.

Angharad was suddenly standing in front of her. The woman's hand darted out; the slap stung Iris's cheek. LaDonna covered her mouth, clearly shocked by the violence. "If you go on like this," Angharad screamed, "you won't be part of the commune. I'll force you out, even if you are my daughter." Iris was stunned by the threat. "You'll see how much good your lessons are to you then, you'll see how you're treated when you're living on Basic in some dreary shelter somewhere, having to do whatever work is found for you."

"Hadn't you better ask the rest of us what we think of that idea?" Julia said.

Angharad turned toward her mother. "This is all your fault, Julia. Well, you won't stop me now. I think everyone else will go along with me."

"I won't," Eric said. Constance gestured at him in irritation.

"You have nothing to say about it," Angharad replied. "You won't even be living here soon."

"She doesn't mean it," Constance said to her son; then the blond woman turned toward Angharad. "Do you?"

Angharad was silent. LaDonna drew her children to her protectively; Tyree gaped at the household's leader, while Mira sucked her thumb, looking bewildered.

"Your threats are useless," Julia said. "You forget the town election this fall. How do you think it's going to look if you begin protesting to Celia, or call in a psychologist to counsel your daughter? What do you think people are going to say if you expel Iris? They'll think you can't run your own commune. You'll never be mayor then. You may not even remain on the town council."

Angharad looked around at the members of her household. LaDonna refused to look up; Wenda tapped the floor with her walking stick. Constance exchanged glances with Elisabeth. Iris knew what they were thinking; with Angharad as mayor, they would all have more influence, and gifts from people seeking favors of some kind would bring the household more credit.

"Julia's right," Sheryl said. "That Linker has to decide soon about continuing Iris's lessons anyway. Leave the matter to her, and say nothing. She may decide to cut off the allotment, and then it'll be settled. Iris will see which way the wind blows after that."

"Or Celia will continue the payments," Julia said, "in which case it will mean that the Nomarchies think Iris's studies are of some worth to them. That has to come first. You can't go against the Nomarchies, even if you think it's best for you."

Angharad lifted her head. Iris knew that her mother would have to reassert her authority quickly. "Perhaps I spoke hastily." She smiled weakly. "I may have said harsh words I don't really mean, but that should show you how important this matter is to me. I'm concerned about the welfare of this household. If Iris is going to live here and take over from me someday, I must know that she'll be able to handle the task." She put a hand on Iris's shoulder; Iris kept still, even though she longed to pull away. "I wouldn't really have thrown her out. I'm sure she'll behave herself, now that she understands the depth of my concern. I don't think we should speak of any of this outside these walls." Angharad did not have to add that statement; the women were not likely to jeopardize the position to which they all aspired, and Eric would bully Tyree and Mira into silence.

"I'll behave," Iris said bitterly, knowing that she had almost pushed her mother too far.

Iris hurried along the road, heedless of the summer heat. She continued to run until she reached the small hill at the edge of town, then climbed the slope and threw herself onto the ground.

She stared at the rows of houses lining the streets that converged at the square. Dark bands swept across the fields of wheat as the wind stirred the grain. Small robots with pincers, each guided by a farmer sitting in a cool house and wearing a band, rolled along the contoured rows, weeding and tending the crop. In the north, she could barely see the gleam of one of the metallic surfaces near a station that drew its energy from a solar-power satellite in orbit far above the Plains.

Iris should have been in the house guiding one of the robots; Angharad or someone else would soon notice that she was neglecting the chore. She took off her shirt and stretched out on her stomach under the hot sun. Her mother would see Celia's message, and perhaps be puzzled enough not to castigate Iris later.

Iris had prepared herself for the worst. She had completed the necessary course of study, but the work had not been up to her usual standard, only enough to get by. She had gone through her accounts, seen that she had saved enough for some lessons during the winter, and had told herself that she would be content with that.

Celia, however, had not given her either the good news she had wished for or the bad news she had expected. Instead, she had cut the allotment in half, saying that it was now up to Iris which lessons she chose and that she was free to pay for others. The Nomarchies would give her some encouragement and help, but a full investment in Iris was not in their interest if she was unlikely to use the knowledge. That was the message Angharad would find, and she was likely to wonder why the Linker had given Iris even that much when Celia had admitted that it was probably a speculative investment at best.

Angharad would not hear the rest of Celia's message, which had been confidential. Iris had almost not listened to it herself. Hurt by the impersonality of a message when Celia might have spoken directly to her, she had been about to turn off her small screen before she had seen the signal indicating that there was more the Linker had recorded.

"I fought for you," Celia had told her. "I disagreed, I thought you deserved another year at least. I know why you didn't do as well. I told them they didn't understand your circumstances, that it was surprising you've done as well as you have. They don't understand the obstacles you face. I told my colleagues that you deserved another chance, and they said that this was all that they could give you. They calculate everything, costs and returns on what was spent, and it shouldn't be like that."

Iris reached out with one hand and pulled her shirt over her shoulders, not wanting the sun to burn her. The Linker's words ran together in her mind.

"Listen to me, Iris," Celia had continued. "I'm more like you than you realize. I'm a shopkeeper's daughter, and I was chosen. I know what it's like when everyone around you mocks you for what you have to do, how it feels when you want something different. You're being tested. I shouldn't tell you that, perhaps, but it's true. To take an entire allotment away from one who shows talent could provoke resentment, and of course we can't have that, so we'll leave you something. Some in your position will take what we offer, others will take it and pay for more with their own funds, and still others will be discouraged, and give up. You may be thinking that you should abandon your studies now, and make your peace with your household while you still can.

"I can't say this to your family, but I can say it to you. Don't give up, don't ever give up. No one can take away what you've already learned, what's in your mind, and no matter what happens, you'll always have that refuge and that joy and know that you did your best. That'll make up for everything else in time—please believe that. Things may change. Even the Mukhtars know that it's time to take chances again, that they'll smother the world in caution if they don't. Don't give up."

Iris had coded the message and had filed it away in her private records, knowing that she might need to hear it often, yet she wondered if the message was also part of a test. Maybe Celia, who had stood up for her, was only trying to cover herself, lest she look like a fool for pleading Iris's case.

Iris sighed. Alexandra's allotment had not been cut. Envy gnawed at her insides. She bit her lip. Alexandra would agree with Celia; the blond girl would be angry with Iris if she gave in now. Somehow, she feared Alexandra's scorn even more than she feared the Linker's.

A shadow fell across her; she sat up. Eric was standing over her. She buttoned her shirt as the boy sat down and wrapped his arms around his legs; a lock of straight brown hair fell across his eyes.

"I heard the message," he said, "about your lessons."

She was silent.

"At least they didn't cut off the payments completely." Eric rested his chin on his knees. "Funny, isn't it? I want to stay, and I have to leave next week. You probably want to leave Lincoln."

"It doesn't matter what I want. I'll have to stay anyway."

"I don't see what difference it makes. Look, you can still have some of your lessons. Something's better than nothing. And when you're older, you'll get the farm too. You won't have to be an apprentice and wander all over the place. I don't know what you're complaining about." His mouth twisted. "Too bad you weren't born a boy. Angharad wouldn't have cared as much about your lessons then. You would have left Lincoln anyway, so it wouldn't matter if you were a student or something."

"Well, I won't get chosen now." She paused. "Eric, didn't you ever—I mean, didn't you ever want to learn about things?"

"Naah. That's not for me. I just wanted to have a shop and hang around here, and I can't even have that. Maybe Constance would have done more for me if I'd been her daughter instead of her son."

"Oh, I don't know," Iris responded. "She loves you just as much as if—"

"Don't give me that shit, Iris. You're smarter than that. If a lot of men started staying in their towns instead of leaving, then the women would have to share what they've got with them, and that'd probably fuck up the economy or something. See, I know a few things too."

"Yes, you do," she said. "Look, maybe you'll find a way later to have a shop. Things could change."

"Come on. They won't change for me."

She watched him solemnly. He was no longer the boy who had teased and tormented her as a child, and she had become the only member of the household who sympathized with his longings. But she had never really spoken to him about her own dreams.

Eric had spent the last couple of nights in her room, which had pleased Constance and had relieved some of Angharad's worries about her daughter. The two women would never know that she and Eric had only talked and that he had slept on her window seat; embracing him would have been like making love to a brother. The boy had only wanted comfort and someone to listen to his complaints. She and Eric were content, for their own reasons, to let Angharad and Constance believe what they liked.

"Where would you go if you could?" Eric asked.

She knew that she could trust him now. "I'll tell you where I'd go," she said. "I'd go to Venus and work on the Project."

Eric gaped at her. "Why?"

"Because it's something new, something different. Because it's the best thing the Nomarchies ever tried to do, the only place where they reached for something noble instead of just trying to keep everything the way it is."

"I guess that makes sense, when you put it that way," he said.

"I think you're probably the only man I'll ever meet who understands it, then."

"I don't know. You might get to Venus someday."

She laughed. "You know I won't. The closest I'll ever get is those images the band shows me."

Eric let out a breath. "My father's going to meet me in Omaha and stay at the hostel with me. I'll get to see him more. That won't be so bad, will it?" His voice had a hollow, forlorn sound.

"It'll be fine. Ray's all right." Iris did not have a lot of evidence for that assertion, since Eric's father had stopped at the house only two or three times; she dimly recalled a taciturn young man with a vacant smile.

"Who knows? Maybe I'll go to a town where somebody needs a shopkeeper, and I'll be able to tell them I can do some figures, thanks to you. It wouldn't be home, but it'd be something."

"I hope so." She put a hand on his arm, remembering what Celia had told her. "Don't give up. If you have something to hope for, that makes other things a little easier, doesn't it?"

"I don't know if it does. Constance says it just makes things look worse."

"Well, she's wrong."

They sat together on the hill, mostly in silence, idling away their time in daydreaming until the sun was lower on the horizon and it was time to go home.

Nine

Chen walked the streets of Winnipeg, carrying his duffel on his shoulder, and listened to the babble of voices as knots of people passed him. He was used to the noise now; when he had first returned to Earth, he had found the crowds disorienting, the noise deafening.

Hovercars drifted by in the wide street while people carried by moving belts flickered past behind glassy walls. Towers pointed toward the gray, wintry sky; in the distance, he caught the gleam of a latticework's facets. A gust of cold wind whistled by him; he shivered.

Chen had arrived at the city's port only a couple of hours ago on the suborbital flight from Little Rock. He had been sent here to rest and spend a little of his credit until he was assigned to another Plains village. He had gone to the nearest port screen, where he had been told that there was no room for him in any of the workers' hostels, but that a room would be provided for him in a hotel. He had been too pleased by this unexpected news to wonder why such an important city would have a lack of space; having a room to himself would be pleasant for a change, and if it was going to be paid for, so much the better. He would enjoy it while he could; he would probably be sent to a hostel or another town in a couple of days.