Mukhtar Kaseko, after playing his role of crafty benefactor, had departed with his people for Earth. Benzi had intended to stay on Anwara only until the hearings were over. They had gone on for nearly two months. The embittered statements of accusers and the unrepentant, self-justifying defenses of many of the accused had sickened him, reminding him of all the things he wanted to escape.
The worst were the hearings held in Turing. The people there had carefully assembled their evidence, knowing that if they did not prove their case, they themselves might be held to account for the violence they had unleashed against their captors. Scanner records of damaged bodies showing the effects of abuse had been displayed. Some former prisoners spoke in toneless voices of their beatings, rapes, deprivations, and torture, while others could barely be understood through their weeping. A man in charge of the Turing patrol had foolishly kept recordings indicating that his people had been given free rein with their prisoners. The turning point in those hearings had come when a few on the patrol, hoping for mercy for themselves, verified many of the worst stories.
Earth had finally agreed to take the accused in Turing and some of the worst offenders in other settlements, promising confinement and sessions with Counselors. Benzi had his doubts about that proposed punishment, and suspected that some of the condemned would disappear once they reached the home world. A few might have been Earth's agents all along, and now the Mukhtars and Guardians had reason to silence them for good.
All the negotiating, the subterfuge, and the stories he had heard left Benzi longing to return to his Habitat. Chen was gone; he did not have to keep an old promise to him. Benzi remained unmoved even after a vast majority of the Cytherians had voted in favor of asking the Habbers to return to Venus. It had taken a brief message from Risa Liangharad, the sister he had never seen, to make him decide to stay, at least for a while.
Risa did not mention the referendum. She wanted Benzi to see his father's house and to hear about Chen's life there from those who had loved him. She wanted to share her memories, which were all she had left of some of the people she had loved.
Was it only curiosity and an old promise that had brought him here? Or was it that Risa had reminded him of bonds he thought he had shed? Somehow, he felt that if he left now, he would be repudiating the efforts of Habbers to reach out to these people. By denying what was left of his own family, he might be rejecting the greater human family of which they were a part, and with whom his people might still find a common destiny.
* * * *
Benzi and the five Habbers traveling with him to Oberg were greeted outside the bay by Risa and a man named Dalal Singh. Both were members of Oberg's Council, there to welcome them officially. Risa kept her eyes averted from Benzi, apparently content to take refuge in formalities during their first meeting; he could not tell what she was thinking.
When the short speech of welcome was over, the Habbers were led away from the bay toward a cluster of buildings overlooking the small grassy space. A few curious onlookers trailed them, but they did not seem anxious to engage them in conversation. Benzi felt uneasy under their gaze. Some might be people who still had their doubts about them, who had only reluctantly voted to allow them back.
They stopped in front of a small round building. “Habbers used to live here,” Dalal Singh said. “We've done what we can to make it ready for you, but if there's anything else you require, please let the Council know. You'll have to excuse me now—we're still trying to resume normal operations, and I have other duties.”
“Thank you,” Czeslaw replied. “We'll look forward to meeting with the Council soon to discuss how we can best be of service.”
Dalal bowed a little, then hurried away. Risa remained behind; she was gazing directly at Benzi now. She had Chen's dark hair and pale brown skin, but her small rounded body was Iris's, as was her broad-boned face. Her hair was beginning to gray a little, and lines were etched around her large, almond-shaped brown eyes.
“May I speak to you?” she said a bit stiffly.
“Of course. Would you like to come inside? We could talk while I store my belongings.”
“Maybe you'd rather walk. I can show you a little of Oberg.” She seemed uncertain about entering the residence.
“Very well. I'd enjoy that.” He handed his bag to Czeslaw and followed her away from the building; she was leading him back toward the main road. He grew conscious of the dome overhead, the gardened landscape that resembled and yet was so different from the hollow at the Habitat's center. Here, he could not look up and see the land curving above, or imagine the openness and vastness of the space beyond the Habitat's corridors.
“I hope,” Benzi said, “it isn't awkward for you, having a brother who's a Habber.”
“A brother. From the way you look, you might be my son.”
“We live long lives on the Habs.”
She said, “Some say you never die.”
“That isn't entirely true. We can lose ourselves eventually.” He did not explain. She might not see giving up many of one's memories, or persisting as a pattern of thought inside cyberminds, as death. “We also have our accidents. Like you, we have to depend on an environment we've built and must maintain.”
“I didn't understand what you did for a long time,” Risa said. “I might as well admit that. Habbers were only people who brought grief to my father by luring his son away. But I think I can understand you a bit more now. After what's happened here, you must feel that you made the right choice.”
“But I've chosen to come here now.”
“I wonder how much good it'll do,” she said. “We never change, do we, people like us. We came here to make something better and look what we've done. We just go on making the same mistakes—Earth's mistakes, the ones we thought we'd never repeat.”
“You shouldn't look at it that way,” Benzi said, “There was a time when a man such as Kaseko Wugabe would have been incapable of resolving a conflict peacefully. There are restraints on such people now, one of them being their knowledge of their history and what fighting brought to Earth in the past. Earth can be made to back away from such battles now, to see how much might be lost otherwise. Maybe your people have also learned from what's happened here.”
“Until we slip again.”
“You might,” he said, “but probably not as far.”
“Not that it matters to you. It's all so theoretical to your people. You can always run away from it.”
“No, we can't,” he answered. “That's what we've learned.”
They crossed the main road and entered a grove of trees. He saw a low wall and the darkness of the dome above it. “We've been told,” she said, “that most of the Islanders who fled to the Hab before will return to carry on their work here.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know if Malik Haddad will be among them?”
He glanced at his sister. “No, he won't.”
“So he's happy among your people then.”
Happy? Benzi frowned a little. Adrift was a more accurate description. His friend Te-yu called Malik a lost soul, haunted by the past, uncertain of his future. “He's not unhappy,” he said. “I think he may choose to visit Venus someday but maybe not until some of his memories have faded.”
“Perhaps you remember the message you sent to Chen from Anwara,” she said, “before Malik arrived here. Chen put in a request for his services as a teacher in our dome. That's how he came to live with us. You must find it odd that one message from you could have altered our lives so much.”
He felt a twinge; maybe that was another reason he had come back.
They were near a clearing; a pillar lay ahead. Benzi was close to it before he recognized his mother's face on the monument. His eyes fell to the inscription that spoke of Iris's sacrifice.
“I thought you might want to see Iris's memorial,” Risa murmured. “Chen's image is over there among the memorial pillars.” Benzi stared at his feet as he recoiled inwardly from these monuments
to death. “Maybe I was mistaken,” she continued. “To Habbers, I suppose any death seems too soon.”
He took her arm. “I'd like to hear about my father's life here, and your own. You said in your message that I might come to your house. Maybe I could stay there with you while I'm here, in the place where Chen lived. I won't be in Oberg very long, as I told you in my reply to your message. It seems I'll be more useful on Island Two.”
She was silent for a while. Perhaps he was pushing too much, assuming she would welcome him into her household for a time. She turned toward him and smiled a little. “So you'd like to hear about the life you might have shared,” she said. “Maybe you should stay in my house. It might set a useful example, having a Habber as a guest. Maybe if your people and mine shared more of our lives, we wouldn't be so quick to distrust you again.”
“Perhaps.”
“And what will you be doing on Island Two?”
“I'm not entirely sure yet,” he said. It was too soon to talk of his own hopes, his dream that his people might eventually look out to the stars and voyage beyond this solar system. If they did, they might need companions on their journey, people forged by this world who were unafraid of that challenge and would welcome it, men and women who would teach their fellow Cytherians to look beyond the clouds and the darkness that hid the heavens from them. “I've spent my recent years learning more physics, and I was once a pilot here. I'm sure some use will be found for me.”
“Well.” She released his arm. “I never thought I'd actually see you, Benzi. I assumed you'd always be just a name and a few stories Chen told me about you. I'm still not sure how I feel.”
“Neither am I.”
“I wish you could have seen a sister who wasn't just an aging woman burdened by the sorts of sorrows you probably can't understand.” Risa waved at the other memorials. “There's an image of my daughter Eleta over there—she died of the fever when she was only a child, the fever some blamed on your people. My other daughter took her own life, and though some are calling it a noble act, it doesn't erase my pain.” She lowered her voice. “And my only surviving child has become a man I hardly know.”
Benzi had seen her son Dyami on the screen, during the hearings, a man whose eyes seemed as cold and empty as the eyes of those Dyami had accused. He had not looked like the sensitive young man Benzi's friend Balin remembered.
“And now I have to decide—” Risa shoved her hands into the pockets of her gray tunic. “But that isn't your concern. You'll have to excuse me, Benzi—I hardly find my brother before I have to load my troubles onto his back. I'll come by your residence before last light, and we can go to my house then. I promise you that you'll find a little more cheer among my housemates. Paul Bettinas can tell you about his mother—she was a Plainswoman, like Iris, and she and Chen had many happy years together.” Her voice broke off; she left him and went toward the wall.
He hesitated. He could retreat from Risa's worries, go back to the Habber quarters, compose himself before he went to her house. He could open his Link, commune with his friends and the minds of his Habitat; this woman's life did not require his involvement. He could simply listen to her stories and tell her a little about his own life. She was little more than a stranger with whom he shared a genetic heritage.
Benzi walked toward her; she turned and leaned against the wall. “Maybe you should tell me what you have to decide,” he said. “At least I can listen, and I may be able to help.”
“I doubt that you can help me with this.” She sighed. “Chimene was planning to have a child before—” Risa folded her arms and looked away for a moment. “The embryo's frozen at the moment. It's Chimene's daughter—and Boaz Huerta's. As the nearest relative, I can decide to raise her myself or I can give her up to someone else. If I do nothing, the situation will eventually take care of itself, one way or the other.”
“I see.” He understood the dilemma. The technology to maintain the embryo was available; as long as it remained viable and healthy, it had to be maintained. Ending its existence was not really a choice as long as the embryo's existence did not conflict with the rights of others. Even so, if Risa waited to make a decision, an emergency might require the use of the cryonic chamber now holding that embryo, and if no ectogenetic chamber was available for it then, the matter would be settled by disposing of the potential child. It was not the kind of problem Habbers, with their greater resources, had to face.
“I don't know what to do,” Risa said. “That child is part of my line—I couldn't bear to give her up to someone else and have her learn that her own people didn't want her. But my son has made it fairly clear to my bondmate that he wants nothing to do with her. Dyami would like to see every trace of Chimene vanish from this world, and after what he's endured, I can't really blame him. I think I'd lose him altogether if I brought the child into my house.”
“He'd blame the child for what its parents did?”
“Blame her? I don't know, but I doubt he'd want anything to do with her or with me. The girl would have to live with that, too.”
“I'm sorry, Risa. I don't know what to tell you.”
“Maybe you think I'm feeling guilt, or that raising her would be a means of making up for any way I might have failed Chimene.” Risa raised her head. “But it isn't just that. We can't keep dwelling on the past and nurturing all our hatreds, or we won't have learned anything from what's happened. I feel that if I refuse to care for that potential child, it's like saying there's no hope for us, that being reconciled is impossible. Does that make any sense to you at all?”
“Yes, it does.” A possible solution to her problem was beginning to form in his mind, but he did not know if he was ready to suggest it. Benzi was beginning to regret his decision to talk to her. These concerns were not his; perhaps coming here had been a mistake. He had thought in an abstract way about helping the Cytherians; he had not intended to be drawn into his sister's life.
Risa wiped at her eyes. “Maybe you should go back to your quarters now. I'll come by later—that is, if you still want to stay with me.”
He found himself reaching for her arm. “We'll walk back together,” he said.
* * * *
Dyami knew, before he left the refinery, that Balin would be waiting for him. An airship had arrived a few hours earlier, bringing several Habbers who hoped to see their old friends. Maybe Balin would be visiting with someone else; Dyami might be able to make it back to his tent unobserved. Balin would find him eventually, but by then Dyami might have thought of what to say.
Yet when he came outside, Balin was standing beside the wide main road; a slender woman with long reddish hair was at his side. Balin turned, then hurried toward him. Dyami tensed as the other man clutched at his arms; for a moment, he feared he might be embraced.
Balin released him, but he was still searching Dyami's face with concerned, unhappy eyes. His curly dark hair was a little longer, but otherwise he seemed unchanged. Perhaps he was another one who thought they could all go on as they had before.
Balin drew the woman toward him. “My friend, Tesia,” he murmured. “This is Dyami Liang-Talis.”
“Yes, I know,” she said; perhaps she had seen him on a screen during the hearings. He recognized her name now; she was the Habber Sigurd had loved.
“I'm sorry,” he said at last. “I wish Sigurd were here to greet you.” He did not know what else to say.
“Perhaps you—” She lowered her head. “I'd like to see where he spent his last days. I loved him very much. I begged him to come with us when we left, but he refused—he said he couldn't abandon his world.”
“Come with me.” He led them along the road toward the tunnel, without speaking. A cart rolled past them, laden with cargo, but Balin and Tesia seemed content to walk the distance.
“Did he say anything about me at all?” the woman asked as they entered the tunnel. “Did he mention anything to you?”
He had never heard Sigurd speak of her here; the Administrator
had not talked of the past at all. He was about to say so, then changed his mind. “Yes, he did,” Dyami replied. “He didn't say much, only that he loved you and that your years together were happy. He didn't regret that.” Sigurd might have said such words; he had probably thought of her often.
They came to the rise outside the tunnel and ascended. In the hollow where the dining hall still stood, the foundations for a few houses had already been finished. The two dormitories near them would be torn down and some of their materials used for other dwellings, when more houses had been built; the houses the patrol had used had already been taken apart. A few of Dyami's friends caught sight of Balin and waved.
Dyami turned toward the grassy mound that lay to his right. “We buried Sigurd there,” he said, “along with other friends who fell. We'll be designing some sort of memorial for them as soon—”
Tesia's hazel eyes widened. “I don't want to see his grave,” she whispered. “Take me to the place where he died, where he had his last moments of life.”
Balin reached for Tesia's arm. “Are you sure—”
“I want to see it.”
“I'll take you,” Dyami said. “I'm going in that direction anyway.”
They walked toward the creek, past a few partly built houses and several tents. The people there raised their hands in greeting, then averted their eyes from Tesia's pale, griefstricken face.
“Sigurd inspired us,” Dyami went on. “It wasn't discussed that much at the hearing, but others here will tell you it's true. When he was sent here—he and the other Linkers—we were almost ready to give up any hope. He convinced us that we had to find a way—that there was a way—of fighting for ourselves, that we couldn't wait for help from outside. We'd been hoping for that, you see, thinking that if we just did our best to survive, things would change. If we'd waited for that, things might have been a lot worse for us. Sigurd was a great man in his way.”
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