Venus Rising

by Speer, Flora

  “It’s in the Empty Sector,” Tarik said, “and rather near to the Cetan worlds. It will be easy to stay hidden there.”

  “Ah, your lost planet.” Almaric nodded. “A dangerous location in that sector, but a necessary risk, no doubt. When would you leave?”

  “As soon as possible. Halvo will have the Cetan ship we arrived in refitted and provisioned as soon as you give your official consent.”

  “You will have Starthruster.”

  “I will leave the plans for it with Halvo. Jurisdiction engineers can build more. Or our new Cetan allies can provide some for us to copy. Make that a provision of the treaty.”

  “You will need other colonists. Who will you ask?”

  “Gaidar and Suria,” Narisa suggested.

  “Is that all?” Kalina exclaimed. “You need more people to begin a colony, Tarik, people with diversified skills.”

  “It’s a small planet, Mother.”

  “At least eight people, then; possibly ten.”

  “She’s right, as usual.” Halvo laughed, adding, “I know of a few cadets and some officers who aren’t really suited to Service life and who would flourish given the independence and freedom from regulation that you will offer. Why don’t we begin by asking your first choices and hearing how they respond? After that, I’ll send for a few likely candidates.”

  Gaidar came first, and listened in silence to Tarik’s explanation of what was intended.

  “You may remain here,” Almaric told him when Tarik had finished. “You could be very useful to me as an intermediary with the Cetans while we negotiate the treaty. Or you may go with Tarik. The choice is yours. You are no longer a prisoner. The Jurisdiction owes you too much to want to punish you.”

  “It’s because of that I’d be no help to you at all,” Gaidar replied without hesitation. “The Cetans will see me as a traitor and have nothing to do with me. I could only harm your efforts to make a lasting peace. I’m neither Cetan nor Demarian; I don’t belong in either society. I need to find a new world to live in, where I can make my own place. With my knowledge of Cetans, I can be useful to Tarik. I will go with him.”

  Suria was called into the room next, and the project explained to her.

  “You may rejoin the Service with your former rank,” Halvo assured her. “You have been unjustly punished, Suria.”

  “I still want to have a child,” she responded, “so I won’t go back to the Service. I want to go with Tarik, but I need Narisa’s consent first.”

  “Mine?” Narisa was astonished. “Why my consent?”

  “May I speak with you in private?” Suria asked.

  “Use the anteroom,” Kalina suggested.

  Suria flashed her a look of gratitude and rose, Narisa joining her.

  “The men would be embarrassed by this,” Suria said, closing the door so they could not be overheard. “Narisa, what was between Tarik and me was finished more than a year ago, but we remain friends and always will be. Can you accept that and be my friend, too? If I join this colony, we would be living too closely for angry thoughts or the hatred that comes from jealousy. In the short time I’ve known you, I have come to admire you. I believe I could live in close proximity with you, but not if I make you uncomfortable.”

  “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 cou
ld 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.”

  Epilogue

  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.

 

 

 
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