Venus of Dreams (60 page)

The people of the Project imagined a world free of Earth's constrictions, a world where, instead of displacing other forms of life, people would be creating life from lifelessness. But the domes would shut the settlers away from the dangerous world outside; the first Cytherians would be prisoners. The shade of the Parasol would hide the world for many years to come; it would be a long time before people could come to this wall and view a living world.

She walked alongside the wall until she reached the entrance to the bay. This door, twenty meters wide and thirty meters high, was a thick sheet of metal; she pressed her hand against it and it slid open.

Inside the large bay, the light was dimmer. Engines, machines, giant hooks, gantries, and computer consoles sat against the walls. From this bay, robots had moved out onto Venus's surface, preparing it for the dome. She stepped into a cart and rolled past the detritus of construction; shadows flickered over her as she passed.

At last the cart rolled to a stop; Iris climbed out. Twenty widely spaced cradles stood in two rows, and three of them held airships. Iris made her way toward the nearest ship, hurried up the ramp, waited inside the ramp's lock until air had been cycled into it, then entered the ship's cabin.

She removed her helmet. Except for the sleeping pilot, who was stretched out on a seat in front of the controls, the ship was empty. She sat down near the back of one row of seats; the pilot did not stir. He was a slim, dark-haired man; his name was Hussein Said, and he had been reluctant to tell her even that much after he saw who she was. Twelve years had not dulled the memories of pilots; the presence of Guardians on any shuttles traveling to Anwara or the Bats was a constant reminder that pilots could not be trusted, and those pilots who had been closest to those who had left for the Habs were not allowed on shuttles at all. Hussein might bear Iris little ill will personally, but few pilots wanted to be too friendly with her; her son, after all, had betrayed their trust.

Benzi had betrayed the Project also. She wondered if he ever thought of that, if he cared.

In all this time, she had received no message from her son, but could not know if that was because he had not sent one or because the Islanders had refused to accept it. Perhaps he had feared sending any message; he and his companions, who had remained equally silent, might have worried about reviving old suspicions about those they had left behind.

It had been hard for her at first, when so many of the Islanders she knew had been prepared to believe the worst. Even her oldest friends, who were convinced of her innocence and knew that Benzi had hidden his plans from her, had not gone out of their way to seek her out. She had expected Marc Lissi to try to force her off his team, but he had not, and she had finally understood that keeping her near him gave Marc a chance to gloat, to jab at her and humiliate her in little ways.

She had done her work without complaining, as if it were a penance. She had remained with Chen, living among the workers, not caring what the other specialists thought. The sorrow of losing their son had united her and her bondmate; they had had no other refuge but each other. To her surprise, their bond had grown stronger; passion might have died, but friendship and a strong, quiet love had remained. She had willingly renewed their pledge when their first bond had lapsed.

She had resolved to think only of her work on the Project, to ignore the slights of those who doubted her, and to put aside any thought of rising to a position of importance again. She had avoided contact with any Administrator. Gradually, some of the workers she lived among had come to trust her; she became an intermediary between a few of them and their children, some of whom were taking advantage of the Island schools and the chance to become more than workers. Occasionally, she had interceded for the workers with some of the specialists who directed them, and she had found that the specialists, whatever they had thought of her before, were willing to pay heed to her because she was, after all, one of them.

She was again a liaison. Though she had no title and no official standing, she had some small influence; her lack of ambition had earned the trust of others. It was odd; the more she tried to shy away from representing others, the more they thrust themselves upon her. Without a formal position, she was free to appeal privately as one individual to another, to go before any Committee and say what she thought about a particular case. Even Pavel Gvishiani and his colleagues would grant her a meeting and a favor on occasion, since she could help them to resolve problems they might otherwise have been forced to handle themselves.

She had made her observations. The small sensors in her suit had recorded any minute changes in the climate and temperature under the dome. She had not needed to come here, but the Project, sensitive to complaints from Earth about the cost of maintaining people with little to do except tend machines and wait, used any excuse to show that those on the Islands were necessary, and she had been sent here to make her observations directly.

Earth was paying dearly for salving its pride with the expulsion of most of the Habbers. The Nomarchies should have been throwing as much as possible into the Project now to make up for the loss, but Earth could not drain off any more of its resources for the Project. Discouraged people had already begun to leave the Islands, and there was a rumor that Earth had considered sending others home. That possibility had united most of the Islanders who remained; even the Administrators had been heard to utter angry words about their colleagues on the home world.

Iris was already dreading her return to the Islands. She had postponed one meeting with a few workers who wanted to speak with her. What could she tell them? What could she possibly do? They would not want to hear the truth—that a long time might pass before even their children could settle this world.

The cabin door opened as Aryeh ben-Samuel came inside. He stamped his feet as he took off his helmet. "I think I feel the heat even in this suit," he said as he set his helmet on the floor next to hers. "Sometimes I can just feel the ground burning through my soles." He shrugged out of his air recycler.

"You're exaggerating."

"Not by much." He sighed. "Damn the Administrators. They know what Earth wants to hear, so they load their projections with so many favorable assumptions that they almost get me believing them, and then they wonder why people get impatient for results." He glanced at the sleeping pilot, then lowered his voice. "I used to wonder about the ones who began this Project, who knew they'd never see people settle here. I admired them, but I pitied them too. Now I think they had it easier, in a way. We're so close, but just not close enough. It's worse than knowing from the start that you won't see results."

Iris leaned back. They had only two completed domes, and a third that would soon be finished. If only Earth could see that they needed the Habbers now. The Mukhtars would still control the Project, and the Islanders would learn much from the Habbers. It wouldn't matter to the settlers who had built the domes, and the Nomarchies could take most of the credit in the end. Even she, who had lost a son to the Habbers, had come to see all of that.

She said, "Sometimes I think we live too long." Aryeh tilted his head as he gazed at her skeptically. "We can think there's time enough for everything we want to come to us. Long ago, most people willingly built a future they knew they would never see, and they accepted that, and yet we think the Project's originators were so exceptional."

"I've heard that the Administrators are already talking about who to send back to Earth first." Aryeh brushed back his thick, curly brown hair. "You can bet it won't be any of them. Maybe they should hold a lottery." He chuckled. "That might be the fairest way. Of course, no one but the Linkers would know if the results were rigged or not."

Iris sighed. If the Project could not make more progress soon, and it was hardly likely that they could when Earth could not give them what they needed, they might return to the more conservative plan of gardening the atmosphere and waiting out the centuries it would take before the Islands could safely float down to the surface. Her own dream would end.

She had thought of Lincoln more often lately, wondering if she could ever pick up the threads of her old life. Old Wenda was dead; Julia was growing older. Angharad had lost her position as mayor; she would have more time to spend with her daughter. Maybe it would be better to return now instead of waiting for the inevitable. She would have the farm, and many stories to tell Laiza and her other friends; it would not be a bad life.

She gazed at the screen above the sleeping Hussein and saw a bay which might become only a graveyard for the machines Earth had sent, the resources that were not enough. Her own hopes might also be buried here someday, but she had learned to take some joy in her present life without looking as much to the future. She wondered if this was a sign of wisdom, or only the sign of a woman growing older who would take what consolation she could from her life.

"I've thought of going back to Earth sometimes," Iris said aloud.

"A lot of people have," Aryeh replied. "They're tired of the waiting. They think of their old lives and remember only the good. It's different for me." Aryeh's family, she knew, had been on the Islands for nearly two centuries. He stood up. "Hussein!"

The pilot opened his eyes and sat up.

"We might as well head back now. Nelli told me she'd come back with the geologists, so we needn't wait."

Hussein nodded and turned to his panels. In the bay, a wall slid down from the ceiling and touched the floor; the cradles were now separated from the rest of the bay. The cradle holding Iris's ship began to rise slowly as atmosphere cycled inside. At last the ceiling overhead slid open; the ship rose toward the dark clouds.

A Guardian was lounging near the entrance to the Island airship bay. Iris recognized his long face and sad brown eyes, and could not bring herself to scowl at him. The young man was often seen lurking near the workers' residence, and Iris knew that a young woman in a room near hers often slipped out to see him. Like some of the other Guardians, the man seemed to regard himself almost as an Islander, and such Guardians caused less trouble when their tentative gestures of friendliness were returned with kindness. She wondered if Earth and the Guardian commander had foreseen that possibility; Guardians with friends on the Islands might develop divided loyalties.

She nodded at the Guardian as she walked through the open entrance. As she had feared, two workers, along with Charles Eves, were waiting for her. She could tell by their stern expressions that they had a complaint; she masked her annoyance with a smile.

"I know you and Eleanor are acquainted," Charles said as he waved at the short, blond woman. Iris's smile faded; Eleanor Surrey was one person she usually tried to avoid. "And this is Yeh Tu-sen." The tall Chinese woman nodded. "We'd like a few words with you."

Iris let out her breath. "I'm tired and hungry right now, and I have to make out a report. Couldn't it wait?"

"No, it can't. I'll feed you." He clutched her elbow with one beefy hand and began to usher her along the path. She distrusted the big man, who seemed as concerned with his position on the Workers' Committee as with the welfare of those he was supposed to be serving. She knew that Charles had welcomed seeing Chen removed from that body, but he was friendly enough to Iris when he thought there was something to gain.

They soon came to a group of tables under ivied lattices, where they sat down as Charles began to order food from the small screen in the center of the table. "We can talk here," he said when he had finished ordering.

Iris had already noticed that workers were sitting at all of the other tables, and that all of them were looking at her. "Is this a meeting of some sort?" she asked.

"You can call it what you like." Charles rested his arms on the tabletop. "You can guess what we're worried about."

"I don't know what you expect me to do about it."

"People are leaving," Tu-sen said, "and they're not bringing new people in. I got the figures from my screen. There's room for over five hundred more people on this Island alone, and they're not sending people to replace them."

"I sympathize," Iris murmured. "I know how tiring it can be to see the same old faces all the time." She glanced at Eleanor. "There's hardly a face here I haven't seen a hundred times. Even when I don't know the name, I know the face."

"That's not the point," Tu-sen said; her pinched, narrow face was that of a person who rarely laughed. "Makes you think they're just waiting for us all to give up. Then they'll just shovel some shit about how the Project'll go on and the dream'll continue or something, but it won't do us any good."

Two small apes hobbled over, carrying trays of food and drink. Eleanor grimaced as they set the food down. "Filthy things," Eleanor muttered. "Bet they stuck their fingers into it. We should have gone over to the dispenser ourselves."

Charles cleared his throat. "We're tired of waiting."

"I know that," Iris said. "We all are."

"But we're the ones who have the most to lose. The Administrators, most of them, would stay on the Islands whatever happened, but what'll they do about us?"

"They'll still need some workers on the Bats," Iris answered, "and for maintenance, and repairs here."

"But they won't need as many of us. What about the people in hydroponics, or the nurseries? There won't need to be as much food, there won't be as many kids." Charles widened his eyes, obviously trying to show how concerned he was for others. "Well, there's a way we can have what we want."

Iris folded her hands, ignoring the plate of noodles and vegetables in front of her; she had lost her appetite. "And what is that?"

"Freezing. We can be stored until it's time to settle." Charles glanced at Eleanor, who arched her brows; the round-faced woman had probably given him the idea, then allowed him to appropriate it. "Then it won't matter how long we have to wait."