Venus of Dreams

by Pamela Sargent

  She had resolved to think only of her work on the Project, to ignore the slights of those who doubted her, and to put aside any thought of rising to a position of importance again. She had avoided contact with any Administrator. Gradually, some of the workers she lived among had come to trust her; she became an intermediary between a few of them and their children, some of whom were taking advantage of the Island schools and the chance to become more than workers. Occasionally, she had interceded for the workers with some of the specialists who directed them, and she had found that the specialists, whatever they had thought of her before, were willing to pay heed to her because she was, after all, one of them.

  She was again a liaison. Though she had no title and no official standing, she had some small influence; her lack of ambition had earned the trust of others. It was odd; the more she tried to shy away from representing others, the more they thrust themselves upon her. Without a formal position, she was free to appeal privately as one individual to another, to go before any Committee and say what she thought about a particular case. Even Pavel Gvishiani and his colleagues would grant her a meeting and a favor on occasion, since she could help them to resolve problems they might otherwise have been forced to handle themselves.

  She had made her observations. The small sensors in her suit had recorded any minute changes in the climate and temperature under the dome. She had not needed to come here, but the Project, sensitive to complaints from Earth about the cost of maintaining people with little to do except tend machines and wait, used any excuse to show that those on the Islands were necessary, and she had been sent here to make her observations directly.

  Earth was paying dearly for salving its pride with the expulsion of most of the Habbers. The Nomarchies should have been throwing as much as possible into the Project now to make up for the loss, but Earth could not drain off any more of its resources for the Project. Discouraged people had already begun to leave the Islands, and there was a rumor that Earth had considered sending others home. That possibility had united most of the Islanders who remained; even the Administrators had been heard to utter angry words about their colleagues on the home world.

  Iris was already dreading her return to the Islands. She had postponed one meeting with a few workers who wanted to speak with her. What could she tell them? What could she possibly do? They would not want to hear the truth — that a long time might pass before even their children could settle this world.

  The cabin door opened as Aryeh ben-Samuel came inside. He stamped his feet as he took off his helmet. “I think I feel the heat even in this suit,” he said as he set his helmet on the floor next to hers. “Sometimes I can just feel the ground burning through my soles.” He shrugged out of his air recycler.

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Not by much.” He sighed. “Damn the Administrators. They know what Earth wants to hear, so they load their projections with so many favorable assumptions that they almost get me believing them, and then they wonder why people get impatient for results.” He glanced at the sleeping pilot, then lowered his voice. “I used to wonder about the ones who began this Project, who knew they’d never see people settle here. I admired them, but I pitied them too. Now I think they had it easier, in a way. We’re so close, but just not close enough. It’s worse than knowing from the start that you won’t see results.”

  Iris leaned back. They had only two completed domes, and a third that would soon be finished. If only Earth could see that they needed the Habbers now. The Mukhtars would still control the Project, and the Islanders would learn much from the Habbers. It wouldn’t matter to the settlers who had built the domes, and the Nomarchies could take most of the credit in the end. Even she, who had lost a son to the Habbers, had come to see all of that.

  She said, “Sometimes I think we live too long.” Aryeh tilted his head as he gazed at her skeptically. “We can think there’s time enough for everything we want to come to us. Long ago, most people willingly built a future they knew they would never see, and they accepted that, and yet we think the Project’s originators were so exceptional.”

  “I’ve heard that the Administrators are already talking about who to send back to Earth first.” Aryeh brushed back his thick, curly brown hair. “You can bet it won’t be any of them. Maybe they should hold a lottery.” He chuckled. “That might be the fairest way. Of course, no one but the Linkers would know if the results were rigged or not.”

  Iris sighed. If the Project could not make more progress soon, and it was hardly likely that they could when Earth could not give them what they needed, they might return to the more conservative plan of gardening the atmosphere and waiting out the centuries it would take before the Islands could safely float down to the surface. Her own dream would end.

  She had thought of Lincoln more often lately, wondering if she could ever pick up the threads of her old life. Old Wenda was dead; Julia was growing older. Angharad had lost her position as mayor; she would have more time to spend with her daughter. Maybe it would be better to return now instead of waiting for the inevitable. She would have the farm, and many stories to tell Laiza and her other friends; it would not be a bad life.

  She gazed at the screen above the sleeping Hussein and saw a bay which might become only a graveyard for the machines Earth had sent, the resources that were not enough. Her own hopes might also be buried here someday, but she had learned to take some joy in her present life without looking as much to the future. She wondered if this was a sign of wisdom, or only the sign of a woman growing older who would take what consolation she could from her life.

  “I’ve thought of going back to Earth sometimes,” Iris said aloud.

  “A lot of people have,” Aryeh replied. “They’re tired of the waiting. They think of their old lives and remember only the good. It’s different for me.” Aryeh’s family, she knew, had been on the Islands for nearly two centuries. He stood up. “Hussein!”

  The pilot opened his eyes and sat up.

  “We might as well head back now. Nelli told me she’d come back with the geologists, so we needn’t wait.”

  Hussein nodded and turned to his panels. In the bay, a wall slid down from the ceiling and touched the floor; the cradles were now separated from the rest of the bay. The cradle holding Iris’s ship began to rise slowly as atmosphere cycled inside. At last the ceiling overhead slid open; the ship rose toward the dark clouds.

  A Guardian was lounging near the entrance to the Island airship bay. Iris recognized his long face and sad brown eyes, and could not bring herself to scowl at him. The young man was often seen lurking near the workers’ residence, and Iris knew that a young woman in a room near hers often slipped out to see him. Like some of the other Guardians, the man seemed to regard himself almost as an Islander, and such Guardians caused less trouble when their tentative gestures of friendliness were returned with kindness. She wondered if Earth and the Guardian commander had foreseen that possibility; Guardians with friends on the Islands might develop divided loyalties.

  She nodded at the Guardian as she walked through the open entrance. As she had feared, two workers, along with Charles Eves, were waiting for her. She could tell by their stern expressions that they had a complaint; she masked her annoyance with a smile.

  “I know you and Eleanor are acquainted,” Charles said as he waved at the short, blond woman. Iris’s smile faded; Eleanor Surrey was one person she usually tried to avoid. “And this is Yeh Tu-sen.” The tall Chinese woman nodded. “We’d like a few words with you.”

  Iris let out her breath. “I’m tired and hungry right now, and I have to make out a report. Couldn’t it wait?”

  “No, it can’t. I’ll feed you.” He clutched her elbow with one beefy hand and began to usher her along the path. She distrusted the big man, who seemed as concerned with his position on the Workers’ Committee as with the welfare of those he was supposed to be serving. She knew that Charles had welcomed seeing Chen removed from that body, but he was
friendly enough to Iris when he thought there was something to gain.

  They soon came to a group of tables under ivied lattices, where they sat down as Charles began to order food from the small screen in the center of the table. “We can talk here,” he said when he had finished ordering.

  Iris had already noticed that workers were sitting at all of the other tables, and that all of them were looking at her. “Is this a meeting of some sort?” she asked.

  “You can call it what you like.” Charles rested his arms on the tabletop. “You can guess what we’re worried about.”

  “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

  “People are leaving,” Tu-sen said, “and they’re not bringing new people in. I got the figures from my screen. There’s room for over five hundred more people on this Island alone, and they’re not sending people to replace them.”

  “I sympathize,” Iris murmured. “I know how tiring it can be to see the same old faces all the time.” She glanced at Eleanor. “There’s hardly a face here I haven’t seen a hundred times. Even when I don’t know the name, I know the face.”

  “That’s not the point,” Tu-sen said; her pinched, narrow face was that of a person who rarely laughed. “Makes you think they’re just waiting for us all to give up. Then they’ll just shovel some shit about how the Project’ll go on and the dream’ll continue or something, but it won’t do us any good.”

  Two small apes hobbled over, carrying trays of food and drink. Eleanor grimaced as they set the food down. “Filthy things,” Eleanor muttered. “Bet they stuck their fingers into it. We should have gone over to the dispenser ourselves.”

  Charles cleared his throat. “We’re tired of waiting.”

  “I know that,” Iris said. “We all are.”

  “But we’re the ones who have the most to lose. The Administrators, most of them, would stay on the Islands whatever happened, but what’ll they do about us?”

  “They’ll still need some workers on the Bats,” Iris answered, “and for maintenance, and repairs here.”

  “But they won’t need as many of us. What about the people in hydroponics, or the nurseries? There won’t need to be as much food, there won’t be as many kids.” Charles widened his eyes, obviously trying to show how concerned he was for others. “Well, there’s a way we can have what we want.”

  Iris folded her hands, ignoring the plate of noodles and vegetables in front of her; she had lost her appetite. “And what is that?”

  “Freezing. We can be stored until it’s time to settle.” Charles glanced at Eleanor, who arched her brows; the round-faced woman had probably given him the idea, then allowed him to appropriate it. “Then it won’t matter how long we have to wait.”

  Iris tried not to show her dismay at the man’s ignorance. “You’d better talk to a biologist, Charles. It’s too risky. You could be damaged when you’re revived — there’s always that chance.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tu-sen asked. “People have been frozen before, lots of times.”

  “Isolated individuals, during an emergency, when there was no alternative,” Iris said. “They were people who had to be preserved until they could get medical attention. And they were frozen only for short periods, on a partly experimental basis. You may be talking about centuries, depending on what the Project Council decides to do. It’s never been tried.”

  “Babies are stored all the time,” Tu-sen muttered, “and sometimes for quite a while.”

  “Not infants — embryos and blastocysts. There’s a difference between freezing a few cells and preserving an adult, and occasionally even an embryo is lost. It’s why most medical people still prefer hibernation with adult patients, lowering the body’s temperature and slowing physical processes just enough to put someone into a deep sleep, rather than freezing.”

  “Freezing, sleeping,” Tu-sen said. “What’s the difference?” She glared at Iris, as if resenting her for her knowledge.

  Iris longed to utter a sharp retort about people who picked up bits and pieces of data from their screens and thought they knew everything, but restrained herself. “In one sense, there isn’t any difference,” she said, “namely, that neither method has been tried over a long period of time.”

  “We could take the chance,” Charles said, already sounding a little more uncertain. Those at the nearest tables were still listening, and others had moved their chairs closer to Iris.

  “Be practical.” Iris put her hands on the table, palms down. “How much do you think the Nomarchies would have to spend to store everyone who wants a chance to settle? And think of all the specialists they’d need to do the job. The cost alone would prevent it.”

  Eleanor glared at her. “It might cost more at first, but it would still be less than paying us and supporting us while we’re here.” She lifted her head. “I know some figures — I’ve thought it out.”

  Iris was sure that Eleanor’s mastery of such calculations was, at best, rudimentary. “It won’t cost less than sending you back to Earth and giving you other work to do.” She looked around at the other workers, hoping that some of them might understand. “Listen to me. We all knew when we started that we might not be the first settlers, that we might be working for future generations rather than ourselves. Do you want to risk having your children preserved along with you, without knowing what might happen?”

  Charles slammed his wineglass down. “They’d risk no more than they would down there.” His face was flushed with anger. “They told us we’d be settlers. Then they said it would take more time. Now they think there won’t be enough domes for us all. You know what I think? I think they want Venus for themselves, that they never wanted us to settle, that they just wanted to keep us working until they didn’t need us any more.”

  Iris took a breath. “Let’s assume you’re right about that, just for the sake of argument.” She paused and gazed at Eleanor, then at Tu-sen, who was looking a bit more pensive. “Why would you be willing to entrust yourselves to such people, if they are as you say? How do you know you wouldn’t be revived elsewhere, in a place where you wouldn’t cause any more problems? For that matter, how do you know you would be revived at all? It would be easy to arrange an accident. And even if you were revived, what then? There’ll be new tools, new ways of doing things. You might all have to be retrained, assuming you could fit in at all. And that’s another expense for the Project, along with cryonic storage or hibernation for you and any future workers who might demand the same thing. It’s impossible.”

  Charles seemed at a loss for words. “She might be right,” a man behind him muttered.

  Eleanor pushed her plate away. “If Earth won’t help us, and we can’t trust the Administrators to act, there are other places we can look to for help. There are the Habbers.”

  “Habbers!” a woman shouted.

  Eleanor glanced at the crowd. “I don’t like them any more than you do, but they have resources and they keep their agreements. They used to help us. Do we care who helps us now if we can have what we want?” She turned back to Iris. “Your son went to them. He and his friends brought us nothing but trouble, it’s why the Habbers were expelled in the first place. The Habbers might listen to you and to others here who lost friends and relatives to them.”

  “I denounced my son for his deed, and he was no longer my son at that time.”

  Eleanor’s fingers tapped against the tabletop. “A child is always yours, whatever such a record says. Once, I was sure you’d helped your son, but I suppose you’ve proven your innocence by staying here and being of service to us all. Still, you owe us something. You should try to help us fix the damage your son’s caused. We’ll see what the Administrators do when we get ready to appeal to the Habs.”

  Iris tensed. “Do you really think they’d let you? You’d destroy any chance of settling Venus if you made such an appeal. You’d certainly be sent back to Earth then.”

  “Do you think we’d just calmly walk onto the ship
s taking us back?” Eleanor shook back her short blond curls. “Oh, we stood by in the past, when only a few were punished, because the rest of us had too much to lose. We even learned to live with the Guardians. But if there’s nothing left to lose —” She waved one chubby arm. “We’ll see what happens to their precious Project then.”

  Everyone was silent for a few moments. “Why are you telling me this?” Iris asked at last. “There’s nothing I can do for you.”

  Charles smiled. “Don’t be so modest, Iris. The Linkers might listen to you if you tell them how we feel.”

  “I am sure they must already know.”

  “But they aren’t doing anything about it, are they? Probably think it’ll all die down and go away. They might listen to you. They’d know that you wouldn’t go to them unless it was serious. The Administrators might see that they have to act.”

  “You were cozy enough with an Administrator once,” Eleanor added.

  Iris looked down. She had been aware of the growing impatience and discontent, but had refused to believe that it would give birth to such wild schemes. She should have seen this conflict approaching. It was Charles’s place to make the workers’ feelings known to the other Committees, but he would not risk being at the center of this dispute; clearly, he was already unable to quell it. He would rather have Iris as a go-between.

  She stood up. “I’ll see what I can do, but don’t expect too much. I’ll need a little time to decide whom to approach.”

  She hurried away. As she came to the path, a large hand grabbed her arm; Charles had followed her. “I’ve done my best to calm everyone,” he said in a low voice. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” The man would expect her to make that clear in any discussion.

  “Eleanor’s been pestering me, and she’s got a lot of people on her side. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but matters can still be resolved. I’m sure we can all trust you.” His hand tightened. Charles knew how hard-earned that trust had been for her, and probably suspected how she feared losing it. But his words also carried a warning. If she failed to win any consideration of the workers’ complaints, she, rather than Charles, would be a target for their rage and disappointment.