Venus Rising (36 page)

“I was jealous of you once,” Narisa admitted,
“but no more. I know Tarik loves me, and I believe you have begun
to care for Gaidar.”

“I have.” Suria smiled. “He would father a
strong, beautiful child, would he not? And I don’t think he would
be terribly difficult to civilize. He’s eager to learn.”

Narisa laughed at the thought of a civilized
Gaidar. “Come with us, Suria. Be Gaidar’s mate and my friend, and
anything else you want to be. A world under Tarik’s rule will allow
you those choices.”

“I know.” Suria was smiling happily now. “I
will join your group. You are going to need me, Narisa. I am a
midwife, remember.”

“I hadn’t forgotten.” Narisa could feel
herself blushing. “How did you know I - I only told Tarik’s family
an hour ago - I mean -”

“When a woman loves a man as you love Tarik,
she wants to bear his child. When a man loves as Tarik does, he
wants the same thing. We are going to a world where he will be the
final authority. We both know how little he cares for strict
regulations when they are applied without regard for individual
needs. The two of you will have your child regardless of what the
Reproductive Agency decides, or whether the Assembly changes the
law. I will be your midwife when your time comes, if you will help
me when I bear Gaidar’s child. I will have the child I want, too,
when the time is right.”

“Agreed.” They shook hands, and then,
impulsively, they hugged each other. When they flung open the door
and returned to Almaric’s library, there was no need to announce
the outcome of their talk.

“You now have four colonists. I will find
another four or six people to go with you,” Halvo, ever practical,
promised his brother. “We had better get started on the lists of
provisions you will need. All of you can help with that.”

“I’ll never see you again.” Kalina’s gray
eyes brimmed with tears. “Never see my grandchild, if you have one.
The Leader is not allowed to leave the Capital.”

“No such law applies to the Leader’s wife. I
might create you my personal ambassador,” Almaric suggested. “You
could make tours of inspection at various planets, and bring back
to me information the official reports don’t contain.”

“I’ll give you the coordinates for Dulan’s
planet,” Narisa promised. “I have memorized them. The Empty Sector
is in constant flux, but if I provide a guide and if Halvo will
lend you his best navigator when you make your tour, it will be
easier to find us.”

* * * * *

Tarik appeared in Narisa’s room late that
night, talking excitedly about his many plans. She had never seen
him so happy.

“For the first time in my life,” he told her,
“my father approves of something I want badly. He believes I am the
best person to carry out this assignment. And Halvo, too. There
hasn’t been an angry word among the three of us all day. They
listen to what I have to say about Dulan’s Planet. We have agreed
to make that the official name. I thought you would be
pleased.”

“I am. And I am so glad for you. I know it
hurt you that you and your father were so often at odds.” She
smiled at him with just a touch of mischief in her expression. “As
for myself, I can’t wait to return to Dulan’s Planet. Do you know,
Tarik, I haven’t heard one word of poetry from you since we left
there?”

“The Capital is not a place that inspires
poetry. But you shall hear it again,” he promised. “When we are
home. And when we are home again, I shall see the sight I have
missed. You, my love, coming out of the lake, laughing and dripping
wet, like Venus rising from the sea, holding out your arms to me,
wanting my love.

“I want you to be my wife,” he said,
embracing her. “I want a permanent union between us, not one of
those temporary arrangements some people make.”

“Yes,” she whispered, “oh, yes, my dear and
only love.”

He swept her off her feet and started for the
bed. She lay cradled in his arms, thinking her heart would burst
with joy. He put her down on the bed and stretched out beside
her.

They undressed each other slowly, savoring
the touch and taste and scent of each other’s body, teasing and
stroking and kissing along arms and legs and torsos, moving
inexorably closer to the now throbbing, sensitive centers of their
passion. As if to prolong their tormented pleasure, they delayed
their coming together until Tarik’s breath rose from his chest in
harsh gasps and Narisa was whimpering in her half-crazed need of
him. Only then did they join in a union so profound they were as
one in body and soul and mind, and for a little while the galaxy
slowed and stopped for them, and time itself stood still.

* * * * *

“Did you know your mother is busy rewriting
the Reproduction Law?” Narisa asked much later as she lay with
Tarik in the dark. Hearing his deep chuckle and murmured response
that his mother could do anything, she went on, “She has been at it
all afternoon and evening, in consultation with Suria and me and
two elderly creatures who are some kind of legal advisors to the
Assembly. Neither of them is human, which Kalina says is important,
because the non-human Races have a right to say what they think,
too. The one called Nirn came in a pressure bubble because our air
is unbreathable to it. I rather like the creature. There is a sense
of humor behind that bubble, as well as a wonderful mind. The other
is a male Jugarian, an irritating creature, but brilliant.”

“What did this high council of Kalina’s
decide?” Tarik slid down in the bed to nibble at her right
shoulder.

“Kalina wants each world or planetary system
to decide for itself whether to insist on the yearly injection.
Only those on active duty with the Service and those who travel in
deep space will still be required to comply with the old law. She
says that is for their own safety and the well-being of any
children they might have.”

“Sounds sensible enough to me,” he
mumbled.

“What will you want for Dulan’s Planet?”

“Hmmm.” He had progressed from her shoulder
to her right breast, and he did not answer for a long time. Narisa
began to lose her hold on rational thought.

“Tarik?”

“Let the colonists vote on it,” he muttered,
his voice thick with desire. “We’ve made our choice. I move we
implement it at once.”

It took a little more than one week to
provision the Cetan ship, which Gaidar had renamed the
Kalina.
Two new shuttles were added for a total of three,
plus a heavy load of medical supplies, food, clothing and farming
equipment.

True to his word, Halvo found additional
people willing to undertake a possibly dangerous assignment far
from their familiar worlds. There were six candidates, three male
and three female. At Halvo’s insistence, they were all human.

“It will be easier to withstand the tensions
of such a venture if you have that basic community of thought,”
Halvo counseled. “I have seen often enough how humans and
non-humans can disagree over the most fundamental necessities. You
need compatible people to go with you. I have chosen six. Interview
them and decide on four.”

But after Tarik, Narisa, Gaidar and Suria had
met with the six, they decided to allow all of them to go.

“We need each one of them,” Narisa said, and
Halvo saw to the required legalities.

Their prospective colony now had two
communications officers, a male physician to supplement Suria’s
midwifery, an agricultural expert, an historian-archivist, whom
Tarik insisted was vitally necessary, and a young woman with
advanced degrees in both botany and interplanetary zoology.

On the day they were to leave, Almaric’s
family, with Suria and Gaidar, gathered on the terrace just outside
the eating room. There, as the late day sun of the Capital planet
streamed down upon them, Almaric said the words that officially
bound Tarik and Narisa together through all of life.

Narisa wore a formal Beltan costume, of
silver fabric with gold and copper braid trim that Kalina had given
her. Tarik wore his Service uniform for the last time. At Narisa’s
suggestion they exchanged the simple silver rings that were the
ancient Beltan symbol of an unbreakable union. Such outward signs
were seldom used in the Jurisdiction any longer, but Tarik had
agreed readily when she asked him.

Then, with Kalina and Halvo acting as
witnesses, Almaric retired Tarik from active duty in the Service
and appointed him Leader of the new colony on the world known in
secret Jurisdiction records as Dulan’s Planet.

Narisa had her promotion after all. She was
made a lieutenant commander in the Service, then promptly retired
at that rank and appointed as Tarik’s second-in-command. Gaidar was
placed in charge of security, Suria of housing and provisions.

Kalina had ordered a feast prepared, but no
one ate much of it. All were thinking of the newly outfitted ship
waiting for them at spaceport. The leave-taking was difficult.
Kalina’s tears brushed everyone’s cheeks, and even the usually
controlled Almaric was hard put to maintain his smooth
composure.

They left at last in Halvo’s transporter car
with only Halvo accompanying them. At spaceport, after all the
others had boarded the
Kalina,
Narisa looked back from the
entrance hatch to see the stern Admiral Halvo and his younger
brother in a tearful final embrace.

* * * * *

The planet was not where it should have been.
Using Narisa’s and Suria’s best navigational efforts, it took them
three days of searching to find it again.

“That’s the way it is in the Empty Sector,”
Tarik said patiently. “Narisa, are you certain that’s the right
planet?”

“Thanks to Halvo, we have the latest viewing
screens,” she responded, touching a button. “See, there is the
lake, and there the island. Shall we take a shuttle down?”

“We’ll take two. You and I will go in one,
Gaidar and Suria in the other, and we will load each with as much
equipment and supplies as possible. We’ll run the shuttles back and
forth between planet and ship until all the people and supplies are
unloaded. We can land on the lake and unload on the beach.”

But this was the Empty Sector, where
navigation was frequently difficult. The first shuttle to leave the
Kalina
landed safely on the lake. That much Tarik and Narisa
heard before communications became impossible because of the static
generated by an electromagnetic storm. Their own shuttle spiraled
downward, Tarik at the controls, Narisa beside him checking the
navigation panels.

“We are off course,” Narisa reported, “but I
can’t tell by exactly how much. The viewer screens aren’t working
properly, either.”

The shuttle crashed against something hard.
Narisa heard the sound of ripping metal. She was thrown back in her
seat, the safety harness holding her securely. She could see Tarik
struggling with the craft’s controls, fighting against the
restraints of his own safety harness, trying to reach the manual
levers.

There was another crash. Narisa felt as
though all of the shuttle beneath her feet had been torn away. A
gentler bump, a long, screeching slide, and with a final bounce the
craft came to a halt. The entrance hatch popped open, and hot
orange-gold sunlight flooded the cockpit.

Narisa released the clasp on her safety
harness. Tarik looked to be unharmed. He was checking the last of
the gauges on the instrument panel, putting the little ship to rest
like the good spaceman he was. Narisa knew he would not want to be
disturbed for the next few minutes. She finished with her own
panels, then climbed out of her seat and through the hatch.

The shuttle had crashed in the middle of a
desert. From horizon to horizon the pebble-strewn land lay flat and
lifeless under the blazing orange sun. The cloudless sky was a dark
purple-blue bowl. Narisa shielded her eyes with one hand and turned
slowly, scanning the horizon, searching for some sign of life. She
took a deep breath of the thin, clean air.

From far away, low across the desert floor,
came a lustrous, brilliant blue creature with outspread wings. It
was rising now to circle over the ruined shuttle, its graceful
shape blotting out the harsh sun, lending blessed shade against the
hot glare.

“Communications with the
Kalina
are
impossible until the electromagnetic storm subsides,” Tarik
declared, appearing at the hatch. “That may take several days. We
will have to find Gaidar and Suria. We need their shuttle to remove
our cargo.”

Narisa wasn’t listening. She was watching the
bird. She knew which one it was by the scratch on its beak. Behind
her, Tarik put one hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll have to do it on foot,” he said.

She looked up at the circling shape above
her. Then she smiled at her husband and love.

“I know the way,” she told him. And taking
his hand, she began to walk.