“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 believe 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 anytime 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 with 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.
“No,” Miriam said again, “I won’t do it. You said yourself that it was a masterpiece, but I knew that before we came here. You can do what you like with The Dream of Venus, but I won’t be a party to defacing my own work.”
“Miriam,” Hassan said weakly, then turned toward Pavel. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. Edit our mind-tour however you please, but I’ll have nothing to do with it.”
“My dear child,” Pavel said in an oddly gentle tone, “you know what this will mean. You know what the consequences may be.”
Miriam stuck out her chin. “I know. I don’t care. I’ll still have the joy and satisfaction in knowing what we were able to realize in that mind-tour, and you can’t take that away from us.” She regarded Hassan with her hard gray eyes. Hassan realized then that she expected him to stand with her, to refuse to do the Administrator’s bidding.
“Miriam,” he said softly. You bitch, he thought, Pavel’s given us a way out and you refuse to take it. “I’ll begin
work on the editing,” Hassan continued, “even if my colleague won’t. Maybe once she sees how that’s going, realizes that we can accomplish what’s needed without doing violence to our creation, she’ll change her mind and decide to help me.” He had to defend her somehow, give her the chance to reconsider and step back from the abyss. “I’m sure Miriam just needs some time to think it over.”
Miriam said, “I won’t change my mind,” and he heard the disillusionment and disgust in her voice. She got to her feet; Pavel lifted his head to look up at her. “Salaam aleikum, Administrator.”
“If you leave now, there will be severe consequences,” Pavel said, sounding regretful.
“I know,” Miriam said, and left the room.
Hassan found himself able to complete the editing and revision of The Dream of Venus a few days before Pavel was to view the mind-tour again. This time, he went to the Administrator’s quarters with more confidence and less fear. The mind-tour now evoked the pride in the terraforming of Venus and the sense of mastery and triumph that the Project Council desired, and Hassan was not surprised when Pavel praised his work and assured him that The Dream of Venus would become a memorable and treasured experience for a great many people.
Hassan had done his best to keep some of Miriam’s most pleasing scenes and effects, although he had cut some of the more haunting landscapes of early Venus and the brooding, dark scenes that seemed to deny any true permanence to humankind’s efforts. It was also necessary to add more of the required scenes of the Project’s current state and recent progress. He had tried not to dwell on the fact that his editing and his additions were robbing the mind-tour of much of its beauty, were taking an experience suffused with the doubt and ambiguity that had made The Dream of Venus unique and turning it into a more superficial and trite experience.
In any case, Hassan knew, the merit of the mind-tour did not lie in what he thought of it, but in how Pavel Gvishiani and the other Administrators judged it, and they believed that he had made it into a work that would bring more credit to and support for the Venus Project, as well as the approval of the Mukhtars.
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