Child of Venus

by Pamela Sargent

  Solveig stared at the pocket screen in her palm. “There’s the list,” she said to Mahala and Chike, who were sitting across the table from her. “All the names of the students who are leaving school are now public, and every single student who came to Anwara with us is listed.”

  “Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it,” Chike muttered.

  “There are some other names, too,” Solveig said, “but it does seem strange that all of the students who were on Anwara have to leave.” She frowned. “I want to check something else now.”

  Solveig said a name under her breath, then another. Mahala finished her glass of fruit juice. The table at which they sat was near the wide stone path that led to the Administrators’ ziggurat. She wondered if she should feel relieved by the notion that the Project Council might have hidden reasons for expelling them all from school or if she should start worrying about why such powerful people might pay that much attention to her.

  “So you’re definitely going to Turing,” Chike said at last.

  “Solveig and I were going to go there anyway during the break, and my uncle’s housemates Amina and Tasida hinted that they might have found some work for me.”

  “I was going to stay here,” Chike said. “Either my parents or my brother can find room for me for a while. But I might also be able to get a lab technician apprenticeship in a settle-ment, maybe in a refining and recycling plant.”

  “Maybe there’s an opening in Turing,” Mahala said, “and if there isn’t one in the refinery, they might be able to use someone in the ceramics plant. I’ll ask around when I get there.”

  “Thanks, Mahala. It might help if somebody there puts in a word for me.”

  “You’d be better off here,” she said. His brother, as an aide to an Administrator, might be able to find a better position for Chike than that of a lab technician.

  “Probably, but maybe it’s time for me to be on my own.” He reached out and touched her hand. He would not say it, but it was likely that he also wanted to have a chance to be closer to her. That thought made her smile.

  “Well, here’s more strangeness,” Solveig said, still gazing at her screen. “Three students leaving the Island schools are being expelled—excuse me, advised to leave—because they haven’t been applying themselves to their studies. Three more are getting black marks for being disruptive, and one for having cheated on an independent study project. But everybody who was on Anwara with us has the same notation on their record all of us got.” She leaned back. “ “This student has earned a commendation for scholarship, discipline, and adaptability,’” she recited, “‘and has been advised to leave school only because it is felt that her particular gifts might be better utilized elsewhere.’” She looked up. “It’s exactly the same for all of us.”

  “Small consolation,” Chike said.

  Mahala studied her friend’s face. Solveig had not betrayed any emotion when she had first told Mahala that she would have to leave the school. In the week since then, she had applied herself to her studies as methodically as always and had mentioned in passing that she was considering a position as a teacher’s aide. She was burying her disappointment deeply.

  “It’d be easier,” Chike said, “if I just knew why we had to leave, but even my brother can’t find anything out.”

  Benzi had sent only one message, telling Mahala that he wished her well and that he and other Habbers would remain on Island Two for some time to come. She had a feeling that this was all that she would hear from him before she left.

  Solveig stood up. “I have just enough time to get to a study group meeting,” she said.

  Mahala and Chike got to their feet. “And I’ve got a seminar,” Mahala said. She could forget for a while that she would be leaving Island Two in less than a month.

  17

  Aboard the airship to Turing, Mahala found herself watching the images of Venus on the large screen in the front of the cabin with new interest. The airship had descended below the fierce winds that swept around the planet. A light but steady yellowish and orange sulfuric rain fell into the darkness below. To the northwest, barely visible on the rust-colored plateau surrounded by the rocky black walls of the Freyja Mountains, the four tiny glowing blisters of Turing’s domes were barely visible.

  These screen images were more detailed than those she had seen on other screens; perhaps this ship had more sensors gathering information for its computer to use in creating the images. The temperature of the lower atmosphere had dropped to a comparatively mild seventy degrees Centigrade, while precipitation had brought the atmospheric pressure down to less than twenty times that of Earth, far below what it had been in her great-grandmother’s time. If the airship in which Mahala was traveling should run into trouble and get trapped on the surface, the passengers could survive for the ten to twenty hours that it might take for a rescue vehicle, one of the scooper ships that carried compressed oxygen up to the Bats, to reach them, open its maw to receive the airship cabin, and ferry them to safety.

  The shallow and sterile ocean had flooded more of the Cytherian surface around the landmasses of Ishtar Terra, Aphrodite Terra, and the volcanoes and high places that would eventually become islands. Venus had become much less hellish and deadly since the beginnings of the Project, something for people to keep in mind whenever they were discouraged by the scope of what remained to be done. The domes of the settlements, built to withstand much more lethal conditions, would continue to protect those who lived inside them.

  Mahala thought of one of the last discussions she had attended with her fellow students and three of their professors. The subject of the Project’s next stage had come up: Hydrogen had been imported to Venus long ago, to aid in the process of precipitation, and oxygen continued to be removed, but there was increasing evidence that importation of large quantities of calcium and magnesium might be needed to help in reducing the atmosphere of carbon dioxide to carbon and oxides. One of the professors, a geochemist, had written out the formulas for the reactions and had implied that some on the Project Council were already seriously considering such a plan. Mining Mercury and bringing the necessary quantities of magnesium and calcium to Venus would require a large-scale, robotic mining operation, with mass drivers to carry the mined minerals Venusward.

  The idea had generated a lot of discussion among the students, who were soon busy on preliminary computer models of ways to accomplish the job, methods that might be feasible but were also certain to be costly in labor, resources, and technology. What had been left unsaid was that the Project could not support such an effort now, that Earth’s material and intellectual resources would be strained to the limit by such an enterprise, and that the aid of the Habbers would almost certainly be required for the operation.

  The Project, in other words, was stalled for the time being—and maybe for a long time to come, whether anybody would openly admit it or not. Maybe that had something to do with the Counselors advising more students to leave school. Perhaps the Project did not need so many specialists, given that educating more young people was not likely to advance the Project at the moment and might only sow more discontent.

  Solveig slept on in the seat next to her. Mahala concentrated on the screen images. Better, she thought, to think of how far the Project had come instead of dwelling on how many centuries, even millennia, were likely to pass before Venus was truly habitable. Better to think of what terraforming had accomplished and not to muse on the fact that no one alive now would ever see the green thriving world that their efforts would bring into being. Her expulsion from the Island Two school had not changed the ultimate direction of her life all that much. She had always known that she would have to live working toward an end that she would never behold.

  “That’s my offer,” Tasida Getran said. “I think you’ll find the work interesting, and I’ll be getting a good assistant just when I need more help.”

  Mahala sat with Tasida near the creek that ran down to the lake. “I’m flattered that y
ou think that much of me,” Mahala replied. The physician had recently finished setting up an office and examination room near the tunnel that led into the south dome. Patients could get to the small building easily from almost everywhere in Turing, and the extra space would be useful if anyone needed to remain there for observation.

  “It isn’t flattery,” Tasida said. “I looked at your record. You still have a few things to learn, but you’ll do just fine as a paramedic, and you’ll be learning something that’ll be useful no matter what you do later on. Don’t think I’ll make it easy for you, either.” A smile crossed Tasida’s freckled face. “But you’ll have some time to pursue more lessons, if that’s what you want.”

  “It is what I want.” Mahala wondered if, in spite of Tasida’s promise, she would have much time for additional study. There would be emergencies that required immediate attention as well as people who relied on physicians and paramedics to fill the function of Counselors. “There’s no reason I have to give up my studies just because I’m no longer a student.”

  “I’ll give you medical works to look at, but your background in biology is better than that of most paramedics, and you’ll learn a lot through experience.” Tasida paused. “You’re taking this turn of events very well.”

  Mahala shrugged. She would not admit it aloud, but one reason for trying to make the best of things now was her hope that the Project Council might change their minds again and decide to readmit some of the students who had been expelled. They had unexpectedly sent her to Anwara, had sent her back to Island Two as precipitously, and had asked her to leave school without warning; the Council and Administrators might act just as suddenly to readmit her to a school in the future. It was a faint hope, but a plausible one.

  “I don’t think Solveig is taking her disappointment nearly as well,” Tasida added.

  “What makes you say that?” Mahala asked.

  “I’ve dealt with a lot of patients. Often I can sense when something might be bothering them that they don’t want to discuss. I think she’s holding it all in.”

  “Solveig’s the kind of person who keeps things to herself,” Mahala said. “I used to think that was because she was just a more even-tempered person. Almost every student I know resorted to moods or implants at some point, to stay awake to finish a project or to stay calm during examinations or discussions with advisers, but Solveig never did.”

  “Did you?” Tasida asked, looking amused.

  “A few times. It was usually the university-level students who were specializing in medicine who supplied the rest of us with the stuff.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Tasida said. “It isn’t really cheating—moods and implants and memory enhancers aren’t going to make up for not knowing the material. They’ll help somebody perform at top capacity, but they won’t increase ability. And you’d have to be really excessive in your use of such things before they’d do you too much harm.” Tasida paused. “Anyway, I always thought that any medical students dealing in those aids were getting some useful lessons in how to prescribe treatments responsibly for their patients, especially since the stupid and the careless and the greedy dealers were likely to get caught sooner or later. And I don’t see what’s so wrong about trying to enhance and improve your basic physiological equipment. The Habbers certainly don’t worry about such changes.”

  Mahala wrapped her arms around her legs, a bit surprised at Tasida’s frankness. “You’re being awfully open with me.”

  “I had better be open with you. You’ll have to back me up, and I’ll have to rely on you, possibly in the middle of a life-threatening emergency. I have to be completely honest with you, as you’ll have to be with me.”

  “Then I might as well admit,” Mahala said, “that I used to think that we might eventually have to change ourselves in a lot of ways, genetically or somatically, if we’re ever to be able to live outside the domes, even after Venus is completely terraformed.”

  “That’s not exactly an original thought. I’ve entertained such notions myself, as have many other people. But they aren’t the kinds of thoughts I share with most of my patients. People may be the products of generations of genetic scans and analysis and in vitro somatic changes and gene surgery, and a small number of them were removed from an ectogenetic chamber at birth instead of getting pushed out of a mother’s womb, but many of them are very quick to tell me that they don’t want any treatment that’s unnatural.”

  “I can imagine,” Mahala said.

  “Now I find myself wondering if Solveig Einarsdottir avoided implants and mood alterers not because she didn’t need them, but because she was afraid of them, afraid that they might open up too much inside her that she’d rather not confront.”

  Mahala shook her head. “Not long ago, she told me that she wouldn’t know what to do if she thought there was no chance of being a specialist in astronomy and astrophysics. Oh, she can still keep up with her studies, but the things she really loves are fields the Project doesn’t seem to find particularly useful right now. So she’s lost the only work she ever really wanted to do.”

  “Yes, I suppose she has,” Tasida said, “and her brother Ragnar is finding it increasingly hard to do what he wants to do, too.” She stood up. “Get yourself settled, attend Frani’s bondmate ceremony, even take a few days to visit your grandparents in Oberg. As you know, my equipment isn’t quite as good as what you’d find on Anwara or the Islands, but I’ll expect you at my office in exactly fourteen days at five hours, just before first light.”

  “I’ll be there,” Mahala said as she got to her feet.

  Two days after Mahala had returned to Turing, Solveig’s parents arrived, came to Dyami’s house, and announced that they would be staying with their son in the house he was building until the ceremony. Dyami had offered to have the couple make their pledge in his home; Frania and Ragnar had decided on a small ceremony, but the simple plan had grown more complicated. Einar and Thorunn had decided to come to Turing to see their son make his pledge instead of only sending Ragnar their congratulations, a few of Frania’s fellow pilots had invited themselves, and now Dyami was preparing for at least fifty people to show up in his common room.

  Mahala and Solveig spent the four days after their arrival in Turing preparing small pastries and dumplings and arranging plates of vegetables and fruits for the expected guests. Two airship pilots had come to the house carting a gift from Risa’s household: several bottles of Oberg’s most famous libation, Dinel’s Cytherian Whiskey. By the evening before the ceremony, Mahala had been too busy even to have a real conversation with Frania, but the pensive look she often saw on her friend’s face made her wonder if Frania was having doubts about her pledge. Ragnar had not come to Dyami’s house during the days before the ceremony, apparently because he was either working his shifts or finishing another room of his house, which he had decided to build in Turing’s west dome instead of in the more recently completed east dome. He had perfectly good excuses for staying away, but perhaps he was also having his doubts about his commitment.

  Solveig, having stored the last tray of pastries in the kitchen, had gone to bed early in the room she was sharing with Mahala and Frania. Dyami and Amina were arranging the cushions and tables they had borrowed from other households against the walls, while Tasida set out a few vases of the flowers one of her patients raised to trade for credit or services. Mahala was about to prepare for sleep when she saw Frania leave the bathroom, cross the common room, and go outside.

  Mahala hesitated for a moment, then followed her. As the door closed behind her, Mahala watched Frania walk down the slope toward the lake.

  She’s only sixteen, Mahala thought, and Ragnar’s barely eighteen; they don’t know what they’re doing. Older people could say all they wanted to about the virtues of finding a bondmate early, when one’s feelings were most intense, before experience and disappointment in love made it harder to form strong attachments, but such promises also meant closing off other possibi
lities in life, or so it seemed to her. Early attachments, the challenges and rewards of rearing children, working at tasks that might have been handled largely by robots so that people could feel that they had a real part in the Project—all of it seemed a way of keeping people here from dwelling too much on whether their lives on Venus had any real purpose apart from propagating their genes and their species. A population had to be maintained, against that far off day when its descendants would leave the domes and live under an open sky.

  Mahala descended the hill, keeping behind Frania until her friend halted and looked up at her.

  “Mahala,” Frania called out.

  “Frani.” She hesitated; maybe Frania wanted to be alone.

  “Come on, Mahala—I could use some company right now.”

  Mahala came down the slope. The two walked toward the lake, then seated themselves under the trees overlooking the shore.

  “This whole ceremony is getting away from me,” Frania said. “First Ragnar and I were going to make our promises at his house with Dyami and Amina as witnesses. Then Dyami offered to let us have a ceremony at his house, and then Amina thought you and Solveig might want to come, and then Ragnar predicted that his parents would decide they just couldn’t miss this, and the whole thing kept growing and growing after that.”

  “You’ll have something to look back on,” Mahala said.

  “I hope I’m not making a mistake,” Frania said more softly. “First Ragnar insisted on a pledge, and then he wanted to put it off, and then he changed his mind and asked me if we could have the ceremony as soon as possible. And after that, I kept thinking that maybe we should call it off and wait a while longer.”