The Mountain Cage

by Pamela Sargent

  Hassan said, “I think it’s beautiful, Miriam.” His words were sincere. Somehow she had taken what could have been no more than a impressive visual panorama and had found the beauty in the strange, alien terrain of Venus as it might have been six hundred million years ago. It was as if she had fallen in love with that world, almost as if she regretted its loss.

  “If you think that’s something,” she said, “wait until you see what I’ve worked up for the resurfacing section, where we see volcanoes flooding the plains with molten basalt. But I want your ideas on what to use for sensory effects there, and you’ll probably want to add some visuals, too—it seems a little too abbreviated as it is.”

  “You almost make me sorry,” Hassan said, “that we’re changing Venus, that what it was will forever be lost—already is lost.”

  Her gray eyes widened. “That’s exactly the feeling I was trying for. Every mind-tour about Venus and the Project always tries for the same effect—the feeling of triumph in the end by bringing a dead world to life, the beauty of the new Earthlike world we’re making, the belief that we’re carrying out God’s will by transforming Venus into what it might have become. I want the mind-tourist at least to glimpse what we’re losing with all this planetary engineering, to feel some sorrow that it is being lost.”

  Hassan smiled. “A little of that goes a long way, don’t you think? We’re supposed to be glorifying the Project, not regretting it.”

  “Sometimes I do regret it just a little. Imagine what we might have learned if we had built the Islands and simply used them to observe this planet. There are questions we may never answer now because of what we’ve already changed. Did Venus once have oceans that boiled away? Seems likely, but we probably won’t ever be sure. Was there ever a form of life here that was able to make use of ultraviolet light? We’ll never know that, either. We decided that terraforming this world and giving all of humankind that dream and learning what we could from the work of the Project outweighed all of that.”

  “Be careful, Miriam.” Hassan lifted a hand. “We don’t want to question the very basis of the Project.”

  “No, of course not.” But she sounded unhappy about making that admission. Hassan would never have insulted her by saying this aloud, but she sounded almost like a Habber, one of those whose ancestors had abandoned Earth long ago in the wake of the Resource Wars to live in the hollowed-out asteroids and artificial worlds called Habitats. There might be a few Habbers living here to observe the Project, but they thought of space as their home, not planetary surfaces. A Habber might have claimed that Venus should have been left as it had been.

  “You’ve done wonderfully with your roughs,” Hassan murmured, suddenly wanting to cheer her. Miriam’s face brightened as she glanced toward him. “Really, if the final mind-tour maintains the quality of this work, we’ll have a triumph.” He reached for her hand and held it for a moment, surprised at how small and delicate it felt in his grip. “Let me take you to supper,” he went on, and admitted to himself at last that he was falling in love with her.

  They would have a masterpiece, Hassan told himself. Three months of working with Miriam had freed something inside him, had liberated a gift that he had not known he possessed. He felt inspired whenever he was with her. In his private moments, as he reviewed sections of “The Dream of Venus,” he grew even more convinced that their mind-tour had the potential for greatness.

  There, in one of the segments devoted to the Venus of millions of years ago, was a vast dark plain, an ocean of basalt covered by slender sinuous channels thousands of kilometers long. A viewer would soar over shield volcanoes, some with ridges that looked like thin spider legs, others with lava flows that blossomed along their slopes. The mind-tourist could roam on the plateau of Ishtar and look up at the towering peaks of the Maxwell Mountains, shining brightly with a plating of tellurium and pyrite. What might have been only a succession of fascinating but ultimately meaningless geological panoramas had been shaped by Miriam into a moving evocation of a planet’s life, a depiction of a truly alien beauty.

  Hassan had contributed his own stylings to the mind-tour; he had shaped and edited many of the scenes, and his sensory effects had added greatly to the moods of awe and wonder that the mind-tour would evoke. It had been his idea to frame the entire mind-tour as the vision of Karim al-Anwar, and to begin and end with what the great man might have dreamed, a device that also allowed them to leave out much of the tedious expository material that had cluttered up so many mind-tours depicting Venus and the Project. But Miriam was the spirit that had animated him, that had awakened him to the visions and sounds that had lain dormant inside him.

  The fulfillment he felt in the work they were doing together was marred by only one nagging worry: that “The Dream of Venus” was in danger of becoming an ode to Venus past, a song of regret for the loss of the world that most saw as sterile and dead, but which had become so beautiful in Miriam’s renderings. What the Administrators wanted was a glorification of the Project, a mind-tour that would end on a note of optimism and triumph. They were unlikely to accept “The Dream of Venus” as it was, without revisions, and might even see it as vaguely subversive.

  But there was still time, Hassan told himself, to reshape the mind-tour when “The Dream of Venus” was nearly in final form. He did not want to cloud Miriam’s vision in the meantime with doubts and warnings; he did not want to lose what he had discovered in himself.

  He and Miriam were now eating nearly all of their meals together and conducting their courtship at night, in her bed or his own. He had admitted his love for her, as she had confessed hers for him, and soon the other members of their geological team and the residents of their buildings were asking them both when they intended to make a pledge. Hassan’s mother was the cousin of a Mukhtar, and his father had always hoped that Hassan would also take an influential woman as a bondmate, but Pyotr could not justifiably object to Miriam, who had won her place with intelligence and hard work. In any event, by the time he finally told his father that he loved Miriam enough to join his life to hers, their mind-tour would have secured their status here. Pyotr could take pride in knowing that a grandchild of his would be born on the Islands, that his descendants might one day be among those who would live on Venus.

  That was something else “The Dream of Venus” had roused inside Hassan. He had come here thinking only of doing his best not to disgrace his family. Now the dream of Venus had begun to flower in him.

  “We think that the Project has no true ethical dilemmas,” Miriam was saying, “that it can’t possibly be wrong to terraform a dead world. We’re not displacing any life forms, we’re not destroying another culture and replacing it with our own. But there is a kind of arrogance involved, don’t you think?”

  Hassan and Miriam were sitting on a bench outside a greenhouse near Island Two’s primary school. They often came here after last light, when the children had left and the grounds adjoining the school were still and silent.

  “Arrogance?” Hassan asked. “I suppose there is, in a way.” He had engaged in such discussions before, at university, and it had been natural for him and Miriam to talk about the issues the Project raised while working on “The Dream of Venus.” Lately, their conversations had taken on more intensity.

  “God gave us nature to use, as long as we use it wisely and with concern for other life forms,” Miriam said, repeating the conventional view promulgated by both the true faith of Islam and the Council of Mukhtars. “Terraforming Venus is therefore justified, since the measure of value is determined by the needs of human beings. And if you want to strengthen that argument, you can throw in the fact that we’re bringing life to a world where no life existed, which has to be rated as a good. On top of that, there’s the possibility that Venus was once much like Earth before a runaway greenhouse effect did it in, so to speak. Therefore, we’re restoring the planet to what it might have been.”

  Hassan, still holding her hand, was silent; the assertions
were much too familiar for him to feel any need to respond. He was looking for an opening in which to bring up a subject he could no longer avoid. “The Dream of Venus” was close to completion, and there was little time for them to do the editing and make the revisions that were necessary if their mind-tour was to be approved for distribution by the Administrators and the Project Council. He did not want to think of how much credit he and Miriam might already have cost the Project. All of that credit, and more—perhaps much more—would be recovered by the mind-tour; he was confident of that. But he had broached the need for editing to Miriam only indirectly so far.

  “You could argue that all of life, not just human life and what furthers its ends, has intrinsic value,” Miriam continued, “but that wouldn’t count against the Project, only against forcing Venus to be a replica of Earth even if it later shows signs of developing its own distinct ecology in ways that differ from Earth’s and which make it less habitable—or not habitable at all—by human beings. You could say that we should have abandoned our technology long ago and lived in accordance with nature, therefore never having the means to terraform a world, but that has always been an extremist view.”

  “And unconstructive,” Hassan said. At this point, he thought, humankind would only do more damage to Earth by abandoning advanced technology; solar power satellites and orbiting industrial facilities had done much to lessen the environmental damage done to their home world.

  “What I worry about now,” she said, “isn’t just what terraforming might do to Venus that we can’t foresee, but what it might do to us. Remaking a planet may only feed our arrogance. It could lead us to think we could do almost anything. It could keep us from asking questions we should be asking. We might begin to believe that we could remake anything— the entire solar system, even our sun, to serve our ends. We might destroy what we should be preserving, and end by destroying ourselves.”

  “Or transforming ourselves,” Hassan interjected. “You haven’t made much of an argument, my love.”

  “I’m saying that we should be cautious. I’m saying that, whatever we do, doubt should be part of the equation, not an arrogance that could become a destructive illusion of certainty.”

  Those feelings, he knew, lay at the heart of their mind-tour. Uncertainty and doubt were the instruments through which finite beings had to explore their universe. The doubts, the knowledge that every gain meant some sort of loss—all of that underlined “The Dream of Venus” and lent their depiction its beauty.

  And all of that would make their mind-tour unacceptable to the men and women who wanted a sensory experience that would glorify their Project and produce feelings of triumph and pride.

  “Miriam,” he said, trying to think of how to cajole her into considering the changes they would have to make, “I think we should start thinking seriously about how we might revise— how we might make some necessary edits in our mind-tour.”

  “There’s hardly any editing we have to do now.”

  “I meant when it’s done.”

  “But it’s almost done now. It’s not going to be much different in final form.”

  “I mean—” Hassan was having a difficult time finding the right words to make his point. “You realize that we’ll have to dwell less on the fascination of Venus past and put more emphasis on the glory that will be our transformed Venus of the future.”

  She stared at him with the blank gaze of someone who did not understand what he was saying, someone who might have been talking to a stranger. “You can’t mean that,” she said. “You can’t be saying what it sounds like you’re saying.”

  “I only meant—”

  She jerked her hand from his. “I thought we shared this vision, Hassan. I thought we were both after the same effect, the same end, that you—”

  “There you are.” Muhammad Sheridan was coming toward them along the stone path that ran past the school. “I thought I would find you two here.” He came to a halt in front of them. “I would have left you a message, but …” He paused. “Administrator Pavel is exceedingly anxious to view your mind-tour, so I hope it’s close to completion.”

  Hassan was puzzled. “He wants to view it?”

  “Immediately,” Muhammad replied. “I mean tomorrow, two hours after first light. He has also invited you both to be present, in his private quarters, and I told him that I would be happy to tell you that in person.”

  Hassan could not read his friend’s expression in the soft silvery light. Anticipation? Nervousness? Muhammad, who had recommended Hassan as a mind-tour creator, would be thinking that a mind-tour that won Pavel’s approval might gain Muhammad more favor, while a failure would only make Pavel doubt his aide’s judgment.

  “It should be in final form within a month,” Hassan said. “We’re within the deadline still, but it needs more refining. Couldn’t we—”

  “Of course we’ll be there,” Miriam said. “I think he’ll be pleased.” There was no trace of doubt in her voice. Hassan glanced at her; she took his hand. “I want him to experience what we’ve done.”

  Hassan felt queasy, trying to imagine what Pavel Gvishiani would think of “The Dream of Venus,” searching his mind for an excuse he might offer to delay the Administrator’s viewing of the mind-tour. Pavel might have viewed it at any time; as an Administrator and a Linker, he could have accessed the work-in-progress any time he wished through the Island cyberminds. But Hassan had simply assumed that Pavel would be too preoccupied with his many other duties to bother.

  “Well.” Hassan let go of Miriam’s hand and rested his hands on his thighs. “Presumably he understands that it’s not in final form.”

  “Close to it,” Miriam said in her hard, toneless voice. “Might need a little tweaking, but I don’t see much room for improvement.”

  “And,” Hassan went on, “I don’t know why he wants us both there, in his room.”

  “It’s a matter of courtesy,” Muhammad said. “Pavel is most attentive to courtesies.”

  Hassan peered at Miriam from the sides of his eyes; she was smiling. “If you think about it,” she said, “it’s kind of an honor, being invited to his private quarters and all.”

  Hassan’s queasiness left him, to be replaced with a feeling of dread.

  The forty minutes of sitting with Pavel Gvishiani in his room, waiting as the Linker experienced the mind-tour, were passing too slowly and also too rapidly for Hassan; too slowly, so that he had ample time to consider the likely verdict the Administrator would render, and too rapidly, toward the moment of judgment and disgrace. While he waited, Hassan fidgeted on his cushion, glanced around the small room, and studied the few objects Pavel had placed on one shelf—a cloisonné plate, gold bands for securing a man’s ceremonial headdress, a porcelain vase holding one blue glass flower.

  Pavel, sitting on his cushion, was still. Occasionally, his eyelids fluttered over his half-open eyes. He wore no band; with his Link, he did not need a band to view the mind-tour.

  I will think of the worst that can happen to me, Hassan thought as he stared at the tiny diamondlike gem on Pavel’s forehead, and then whatever does happen won’t seem so bad. Pavel and the Administrators would make him reimburse the credit the Project had allocated to him during his work on “The Dream of Venus.” He could afford that, but his family would regard it as a mark against him. His public record would note that he had failed at this particular task; that humiliation would remain with him until he could balance it with some successes. His father, after using his influence to get Hassan a position with the Project, would be tainted by his son’s failure and was likely to find a way to get back at him for that, perhaps even by publicly severing all ties with him. Muhammad, who had recommended him to Pavel, would no longer be his friend. And Miriam—

  He glanced at the woman he had come to believe he loved. Her eyes shifted uneasily; she was frowning. He felt suddenly angry with her for drawing him so deeply into her vision, for that was what she had done; she had seduced him wit
h her inspiration. Maybe she was finally coming to understand that their mind-tour was not going to win Pavel’s approval. If they were lucky, he might settle for castigating them harshly and demanding a host of revisions. If they were unlucky, he might regard their failure to give him what he had wanted as a personal affront.

  Pavel opened his eyes fully and gazed directly at them, then arched his thick brows. “Both of you,” he said quietly, “have produced something I did not expect.” He paused, allowing Hassan a moment to collect himself. “Your mind-tour is a masterpiece. I would almost call it a work of art.”

  Miriam’s chest heaved as she sighed. “Thank you, Administrator Pavel,” she whispered. Hassan, bewildered, could not find his own voice.

  “But of course we cannot distribute The Dream of Venus’ in this form,” Pavel continued, “and I am sure you both understand why we can’t. You still have a month of your allotted time left. I expect to see an edited mind-tour by the end of that time and, depending on what you’ve accomplished by then, I can grant you more time if that’s required. I won’t insult your intelligence and artistry by telling you exactly what kind of changes you’ll have to make, and I am no expert on designing mind-tours in any case. You know what you will have to do, and I am certain, God willing, that you’ll find satisfactory ways to do it.”

  May the Prophet be forever blessed, Hassan thought, almost dizzy with this unexpected mercy. “Of course,” he said. “I already have some ideas—”

  “No,” Miriam said.

  Pavel’s eyes widened. Hassan gazed at the woman who was so trapped in her delusions, wondering if she had gone mad.