Venus of Dreams

by Pamela Sargent

  Chen set his cup down. “I’d give you one if you wanted, and if I thought — I mean, I want you with me. I’d want the child with me too.” He stroked her hair. “There has to be a way.” His fingers dug into her arms. “Maybe there is.”

  “How?” She knew that she should not be asking, that she should be trying to talk him out of such madness.

  “I can carve. Angharad’s been telling me for the past week that other women in town want them, my carvings. That could pay for anything I have to spend here later. I could stay with you and the child then, whenever —”

  She shook off his arms. “You fool. You’d still leave eventually, especially if you get a chance to go back to the Project. With a child, I’d never leave. Is that what you want?” She glared at him, wondering why she had ever thought that he was unlike other men.

  “Don’t you see? If we had a child, then, when the time came for me to go back to the Islands, you both could come along. They like having families there — it gives people something to work for.” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve taken enough lessons to be trained for a job of some sort there. They’d have to let you come.”

  “Families. My family’s here.”

  “I mean we could be bondmates, with a child. We could have a bond. You wouldn’t be just a woman who had my child, you’d be my bondmate. They respect such contracts on the Islands. And you care about the Project — they need that. If we had a bond —”

  She jumped to her feet, horrified. “Never. Not a bond. You must be mad.”

  Chen stood up, grabbing her arms. “Listen to me. A bond with me, and a child — it’s your way out.” He shook her. “I love you. You don’t know what a risk I’m taking just to think of such a thing. Do you think you’d be the only one taking a chance?”

  “A bond,” she said, struggling for breath. “You must know how impossible that is. Angharad would die. She might even throw me out of the commune. What would I do then?”

  “It’s our chance. Don’t you see? At least we can try. I thought you cared about the Project, that you were like me, that you wanted that. Maybe it was only talk.”

  “Oh, Chen. You know it wasn’t.”

  “You love me,” he said. “I know you do.”

  “Not like that.”

  He pulled her toward him. “You do. Look at me and tell me you’d let me leave and you’d forget me.”

  She opened her mouth; an invisible band around her throat was blocking her words. She couldn’t say it. Mary, help me, she thought. I’d make the pledge to keep him, I’d make it to get away from here and have what I want. He’s the only one who knows me, who has the same dream I do — I can’t lose him now, or I’ll never get out. Her vision blurred; she felt as though she were about to faint.

  “You’d come to love me that way,” he said. “At least give it a chance. Bonds can be broken later, they can lapse. And it’s a chance for you to have what you want. You may not get another one.”

  She buried her head against his shirt, trying not to cry, knowing that she would agree.

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  Twelve

  “You fool,” Nancy Fassi said.

  Chen gazed steadily at the small image. He imagined himself reaching into the screen and crushing the woman’s tiny head. He had left Angharad’s house after supper, telling the women that he had a task to complete at the town hall before he slept; he would not have dared to make this particular call from the house.

  “I know these Plainsfolk,” the Linker went on. “They almost never take bondmates, and the few who do are the objects of scorn. You’ll draw attention, and that’s exactly what we don’t want.”

  “I love her,” Chen said.

  “You love her.” Nancy sneered. “Idiot. I’d pull you out of there now if it wouldn’t cause even more talk.”

  “I want her, and we’re going to have a child. Listen to me. I have even more reason to keep silent now, to protect Iris. I’ll do my work and come back here during my time off when I can, but I won’t say anything to anyone. Don’t you see? It isn’t just my life you hold now, it’s Iris’s as well.”

  “You surprise me, Chen.” Nancy rested her chin on one hand. “And just how much have you told this young woman?”

  “Nothing. She doesn’t know anything. I don’t want her to know why I was sent here. She might turn away from me if she did, and if she told anyone else, I’d be in danger.”

  “True enough.” The woman was silent for a moment, apparently listening to her Link. “This Iris Angharads — she seems clever, according to her records. She might be able to learn more about you than you realize.” She paused. “Why not let her have the child without a bond?”

  “You can guess.”

  Nancy showed her teeth. “You want to take her with you to the Project. Well.” Her fingers drummed against her desk. “You’re smarter and greedier than I thought. I can’t stop you without jeopardizing this entire enterprise. We’d have to have another worker to take your place, and my colleagues would certainly call my judgment into question then.” She bit her lip. “Just what do you intend to do if the girl’s mother disinherits her? She can’t travel with you on your jobs.”

  Chen was silent.

  “You son of a bitch. You think we’d have to send you both back to the Islands then, don’t you? Well, you’re wrong. We won’t do a thing for you if you don’t fulfill your responsibilities to us.”

  “Angharad Julias won’t disinherit her daughter, whatever she thinks. She has her position here to protect, and her line. She’ll want to keep the whole matter as quiet as possible.”

  Nancy’s dark eyes had a cold, hard look; he imagined that her Link was barely keeping her rage under control. “And you know I’m powerless to stop you without putting myself at risk — why, I’ll have to help you get what you want, just to keep you happily doing what we want.” She let out a breath. “Do what you want, and be damned.”

  The image winked out. Chen pressed a key under the screen, erasing the record of the conversation. He had made the call from the locked Counselor’s room, and the Counselor was not likely to check records of calls made during the winter, but it was best to be cautious.

  He stood up, rubbing his temples. His heart was racing; his neck was stiff with tension. He could still turn back; he could tell Nancy that he had changed his mind. But she was already angry with him; changing his mind now would not alter that fact. He had spoken with more confidence than he felt. If he were wrong about Angharad, and Iris was disinherited, the woman he loved would soon learn to hate him for what he had brought her. But if he were right —

  I love you, he thought, seeing Iris’s face and then remembering the darkness at the edge of the Island he had left. I love you, and you’ll never know how much. He could no longer imagine a life on the Islands without her; he could not reach for his dream while denying it to the young woman who shared it with him. The dream would be poisoned for him. Perhaps, he thought grimly, it was poisoned already. He stared at his hands, thinking of the device they had installed in the nearby door.

  He might be bringing only pain to Iris. Guilt stabbed him. He shook off the feeling. She had chosen to take the risk. She had agreed to a bond, and he knew what that must have cost her.

  Their bodies were still. Iris curled up at Chen’s side, her arm around his waist, sure that a child had already been started inside her.

  They had gone to Letty Charlottes the day before. The physician had removed their contraceptive implants from their arms after doing a genetic scan and finding no potential problems there. Letty had explained the scan to them both, had gestured at the specks and swirls on the screen with one slender finger as she spoke of a few possible gene transplants that might be necessary if the embryo carried certain traits. She had praised both Iris and Chen for their health, almost as if they, rather than centuries of genetic tinkering, were responsible for it.

  The talk at supper had been bawdy and cheerful; Angharad had laughed when the o
thers began to call her “grandmother.” Only Julia had seemed somber. Iris was sure that her grandmother believed that she was throwing her life away, that she had given up her dream of travel and more study.

  Iris shivered. Chen stirred; she clung to him more tightly. They would wait until they knew she was pregnant, and then they would speak to Angharad when it was too late for protests.

  I’m going to do this, she thought. I’m going against everything I’ve been taught, my studies were nothing compared to this. Angharad would call a bond enslavement. But Mary had a bond with a man, didn’t She? Once, the church taught that we should all have bonds or else should live as priests do. Other people have bonds; they think we’re strange for not wedding others. Angharad thinks the Plains are the world, and they’re not.

  Mary had a bond, even though Her Child was not Her mate’s. Some Linkers have bonds. Some Linkers don’t even have children as we do, and follow the ways of Habbers, who take the embryo from the mother and put it aside until it’s ready to be born. Why shouldn’t I be able to do the same? Why should my belly swell until the time when the pains start? Why should I be turned into a womb for nine months?

  Why should I follow my customs instead of others’? Why can’t I live as I want to instead of the way others think is best?

  She could ask all the questions she wanted to, and that would not change how she felt. Her decision would separate her from those she knew even before she left this town, if she ever left. Maybe her mother wouldn’t drive her away. Maybe she would only force Chen to leave, and would keep Iris here, imprisoned. A specialist could be called. Those in other Nomarchies might follow different ways because Earth, knowing how stultifying too much uniformity could be, had encouraged cultural diversity. But the Mukhtars and Linkers could not afford too many nonconformists within each realm; such people could be dangerous and create tensions. A specialist could find ways to bend Iris to her mother’s will.

  None of that mattered. Without Chen, she would have no chance to leave the Plains, no way of reaching the Islands.

  Iris pressed her cheek against Chen’s shoulder. She cared for him; she would be unhappy if she never saw him again. But her feelings for him would never have brought her to this, even if they had been as strong as his own. It was only the promise he had made, that he would take her to the Islands with him, that had convinced her. Perhaps Chen loved that dream even more than he loved her. If he had to choose between them, she was sure she knew what his choice would he.

  I love you in my own way, she thought, but I don’t love you enough. You’re only my way out. She closed her eyes, feeling tears well up under her lids.

  Iris and Chen entered the common room. Constance looked up expectantly; LaDonna opened her mouth, as if about to speak. Tyree was sprawled on the floor, playing with a pocket puzzle while his sister Mira watched.

  “Well?” LaDonna said. “What’s the story? What did Letty say?”

  “I’m pregnant,” Iris announced.

  Constance beamed. “Wonderful!” The blond woman lifted her glass. “Very quick work, I must say,” She grinned at Chen, who lowered his eyes, embarrassed but proud. “Oh, I hope I can start a child next year, give yours a playmate. You never told us — did you choose a boy or a girl?”

  “A boy,” Chen replied. Iris had talked him into that, insisting that he have the injection that would ensure it. He had argued for a daughter until Iris had pointed out that leaving with a daughter, a possible heir to the farm, would only cause her mother even more pain.

  “I must have a daughter, then,” Constance replied. “I wanted one anyway. A girl will always be with me.” She arched her brows. “They’ll have a lot of fun together, I’m sure.”

  “Come here,” Wenda said from the corner. Chen led Iris over to the old woman. He was nervous around Wenda, often wondering if she could see his thoughts; he had heard of her reputation as a seer. She was a little like him; her eyes saw what others did not.

  Wenda put her gnarled hands on Iris’s abdomen. “I usually tell a fortune before a child is born,” she explained to Chen, “and another after it’s born. Let’s see what your child has to tell me.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, glancing from Chen’s face to Iris. “He will wander. That I can tell you.”

  Iris’s mouth twisted. “Most men wander. You’re telling me what everyone knows.”

  “But this one will wander far, so far that I cannot see where his path leads.”

  Chen fidgeted, feeling foolish for having feared Wenda’s words. A half-empty bottle of whiskey stood on the small table with Wenda’s glass; the old woman was sodden with drink. She would say nothing of interest.

  “You haven’t told us much,” Chen said lightly.

  “He will wander far, but he may return.” The wrinkles around her eyes deepened as she squinted. “Now I must speak of the mother. I see a destination hidden by clouds, covered in darkness. Iris is walking toward it and the child is with her. The clouds are thick. Iris is looking for something, thinking she’ll find it when the clouds lift.” Iris started; Chen grabbed her hand. “Beware of your dream. It will lead you away from all that you love.”

  Iris choked out a laugh. “What nonsense,” she said. Chen noticed that her hand was shaking.

  “Where’s Angharad?” he asked quickly.

  “In her room,” LaDonna answered, “going over the accounts.”

  Chen tugged at Iris. “We should tell her.” Iris’s eyes widened. “Now,” he finished.

  “Beware,” Constance intoned. “Wenda, I think you’re losing your touch. I never heard you give a prophecy like that before.”

  Iris and Chen hurried from the room. When they were halfway up the stairs, Iris halted and leaned against the railing. “She knows,” she whispered.

  “She doesn’t. It’s just an old woman’s babbling. Come on.”

  “I can’t. I can’t do this to my mother.”

  “We have to tell her. You don’t have to say much — I’ll talk to her. You know what we agreed. It’ll be over soon. It won’t be as bad as you think.” He hoped he was right.

  Angharad watched her screen, listening as a voice chanted amounts that had been spent and what the credit had bought. Angharad had only a shaky grasp of numbers, which, past a certain point, blurred into indistinct quantities almost impossible to understand, but she had some knowledge of the charts that accompanied the recitation. Yes, the blue line still exceeded the red; the farm was doing well. The image changed as she listened to projected crop yields and stared at other lines. Even with a mediocre yield, they would still be ahead after the next harvest. But credit did no one any good sitting around unused. Perhaps she could add a room or two to the house, prepare for the next generation that was now sure to come.

  That thought, instead of cheering her, made her pensive. Angharad blinked, staring at the screen without seeing what was there. The inexplicable sadness that sometimes gripped her was reaching out for her again; that was happening too often lately, especially when she was alone. It was easier to keep the dark thoughts at bay in the company of people, even with the strain of maintaining a decisive manner in front of others. Alone, she could wear no mask. Sometimes, the sadness even drove her to prayer — not the usual prayers, which she rattled off automatically, but the heartfelt ones that an old woman doing penance for the many sins of youth might have uttered.

  Angharad feared for the future of her line. Sometimes, when she was alone in bed waiting for the whiskey inside her to bring sleep, she saw that line narrowing farther until there were no descendants at all.

  She had always known how unwillingly Julia had returned to Lincoln. Julia had been as distant as a mother could be on the Plains, and had left much of Angharad’s upbringing to her own mother, Gwen. Angharad had grown up under Julia’s cold gaze determined to elicit some warmth from that chilly presence; she had wanted Julia’s love instead of her resentment. Angharad had not even been twenty when Julia had finally turned the farm over
to her; she had believed then that the gesture was Julia’s way of showing faith in her daughter, and that the older woman had come to feel some contentment at last.

  But Julia, she saw now, had never cared about the farm; she had simply not wanted to be bothered with it any longer. She had let Angharad shoulder the burden; even worse, she had filled Iris’s head with silly ideas and had encouraged the girl along a path that made Angharad’s own life, lived for her daughter and the farm, seem useless.

  Their line had sprung from the ashes of a nearly ruined world. Tribes that had roamed the Plains in ancient times, and farmers who had fed the world even before the rise of the Mukhtars, had been among Angharad’s ancestors. The world had not been able to destroy them, and their ability to survive had showed their strength.

  But Angharad could see the future in the bits of data her screen and band conveyed to her. The world needed fewer fanners with each passing generation; the Mukhtars, through the Counselors and their advice, were pruning the branches of many Plains lines. Fewer farmers grew up to replace the old; even in Lincoln, a few farms had combined households, had merged into one commune, with a few of their lines coming to an end at last.

  A time might come when Lincoln would be no more than greenhouses, hydroponic vats, glass cases of cloned animal tissue, and reapers powered by cyberminds. A way of life would end, and the world would not mourn it. Angharad had seen what might be coming, and had tried to deny it.

  Her limbs were heavy; her body seemed welded to her chair. She could not rise; she could not will herself to rise. She was empty, her body no more than a shell around nothingness. At such times, when her black thoughts claimed her, she thought of her grandmother Gwen.

  Gwen had died too soon. She had died in a foolish accident on the stairs, too drunk to see where she was stepping; she had died alone as the household slept. Angharad had found her body in the hallway below; it had been too late to summon the physician, too late to mend the broken body. They had blamed the mishap on a loose step, but Angharad knew the truth; Gwen had sought oblivion in one way, and had found it in another. She could still see Gwen’s pale, sightless eyes and twisted neck. Perhaps Gwen had endured dark thoughts that had driven her to drink; perhaps she had glimpsed the future of the Plains in Julia’s cold gaze.