Venus of Dreams (59 page)

"Ibrahim, I—"

"Don't look at me." Chin averted his eyes. "I came here to tell you that I'll seek out your son when I leave the Islands, and give him what guidance I can. I'll tell him that you did not curse him for his deed, and that your thoughts were with him."

Chen hesitated before replying. As he turned to thank the Habber, he saw that Ibrahim had vanished as silently as he had arrived.

Chen walked through the hall to his own room, grateful that most of the workers were either absent from the residence or asleep. As he passed by the closed doors, he saw that a few of his carvings were missing; no doubt those who owned them had decided not to display them until Chen's position became clearer. He frowned; he had not given any thought to what might happen to him. Perhaps the fact that Benzi had severed his bond with him would forestall the worst consequences.

One door was open; Chen could hear voices inside that room. Eleanor Surrey was in the doorway with a friend; she sucked in her breath as Chen passed. He glanced at her; there was a malignant yet joyous glint in the blond, round-faced woman's eyes. She had always disliked him, had resented him for not persuading the Workers' Committee to give her a promotion she had not deserved, for having a schooled woman as a bondmate, even for his carvings, which had struck her as self-indulgent and pretentious. She had, according to some of his friends, always said that no good would come of such airs. She had been proven right, he supposed.

Farther down the hall, his own carved face, minus a nose, stared out at him from his door; a slash of red paint had been brushed onto the metal. He would be the father of a Habber now; the old stories about his past associations with a few Habbers and the price he had paid for them would no doubt be revived. Some would believe that he knew of Benzi's plans.

A panel on the door was glowing, indicating that he had at least one visitor inside. He tried to recall who had access to his room. Perhaps Charles Eves had come to tell him that his presence was no longer desired on the Committee, that the other members would ask for a replacement even if Chen did not resign. Fei-lin, along with Tonie, might have stopped by to offer some sympathy along with his annoyance that Chen might now be powerless to win him a promotion. Even those friends who might assume Chen was innocent would hold a grudge now. He sighed. He would be glad to be rid of the endless meetings and machinations; if that was to be his only punishment, he would accept it as a blessing.

He pressed his hand against the door, lifting his head as he entered. Iris was sitting in his chair, her legs propped up on his bed. As she glanced toward him, he saw that she had been crying. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her face swollen with grief.

"Thought I might have to wait outside," she said in a hoarse voice, "but I see you didn't have the lock changed."

"I wouldn't bar my room to you."

"You would have every reason to do so, Chen."

He shook his head. "I knew how hard a true bond would be for you. I knew why we both wanted to come here. I wouldn't have wanted you to do less in your work here because of trying to be what I might have wanted. Even in my anger, I couldn't forget that you were the one who reached out to me when I had no one."

"I reached out to you because you wanted what I wanted, and I saw a way to reach it through you."

"I know that, but I loved you because of what you wanted, in a way. I wouldn't have loved you as much otherwise. You thought of me as jealous, and maybe I was, but it wasn't because of other men or because I couldn't truly share your work with you—it was only because I feared losing you entirely."

"And now I've failed at everything."

He sat down on the bed and rested one hand on her leg. "They could send us back," he said. "I hadn't thought of that until now. Maybe it doesn't matter, now that Benzi's gone. We wouldn't be working for the same thing any more."

She wiped her eyes against her sleeve. "We won't be sent back. Amir told me that. They wouldn't want to create too much sympathy for us or look cruel. Oh, they'll let us stay, if we can stand it, if we can tolerate all the suspicion and doubt. Amir is especially anxious to watch me squirm now. He's wishing he'd never had anything to do with me."

So that was why she was here. Chen should have guessed it. He was all she had left now. The flash of anger died. She was all he had left as well. He could imagine how she had warred with her pride to come here.

"I know what you're thinking," she said, as if she had glimpsed his anger, "and I don't blame you. I thought only that you might need me here now." She sighed. "I'll never be a Linker. You must be pleased about that."

"It was what you wanted, Iris. How can I be pleased?"

"It was what I wanted! What a fool I was. Amir's left me everything I had before I met him—my dream, my work here—and it's nothing to me now. Even my own child threw it away."

"Benzi's dream wasn't ours." Chen leaned forward. "But he wouldn't want us to give ours up because of him. We have to go on. Benzi wasn't our possession. He's our son, but that doesn't make him someone who has to cling to us. Earth had to learn that with the Habitats when they were built. We didn't think, Iris. We thought what others taught us to think."

"I suppose some people won't want much to do with us now. At least we'll find out who our true friends are." Iris closed her eyes. "Old Wenda was right when she told our fortune. Before Benzi was born, she said she couldn't see where his path led. She said mine would lead me away from all that I loved."

"No, Iris. It can bring you back to me."

Her face crumpled. She sobbed soundlessly until Chen pulled her to him and drew her head to his chest. "I denounced Benzi," she said, catching her breath between sobs. "I cursed him for what he did, and I'd do it again, and yet he's done no more to me than I did to my own mother. Now I see how cruel I was to her."

"You mustn't say those things."

She withdrew from him and sat up as she dried her tears on her sleeve. He touched the necklace he had given her, the beads that matched her eyes. "I'm sorry, Chen. I know Benzi meant even more to you. You were a truer parent to him than I ever could be."

"He kept much of himself from me too. Iris, I know this isn't the time, but—" He swallowed. "There's still time for us, isn't there? Wouldn't we heal and come to accept this more easily if we were together again?"

"You still want that?"

"Yes. Maybe it's only that I'm afraid to face my sorrow alone."

"I don't know, Chen. It's not that I wouldn't want to try, but whenever we do, it doesn't work. I remember—it may seem foolish now, but when you left Earth to return to the Islands, I thought your love was beginning to die. You left so quickly, and you didn't try to see me. I went to the port in Caracas. I thought I could get aboard a suborb, and see you before you boarded your shuttle. I don't know what I thought I'd accomplish—I just wanted you to know I still cared, I guess. Of course I didn't get to see you, and after that, I told myself not to expect too much from you. When I came here, I saw you still loved me, but I also saw that something had changed you. You couldn't share as much with me as you did in those months before Benzi was born. Maybe I should have tried to break through that wall you had around yourself so much of the time, but by then I couldn't, and I had enough excuses not to try."

Chen gathered his courage, knowing what he would finally have to tell her. "There's something I should say to you, something I've hidden from you all these years. When I tell you, it may be that you'll want to break our bond for good, but you should know what I am at last before you share any more of your life with me."

She tilted her head. "I know what I have to know now. You've shown what you are in many ways, though I was often too blind to see it."

"No. I must say this." He began to speak of Nancy Fassi and of the true purpose of his first journey to Lincoln. The words came to him haltingly; he had to stop several times to regain his composure. When he came to the story of Eric's death and his own inadvertent role in it, he could not bring himself to look at Iris, afraid of what he might see.

"Now you know what I am," he finished. "You see what I brought to your household. It would have been better for you if you had never met me. I came sometimes to feel that there was justice in the way you withdrew from me, that I was being punished, that you somehow sensed what I was or that you would see what I had done and come to hate me for it. It was why I could bring myself to accept what you did to me. Many times, I wanted to tell you this, but then I thought you would turn away from me for good. It was better to have a little of your love than none at all."

Iris was silent.

"I wanted Benzi to live on a world where he would never have to stoop so low as I have to get what he wants. I excused myself sometimes by saying that I had no choice, that I would only make myself useless to anyone if I refused. I failed Eric and I failed your family. Benzi's deed is nothing compared to my own."

"You couldn't know what would happen to Eric."

"I knew someone might die," Chen said, "and that I would help bring that about. What does it matter if it was a friend or a stranger? I let myself be used to get what I wanted."

"If that's how Linkers use others, then it's good I'll never be one."

Chen forced himself to look up. Surprisingly, there was no hatred in Iris's eyes and no loathing, only a sad, pensive look.

"You took a great risk in loving me," she went on. "You took an even greater one in asking for a bond. The Linker who sent you to us might have punished you for that, might have thought you would betray her to me and to the others you'd come to care for in my household."

"By then, you were part of my dream. I couldn't think of it without seeing you."

"That evil is past," she said. "It must never touch us here." She put her arms around him. He leaned against her, accepting her embrace.

PART FOUR

Twenty-Seven

Iris looked up. Above her, nearly a kilometer overhead, a large, bright disk cast a yellow light over the land below. A halo of fainter, paler light surrounded the disk; Iris lowered her eyes and saw a wide band of black above a metal wall.

She was standing on the surface of Venus, in the highlands of the Maxwell Mountains; she was no more than forty kilometers from the spot where she had been trapped inside an airship cabin over twelve years ago. The land on which she stood was part of a plateau; a dome one kilometer high and almost five kilometers in diameter now covered this land. The wall at the bottom of the dome encircled the area; the wall itself was anchored by rods sunk deep into the crust of the planet, rods that drew on geothermal power to maintain the dome.

A dark, rolling landscape stretched before her. Rock had been ground into pebbles and dust; the dirt under her feet was orange and brown. She had to search the barren land for long moments to see any sign of life taking root; at last she spied two small, fernlike plants. The soil around the plants was black; their broad leaves seemed wilted and fragile.

It had taken over six years to erect this dome, years during which engineers had directed machines through bands or Links. In the distance, a few tanks, a dark, metallic herd, rolled slowly over the land, crushing rocks as they continued to prepare the soil. Three helmeted figures were huddling together as they watched the machines; other suited people were loading a few rock samples onto a cart. A shelter had been built on one low hill; those working here could rest inside it while teams of botanists and microbiologists studied plant cuttings and new strains inside its small lab.

Several people, specialists and workers, had stood on the surface under this dome, but even with that protection, and with refrigerating units cooling the air inside, one had to wear a suit and helmet and carry an oxygen recycler on one's back. The heat that remained would have boiled Iris's blood and seared her skin; the atmosphere was unbreathable. It had taken another four years after the dome was in place to seed the ground with genetically altered microorganisms, to lay down part of a thin layer of soil, and to produce a few sparse plants struggling for life on the hot ground. Many more years would pass before settlers could make a life here.

More than ten years, she thought, just to get to this. The Habbers, much as she hated to acknowledge the possibility, might have done as much in two years or less. If the Habs had devoted even a small share of their resources to the task, several domes might have stood in the highlands by now, and Habber scientists might already have made the land under them bloom. Settlers might have been preparing to embark for these new homes.

But they had no Habbers to help them. Only a few remained in the residence on Island Two that had once housed many more. They were shunned, and any advice they offered was only reluctantly accepted. The Islanders had drawn on available Habber knowledge to construct the domes, but without the tools the Habs could have given to the Project, the work had been harder. Most of the Habbers were gone; Guardians, the dogs of the Mukhtars, had replaced them.

Iris turned and walked toward the edge of the dome. The wall was low, and she was able to peer over it. This dome, like those protecting the Islands, was transparent, but was also made of a much stronger material; the formula for the ceramic-metallic alloy had been a last gift of the Habbers. Tiny raindrops glistened on the outside of the dome, reflecting the light from inside the dome; the more rapid rotation of the planet had changed the weather patterns, and the rain had become a steady drizzle. In the distance, she could barely see another glowing light, where another dome had been built on the shelf of a nearby peak.

She tried to imagine the world as it would be, with tall trees growing on the slopes outside and a city of air and light under the dome. She could, with the aid of images and computer projections, visualize it clearly on the Islands, but here, the desolation resisted her vision. The domes were a precarious foothold on a sterile, hot planet; settlements seemed further away than ever.