She paused. “I joined Ishtar because a man I wanted brought me to the group, and I supposed that making this small concession might entice him to my bed. Ishtar was a small group then, and most of its people were superstitious workers. Anna Deriss was their first Guide, and even she was only an old woman who babbled about a planetary Spirit and the need to placate Her. She and her followers often went to the platform around Island Two, where they would peer through the dome and offer prayers to the spirits below. I rarely went there with them—when I did, my only prayer was that none of my colleagues would see me in the company of such deluded fools.”
Chimene nestled in Kichi's arms. The Guide had never told her this much about her early life before.
“What I didn't know is that my lover had more love for me than I knew. He saw that there was a void in me and that it was growing. Soon, even my work meant nothing to me. Those around me seemed trapped in an illusion—the world they wanted would bring them only a pointless struggle and then death. My work would be used only to create a world that would mirror the emptiness and despair I saw in myself.”
“What did you do?” Chimene asked.
“I went to a Counselor, of course. She spoke of fatigue and the need for a short rest, and when that didn't help, she sent me to a psychological specialist, who muttered about depressive tendencies and chemical unbalances and passed me on to a physician. He gave me an implant that altered my moods slightly, but it didn't really change how I felt—it only masked my symptoms. My team began to complain about my work. My position became precarious—after all, if I began to cost the Project more than my work was worth, my Counselor would eventually have to take further steps.” Kichi laughed softly. “Advice, they call it, when they're telling you what to do.”
Chimene thought of her father, who also seemed unable to feel hope. Often she had awakened, opened the curtain around her bed a little, and peered out to see Malik sitting in front of his screen, his head bowed, his body slumped and weary.
“I didn't want to go back to Earth,” Kichi went on. “That would have been admitting that my life was over, that I would never be more than I was. I wanted to give myself wholly to this world, yet something held me back. I wanted to reach out to my lover, but my despair and demands on him were poisoning his love, and I saw I might lose him, too.”
The Guide was silent for a long time. “Anna began to visit me in the evenings,” Kichi said at last. “She didn't speak to me about Ishtar—in fact, she rarely said much at all. Sometimes she listened and sometimes she only sat with me while I brooded, and then, one day, she told me her thoughts. She had been waiting for the Spirit to reveal who the next Guide would be, and now she knew—she had been led to me.”
Chimene knew that part of the story. “And this was enough to change you?”
“Oh, no. I thought she was deluding herself. Only my gratitude for her companionship kept me from mocking her then. She knew I didn't believe, and yet she offered me her love and the opportunity for her guidance. I had nothing to lose by accepting it, and I was sure she'd realize her mistake eventually.”
“But you came to believe,” Chimene said.
“Yes, I came to believe. The Guide's love, along with the love of those closest to her, healed me, but that healing was a struggle. I had seen Ishtar as a rival for my lover, its women as others who would take him from me—I had to see past that barrier and understand that allowing him to give his love to others left him freer to love me more. Even then I still balked at Anna's talk of the Spirit—that was the last barrier that fell.”
Anna's simple, childlike faith had reflected a deeper truth. Time itself was an illusion, a barrier that could also be overcome. The Guide and her followers were able to apprehend the Spirit that the minds of future Cytherians would create, and with Whom they would all converge. During their most important rite, they could capture, for a brief instant, the time when all would be united in Ishtar with no barriers.
“Some can believe in the Spirit easily,” Kichi murmured. “They don't need to be told that our concepts of space and time are limits imposed by the way our minds perceive the world, or that a mathematician or physicist might see all time as one instant, or that each of us may be only one aspect of a Mind that is a Unity. They sense the Spirit's presence, and that is all they know—their minds aren't as cluttered with some of the illusions we call knowledge. The Guide was one such person, but as I drew closer to her, I saw why she had been led to me. Worthy as Anna was, she could lead only those much like herself to the truth. She believed I might be able to bring many others to the fold because I understood the intellectual barriers that stood in their way.”
“And that was when you believed, when you saw that?” Chimene said.
“No, my dear. Anna died, and I became the Guide while I was still trying to find my faith. My despair then was greater than any I had felt before. I was a fraud, pretending a belief I didn't feel—I had been chosen to guide others and could do nothing for myself. The disciplines that a Guide must practice seemed no more than a sham. I decided to give it up, to tell my brothers and sisters that another would have to take my place, and then, in my darkest moment, as I prepared to reveal the deepest doubts I had always hidden, I glimpsed the Spirit and knew that Anna was with Her. My doubts fell away. I was truly the Guide at last.”
“Lock yourself in this moment of time,” Matthew said, “and there is no Spirit, for we haven't yet created the Spirit. Open your soul and time falls away, leading you into Her Presence.”
“Do you understand, Chimene?” Kichi asked. “The Spirit's potential lies inside all who will become Cytherians. It lies inside you.”
Chimene wanted to believe. Whenever she was with Kichi, she almost thought that she could, but she knew that later, she would ponder what she had heard and her doubts would return. “I want to believe,” Chimene said, “but I don't know—”
“If you want to believe, then one barrier has been removed.” The Guide hugged Chimene, then released her. “I once asked Anna how I would know who was to follow me as the Guide. She said I would know her when I saw her, that I would see the light in her soul, that I would be guided to her. When I found my faith, I accepted that, and yet years passed without such a sign. Once I thought that a child of my own might prove to be the next Guide, but in the end I chose to have a son and not a daughter. I didn't want to be misled by genetic ties or have a particular love overshadow the love I had to give to all.”
Kichi reached for Chimene's hands. “I've waited,” she said, “and I've prayed, and now I know I've found the one who will follow me. You are that person, Chimene. You will be the next Guide.”
Chimene started in shock. She tried to pull her hands away, but the Guide's grip was strong. “You have a Guide's beauty, the beauty that can bring others to love the Spirit. You have the mind that can reach out to those who doubt. You have the soul in which I see my sister. You are my successor, Chimene—I've seen it.”
“But I can't be. I'm not even—”
“You will join us, and I promise you that your faith will come. It may come to you at a dark time, as it did for me, or you may surrender yourself to it at a moment of joy, but I know it lies within you. Your love will grow until it encompasses our world, and all of your brothers and sisters will love you.”
Could it be true? Could she imagine such a destiny for herself? Could she ever become like Kichi, serene in her love and certain of the love of others? Her chest swelled; she could not tell if she was feeling joy or pain.
“You will come to us.” The Guide's voice was so all-encompassing that it might have been coming from inside Chimene's own mind. “There is so much I have to teach you in the time I have left before my soul is freed by my body. You'll come to us, Chimene—you are one of us already in your heart.”
Chimene lowered her eyes. “But I'm not. I want to be, but how can I?”
“You need only pledge yourself to us.”
“I can't even do that.” Too ma
ny obstacles lay in her path. “I still have all these questions, and even if I didn't, I can't even come to your meetings without my mother finding out, and she—” Risa would be appalled enough to think that her daughter was interested in Ishtar or had visited the Guide; she would be enraged if she ever learned of Kichi's hopes.
“Say that you're willing to travel this road with me,” Kichi replied. “That's all we require. Together, we'll remove the barriers that lie in your way. Others don't have to know what we're doing now. You may visit me as you always have and begin to learn what you must know.”
“Isn't that wrong? You don't want barriers, but you want me to keep secrets. Isn't that like—”
“We see a world where people will walk on the surface unprotected, and yet we do not leave our domes to do so now. We feel the presence of Ishtar, even though we know that the Spirit lies in our future. This secret will be no more than a temporary barrier, one that will fall away in time. Nothing can be wrong if it leads to the truth.”
Kichi turned and extended a hand to the wall screen. “Look there, Chimene.” Chimene lifted her eyes. An image had appeared of a green, sunlit world. It turned slowly, revealing rippling blue oceans with deeper azure currents and small continents mottled with green. One continent along the equator, a landmass shaped like an open-mouthed lizard with a long, curling tail, reminded her of Aphrodite Terra. To the west, a large island in the midst of a vast sea had to be the Rhea and Theia mountains. In the north, the massifs and high peaks of Ishtar Terra loomed over the deep green of forests and the paler green of mountain valleys.
Kichi said, “Tell me what you see.”
“Venus,” Chimene answered, “the way it will be someday.”
“You see the world you'll help to build. You see the planet whose Spirit resides in you. Reach out and that vision will live inside you and all whom you touch.” Kichi cupped Chimene's face in her hands. “Turn away now and the wall you build inside yourself will imprison you as surely as this dome does.”
Chimene shivered. She would have to try. This was all the Guide was asking, that she try. She could not bear the thought of disappointing Kichi, of being unable to come to this house and its loving residents, of being alone with parents whose love for each other had finally failed.
“I want to be with you,” she said. “I will be—I am.”
* * * *
A member of the patrol conveyed her to the tunnel; Chimene walked the rest of the way. She would be the Guide; she clung to that thought. The future Kichi had evoked for her was still vivid; she could almost imagine that she was already joined to her future self, the Chimene secure in her faith who would love and be loved, who was looking back on this time of uncertainty and doubt with compassion for the girl she had once been. All the barriers would fall away; she knew that now.
But Kichi had also said the way would be hard. Chimene would have to endure months in Risa's house and conceal her visits to the Guide. Later, she would have to return to the Islander schoolmates who would only mock her new dream if they ever learned of it.
How would she ever get through the long months away from the Guide? But Kichi had insisted on that; more Islanders would also have to be brought to Ishtar, and Chimene could learn much by living among them. The Guide had even implied that Chimene could be of use to her; by being observant, Chimene might leam which Islanders were likely to be sympathetic to Ishtar and which might present barriers to the truth. She wanted to be useful to Kichi and show that she had the discipline necessary to be a Guide.
Tests lay ahead of her, and the first such test was approaching. She would have to pretend to be happy that Risa and Sef were to be bondmates, and she wondered if she had the strength for that. She tried to summon up the vision of her future self once more, the woman who had moved past this time, who would find a way to bring Sef to herself.
As she walked toward the house, the door opened. Risa stepped aside as Cbimene entered, then grabbed her by the shoulders.
“How could you do this?” Risa muttered. “You sneak out, you call the attention of the patrol to yourself—they must wonder just what kind of a household this is.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't want you to—”
“I went out looking for you ages ago with Sef, and a man on the patrol said you were in the main dome. I wanted to go there, but he insisted someone was watching you and he'd make sure you got home safely.” She let go of Chimene and stepped back. “Needless to say, I didn't want him thinking I couldn't trust the patrol to look out for you, so I came home. Sef wanted to wait up with me, but I didn't see why anyone else had to lose sleep over you.”
“I'm sorry,” Chimene said.
“That's all? You're sorry? I thought this would be such a wonderful day for us, and now—”
“I mean, I'm really sorry.” Chimene forced herself to look up at her mother. Risa was only another obstacle, one she could overcome. “You were right. I was hoping you and Malik might make another pledge, and that's why I was so upset. I just needed to be alone, to think about it all, but now I'm happy for you—really I am. I'm glad Sef'll be living with us, and Malik will feel the same way—I know that now.”
Risa blinked, apparently surprised. “Well. It seems you've come to your senses.”
“And I won't wander off like that again. I'm used to the Islands—I forgot about the patrol.”
They walked toward Risa's wing. “Good night, Chimene.” Risa kissed her on the forehead, then entered her own room. A small light was glowing in the corner; Chimene caught a glimpse of Sef's head against a pillow before the door closed. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath until the pain passed.
She pressed her door open. She would be the Guide, and Sef would be among those who would love her. Kichi had said so; it had to be true. She moved toward her bed, already dreaming of the destiny that awaited her.
Nineteen
Risa did not begin to make her way home until a couple of hours after dark. She strolled along the path that led past her neighbors’ houses, feeling mildly drained and a little bit drunk. A small group of people in front of one house were playing music on homemade stringed instruments while others danced; one young man took Risa's hands, spun her around, then let her go as she laughingly shook her head.
The year of 614 was ending; 615 would begin just after the twenty-fourth hour. Everyone in the domes and on the Islands would be celebrating, except for small crews of volunteers who would remain on duty at various installations in case they were needed, most of them older people who had seen their share of festivals. The people in Ishtar might complain that it was inappropriate for Cytherians to mark the passing of another year of the Nomarchies, but even they had joined in these festivities. Ishtar held its own more subdued celebrations to mark the passing of the shorter Venusian year, but it was easier for the settlements to keep to Earth's calendar.
She had seen no Habbers among the celebrants. There were fewer Habbers living in the Maxwell Mountains now anyway; most of those who remained on Venus's surface were up in the Freyja range, working with the Cytherians who had joined them there.
That stage of the Project had not gone as smoothly as expected, in spite of the Habbers’ efforts. After nearly fourteen years, only two connected domes had risen among the Freyja Mountains, with no more than a small mining and refining operation to show for all the work. Administrator Sigurd was slowing the pace deliberately.
She could guess, however, at Sigurd's motives. He might talk of the need for careful planning, but what he really wanted was a continuing Habber presence. When the settlers had more of an industrial base, they would also be more self-sufficient; Ishtar would increase its demands that the Habbers at last be expelled from the Project or limited to a few observers. It was part of Sigurd's game—balancing Habbers against Ishtar's influence and both groups against those on Earth who feared the settlers might grow too independent. It was a balancing act designed to give the settlers as much freedom as possible for now.
&
nbsp; Risa wondered how long the Administrator could go on with his game, treating all sides with sympathy and objectivity, leading them all to think that their various and conflicting desires could be met by keeping him in his position. Perhaps his power was not all be wanted to retain; he might also want to keep his Habber woman near him. She could not know; Sigurd had not shared many of his thoughts with her for some time. He still answered her calls and murmured a few words of praise for Malik's latest lectures before he listened to her talk of Oberg's affairs, but their discussions remained impersonal. She, along with Kichi Timsen, Yakov Serba, and several people in the other settlements, were only pieces in his game, individuals to be cultivated in case they might be useful.
Sigurd probably thought she might run for the Oberg Council again; he had implied that she and her former colleagues had been punished enough. He did not see that once she had overcome the shame she felt earlier, she was happier as she was. She had regretted her actions mostly because they had driven Malik from her, but that was past. She had her work, her household, and her two children with Sef; she found it easy to refuse those who sometimes asked her to run for the Council.
Sef was sitting outside near the greenhouse. Their daughter, Eleta, lay on a blanket fast asleep; Dyami, their son, was playing cat's cradle with Bettina. As Risa approached, he handed the string to Bettina and smiled. Dyami had his father's smile and his flared cheekbones; his thick reddish-brown hair was only slightly darker than Sef's, and he moved in the same deliberate way. But his brown eyes lacked Sef's open, friendly gaze; Dyami's expression was more guarded.
“Irina's staying with Noella's children tonight,” Risa said. “Apparently they're having a party later—I didn't think Kolya and Emilia would mind.” She removed the sling from her shoulder and handed Sef a bottle. “A present from Andy Dinel, along with his best wishes for the coming year.”
“Damn,” Sef muttered. “We didn't give his household anything, did we?”
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