7
Oberg was the northernmost of the ten settlements in the Maxwell Mountains and the closest to the large and striking circular impact crater of Cleopatra to the east, the only impact crater in that region of Venus. The other nine settlements in that mountain range, except for the nearest, al-Khwarizmi, which lay to the west of Oberg, were sited to the south, all of them named after prominent scientists of the past. Here, the Venus Project had not kept to the old custom, one that predated the centuries of Earth’s Nomarchies, of using only female names for Cytherian locations, and in fact the Maxwell massif had been named for a male scientist before the custom of using female nomenclature had become established in older times.
“Not that it matters, really,” Noella Sanger had once said to Barika and Risa in Mahala’s hearing. “The geological features are named for women and goddesses and other female figures, and they’ll still be here when our settlements are long gone.” That had bothered Mahala, thinking of that distant time when the domed settlements would no longer exist, which was foolish of her; the settlements were meant to be only an intermediate stage, a way for people to inhabit the surface as the planet was transformed. But for a moment Noella’s comment had made her feel as though she was flitting through her world as insubstantially as she moved through the synthetic settings of a mind-tour.
Tsou Yen, named for an ancient Chinese scientist and developer of elemental theories, lay to the southeast of Oberg, not far from ibn-Qurrah; Curie, Galileo, and Kepler had been built in the middle regions of the massif, with Hasseen, Lyata, and Mtshana to their south. Each of them was home to anywhere from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand people, although Oberg, the oldest and largest, now had more than twenty-five thousand inhabitants. A long time would pass before Venus had a population center that came close to the size of one of Earth’s great cities, but the Project Council had reasons for keeeping the settlements near their present size. Smaller groups meant that people would be more accountable to one another and also allowed Earth more control over what was still the great and rare privilege of immigrating here. When a settlement had constructed four connected domes and grown to about twenty thousand people, it was time for the inhabitants to consider moving to a less crowded place or into a new settlement, which was why new settlements were being constructed in the north near Turing. But occasionally Mahala, even after a few tension-filled and frightening mind-tours of Earth’s great cities of Tashkent and Beijing and Nueva Las Vegas, wondered if there might be advantages, even pleasures, in living amid such hordes; in such a city, she could be anonymous in a way that she could never be in Oberg or in Turing.
She was headed for Turing now, leaving the long curved ridges of the high Maxwell massif, the highest range on Venus, behind as the airship floated over the eastern part of the flat volcanic plain of the Lakshmi Plateau, north toward the Freyja Mountains and Dyami’s home. Even if Venus were eventually flooded with oceans that covered most of the surface, the Lakshmi Plateau, twice as large as Earth’s Tibet, smooth-surfaced except for the wide deep craters of the dormant but awakening volcanoes Sacajawea and Colette, would remain above water, with a sheer scarp nearly six kilometers high to the south. During her first trip to Turing, she had been fascinated by the screen images, but distracted by the thrill of worrying that the dirigible might crash, unlikely as that was. Now the view of the landscape held her completely.
Black cliffs surrounded Turing’s three domes. On the airship’s screen, above the console where the pilots sat, the new settlements to the west of Turing in the Freyja Mountains, Ptolemy and Hypatia, were pinpoints of light atop walls of black rock. The screen, of course, was showing Mahala and the other airship passengers only what they would have seen if light from the sun could penetrate to Venus’s surface. Had the image been completely true to what lay outside, the rust-colored sky would have been black, and the bright orange scars gouged in the cliffs by Turing’s diggers would have been only dimly illuminated by the settlement’s light. High as the ridges of the Freyja Mountains were, they did not match the majestic height of the Maxwell Mountains, nor did they have the sharply steep cliffs of the Maxwell massif on its southwest sides.
Droplets of moisture, more of a mist than a rain, sifted down over the ground to make rivers of the thin sinuous channels that veined the plateau and to fill the ocean basin in the lowlands below Ishtar Terra. The planet had greatly cooled over the more than five-century duration of the Project, to the point where the temperature outside had dropped to about ninety degrees Centigrade, but the air was still thick with carbon dioxide, and the atmospheric pressure could still crush an unprotected human body.
The airship had a few passengers and a lot of cargo. Crates had been lashed down in the aisles and smaller boxes were tied to unclaimed seats. Mahala released her harness, stretched as she got to her feet, then followed Dyami off the ship, down the ramp from the airship’s cradle, and through the bay, where two of the workers on duty greeted him. Both of them wore identity bracelets, as everyone did when traveling, so that scanners would record that they had arrived safely. Beyond the wide entrance at the end of the bay lay Turing’s south dome, now filled with a soft yellow light. All of the settlements on Venus kept the same time as the Islands, and the airship had left Oberg after dark; it would be first light here and everywhere else under the domes.
A wide paved road about five kilometers long ran north from the airship bay toward the tunnel entrance to the dome where Dyami lived. They walked up the road, with Dyami shortening his pace so that she could keep up with him; to Mahala’s right, the front side of Turing’s refinery was a vast metal wall. Across the road, the small glassy dome of the ceramics plant glittered, catching the light of the much larger dome overhead. Unlike Oberg, the less populated Turing had not crowded its main dome with houses and residents and tents to house new arrivals; to the west, the tunnel that led to a newly constructed dome was hidden by trees. Turing’s residents preferred giving over large areas of their domes to woods that were wilder and more overgrown than the tended parks of Oberg.
“Can you walk the distance to my house?” Dyami asked.
“Yes,” Mahala replied.
A cart loaded with crates and carrying two men in gray workers’ coveralls came toward them from the bay. Dyami stepped into the road and the cart slowly rolled to a stop. He handed his duffel to one of the men, then reached for Mahala’s. “Could you take these for me?” he asked.
“Of course,” one of the men replied.
“Thanks—just leave them at the side of the road.” He turned to Mahala as the cart rolled away. “I’m glad you’re not too tired to walk home—I can use the exercise.”
The walk would give her time to think. By the time they reached her uncle’s house, she might be prepared to face the orphaned girl who would be living with them. Mahala had already been introduced to her over the screen, but the other child had said nothing after murmuring her name. Frania Astarte Milus was a wisp of a girl with dark brown hair and hazel eyes; she had dung to Amina’s hand throughout the brief call. She was a year younger than Mahala, but seemed even younger than that.
Mahala kept near Dyami. From time to time, his stride lengthened, and then he would slow down again. More carts passed them, then turned onto the narrower road that wound through the woods to the west dome’s tunnel.
Now that her journey, during which she had felt removed from the passage of time, was over, everything seemed to be happening too fast. Dyami had arranged to leave for Turing as soon as it was agreed she would come with him. She had been impatient to go, feeling somehow that she might change her mind and decide to stay in Oberg if they waited too long. During the trip, she had thought of the people she was leaving behind, but had eased herself with the thought that she could always go back to her grandparents’ house.
Now, for the first time, it occurred to her that she might be content here, yet still have to leave if Frania did not take to her or get along with her. After all, she could
always return to Risa’s household, while Frania had nowhere else to go; her grandfather was too frail to look after her, and none of her dead father’s family had followed him to Venus.
“You’re being awfully quiet,” Dyami said as they entered the lighted tunnel, following the gentle downward slope of the passageway.
“What if Frania doesn’t like me?”
“There’s no reason why she shouldn’t.”
“But what if she doesn’t?”
“Isn’t it a bit soon to be worrying about that?”
Mahala was about to reply when another man called out from behind them. “Dyami! Hold on—I’ll walk back with you.” She turned around to see a slender brown-skinned man with dark eyes, thick black hair, and a mustache. She had met him before, and searched her mind for his name: Suleiman Khan.
Suleiman greeted her. The two men were soon deep in discussion about an upcoming task at the refinery, where Suleiman had been putting in darktime shifts. Suleiman was a man who liked to talk; he did not fall silent until they were through the tunnel and inside the north dome.
The memorial pillar Dyami had designed stood at the top of the rise outside the tunnel, a few meters from a second, more conventional pillar. This monument, unlike those in Oberg, did not simply honor the dead, but also commemorated the suffering those once imprisoned here had endured. Around the base were twisted human bodies, their heads bowed, their backs bending under the assault of disembodied fists. Above them, other nude figures stood with upraised arms; near the top of the pillar, skeletal figures with distended limbs clutched wands and other weapons, while bodies lay at their feet. There were no holo images of the dead here; instead, their sculpted faces were framed by the distorted bodies, and the plaque listing their names was near the monument’s base.
Dyami had known them all. He must have wanted to forget what had passed, yet he had made this monument for the people who were imprisoned with him, for those who had died trying to free themselves. He had said something about the poison of the past, Mahala recalled, during his confrontation with Lakshmi Tiris three years ago. Here was part of his poisonous past, preserved by his own hands. Often Dyami had told her that it was necessary to remember what had happened on Venus, lest it happen again. At other times, he had murmured that he would be grateful if no one ever gave the monument a second glance.
Her parents had caused such suffering; her uncle’s pillar always reminded her of that. Perhaps they had not meant to do so, but they had all the same. She nodded at Suleiman as he made his farewells, then followed Dyami past a cluster of houses toward the creek.
Hills sloped gently up from where the creek flowed into a large lake. Dyami’s house stood on one small grassy hill; below, a few boats lay along the shore of the lake.
A bridge spanned the creek. Their bags sat on the opposite bank, just below a narrow dirt road; Dyami hurried across the bridge to fetch them. Mahala looked up at the house’s glassy walls, wondering if Frania was peering out at her, already making judgments about her.
Dyami came back with the duffels slung over his broad shoulders. “Ready?” he asked.
“I guess so.”
“Don’t worry, Mahala. Frania’s probably just as nervous as you are.”
They climbed the hill. Mahala’s reflected image and that of her uncle floated on the house’s mirrored surface as they approached. As Dyami was about to press his hand against the door, it slid open.
Amina and Frania were sitting on cushions in the center of the large common room. Mahala took a step forward as the two got to their feet; Amina came to her and took her hand. “I know you must be tired,” she said, “so after you’ve met Frani, you can rest.”
Dyami set down the duffels. Frania hung back, looking even smaller than she had on the screen.
“Greetings, Frania,” Mahala murmured.
“Salaam,” the other girl said softly.
“You may call my niece Frani,” Amina said. “Everyone else does.”
“Everyone did in ibn-Qurrah,” Frania said, with a harder edge to her voice.
“Maybe you’d like to show Mahala to your room,” Amina murmured, sounding uncertain.
Frania shrugged. Mahala picked up her bag and followed the other girl across the wide floor. The common room took up much of the space of Dyami’s house, and its walls were transparent on the front side and the side facing north; there, the house seemed to have no walls. Dyami had designed the dwelling himself, and many other residences in Turing also varied from the simple rectangular house designs of Oberg.
Frania pressed the door open. Two futons lay on the floor, and clothes hung from one of the rods set against the walls. Mahala would, it seemed, have to share the room with the other girl. She had used this bedroom before when visiting. It had been Dyami’s room, but he always slept on a futon in the common room whenever she or anyone else was staying here. Another room had been added to the house since her last visit, but maybe her uncle meant to claim that room for himself.
“They put us both in here,” Frania said.
“I can see that.” Mahala looked around. Dyami often admitted that he liked having space around him, and for a bedroom, this room was large. “Well, I’ll still have more space here than in my old room in Oberg.”
Frania said, “Look, it wasn’t my idea to come here. Amina only brought me to Turing because my grandfather didn’t want me. He didn’t say so, but I knew. He’s old, and he wants to stay with his housemates, and they don’t have any more room, and Amina won’t move to ibn-Qurrah because she and my grandfather always end up arguing about something sooner or later.”
“Oh.” This was news to her, but Amina had never spoken very often about her father. Mahala rummaged through her clothes. “I don’t mind sharing a room, really.”
Frania sat down on a cushion and was silent as Mahala unpacked. “Sometimes I hate this place,” the brown-haired girl said at last.
“Turing? But why?”
“Not Turing—Venus.” Frania shook her head. “My aunt told me about you. She said you didn’t have any mother and father, either. Maybe that’s supposed to make us friends.”
“I never knew my parents,” Mahala said, trying to be kind. “It must be worse for you.”
“Maybe you should be glad you didn’t know them. My parents told me about your parents, about how they used to have to sneak around being afraid of them, worrying about Amina and wondering what the Guide and her friends and all those people in Ishtar might do to her when she was a prisoner. I’ll bet they wouldn’t have wanted me here if they knew you’d be living in this house.”
“It’s not my fault,” Mahala said.
“A lot of people here had a hard time because of your mother. I don’t know why your uncle even wanted you to come live with him.”
Mahala stood up. “I don’t have to stay here, you know. I can go home to Oberg—I’ve got grandparents who would be happy to have me back, unlike you.” She turned her back to Frania and hung up her clothes, furious, as she added, “Dyami says the kids at my level here don’t go back to school for another eight days. If you can’t get along with me by then, I can tell him I want to go home.”
Footsteps pattered across the room. From the corner of her eye, Mahala saw the bedroom door open, then slide shut.
When she came back into the common room, Dyami was working on a small screen. Amina sat at the table with him, nibbling at a piece of fruit.
“Have some food,” Amina said to Mahala.
“I’m not hungry.” Mahala went to the table, which was next to one glassy wall. Outside, near the bottom of a hill that sloped toward the shore of the lake, Frania sat above three small rowboats that had been pulled out of the water. “This isn’t working.”
Dyami said, “You haven’t given it much of a chance.”
“Things aren’t going to get any better.”
“Sit down,” he said. “Let me sketch you.” She sat down on a cushion, keeping still as Dyami’s stylus moved over hi
s screen. “Our shifts at the refinery begin again tomorrow,” he went on, “so Amina and I won’t be home until nearly last light. You’ll have some time alone with Frania, and all I ask is that you tidy up your room and check the greenhouse. You might find that you get along after all.”
“But what if we don’t?”
Amina reached for her cup. “Then Frani and I will move,” the yellow-haired woman said.
“Move? Where?”
“To Tasida’s house. She has more room now, with Lorie deciding to move out. She’s always wanted me there anyway, and she’d welcome another child in her house.”
Mahala looked down. “I thought you liked it better here.”
Tasida Getran was Amina’s lover, but Amina lived with Dyami because, as she put it, she needed more solitude than she would find in Tasida’s house, among the physician’s housemates and the patients and friends who often called on her. Dyami would offer temporary quarters to new arrivals with no place to stay, but most of the time, he kept to himself. Even his lover Balin did not stay with him for more than a few days at a time.
Dyami glanced up from his screen. “I’d miss you,” he said to Amina.
“I’d miss you, too, Dyami, but staying with Tasida and her housemates might be good for me, and you may be ready to have other people live with you here. Maybe we’ve both been too reclusive for too long.”
“I agree—that’s why the girls should stay.”
“But if they can’t get along—”Amina pushed another cup toward Mahala. “If you’re not hungry, at least have some juice.”
Mahala stared at the cup. Dyami and Amina might have to disrupt the peaceful life they had made for themselves because of her. Their peace, she knew, had been hard-won and was precarious even now; the suffering they had endured as prisoners before the Revolt still marked them. During her previous visits, she had occasionally been awakened by the screams Amina’s nightmares evoked or had left her room in the night to find Dyami sitting up, brooding, unable to sleep.
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