The shuttlecraft turned out to be a small, ancient vehicle with few comforts, and it lacked a lift to carry them to their seats. Malik and the others were forced to climb up worn ladders through the center before easing themselves into their seats.
Malik lay back and fumbled at the tubes in the armrest as Nikolai climbed in next to him. “Ever been off Earth before?” the Russian asked.
Malik shook his head. “I imagine this is the first time for most of us.” He opened a panel in the armrest, took out two tablets, and handed one to Nikolai. “Here's what I was looking for. Better take one, Kolya—you may get sick otherwise.” He put the tablet into his mouth and sucked some water from the tube.
“We've got a trip ahead of us,” Nikolai muttered as he swallowed his tablet. “I hope I'm not one of those people who can't adapt.”
“It's too late to worry about that now.” Malik strapped himself into his seat. This ship had no screens through which the passengers could view images of their journey; he only knew that they were on their way when an invisible weight pressed him against his seat and the loud humming of the ship's engines drowned out even the sound of Nikolai's moan.
* * * *
The shuttle journey was an ordeal of discomfort, relieved only by two periods of restless sleep. From time to time, a Guardian drifted by weighflessly, showed the passengers how to pull themselves along the handholds on the seats, led them to the zero-g toilets, and explained how to use them to those who could not read the instructions.
Most of the travelers seemed weak by the time they docked at the Wheel. They followed the Guardians passively through lighted halls and up elevators until they arrived at another bay, where a small vessel carried them to the waiting Habber ship.
This ship was unlike the smaller, sluglike freighters and sturdy torchships housed in the other docks of the tubular space station's hub. The Habber vessel was a long, silvery cylinder connected to a giant globe that housed its engines; inside, a soft light permeated the ship.
The Guardians had remained behind in the bay. The passengers waited restlessly in a corridor while Benzi Liangharad and his companion greeted the two Habbers already aboard; the Anglaic they spoke among themselves seemed filled with unfamiliar or shortened words.
“That shuttle trip was bad enough,” a woman near Malik said. “I don't know how I'll get through this.”
“How long do you think it'll take?” Nikolai asked Malik. “I don't know much about this sort of craft.”
“I can't take weightlessness again,” Howin said.
“If this ship is anything like Earth's spacecraft, you won't have to,” Malik responded. “Our torchships use laser-induced pulse fusion.” He shifted the pack on his back, which felt heavy even in the one-half g of the Wheel. “What that means is that you'll experience some weightlessness at the beginning of the trip, but as the ship continuously accelerates, you'll feel the illusion of gravity. A torchship keeps accelerating until the midpoint of its trip, and then it begins to decelerate, so—” His voice trailed off; he was hardly an expert on such vessels, and it was possible the Habbers had something more sophisticated.
“They're Habbers,” Howin said. “Maybe they like weightlessness.”
“Come with me,” Benzi said.
The group followed the pilot down the corridor. “How long do you think we'll be on this tub?” Bogdan asked.
“That depends on where Venus is now in relation to us,” Malik replied. “It might be a week, it might be three.”
A door slid open; Benzi led them into a large room filled with platforms covered by transparent carapaces. “This is where you'll pass the journey,” the pilot said when they were all inside. “Pick out a sleeper and stow your pack next to it. A red button on the side of the sleeper will open it, and it closes automatically when you're inside. Remove your clothing if you think you'll be more comfortable that way. You'll be awakened when we reach Anwara.”
Nikolai gaped at the Habber. “What is this?”
“You'll be in suspension during the trip. Our own people often avail themselves of the sleepers during a long journey. You won't have to be fed, and you'll avoid the boredom of the trip. Believe me, it's for your comfort.”
“Sure,” one man said. “You really care how we feel.”
“You wouldn't be very comfortable at two g's or more,” Benzi said, “since we'll be accelerating to make faster time.”
“They want us out of the way,” a woman whispered. “They just don't want us roaming around their precious ship.”
The same thought had occurred to Malik; the Habbers might not want the Earthfolk examining their ship too closely. “Coffins,” Bogdan said suddenly. “They look like coffins. How do we know he'll wake us up at all?”
Benzi frowned. “Don't be ridiculous. Don't you think word would have reached Earth by now if previous settlers hadn't arrived safely?”
Bogdan did not seem reassured. “Coffins,” he said again. “You won't get me into one of those things.”
“Then you'll have to leave the ship,” Benzi said. “I don't imagine the Guardians in the bay will be happy about having to take you back.”
Malik walked toward one of the sleepers, set down his pack, and pressed the button; the carapace yawned open. He put his coat on top of the pack and climbed inside as a few other people went to the sleepers. He had thought there might be a chance to speak with Benzi again, or to see if one of the other Habbers might be more sympathetic.
The sleeper closed over him. He caught a glimpse of Nikolai in the sleeper next to his own before a cool mist bathed his face and a darkness as thick as Venus's clouds enveloped his thoughts.
THE MONUMENT
Six
Risa opened her eyes, adjusted the harness holding her in her seat, and gazed absently at the large screen in front of the shuttle's passenger section. The vessel was just beginning its descent to Venus's upper atmosphere. Weight pressed her against her seat as the shuttle's retros fired to slow its speed. The Platform was visible on the screen; circles of light marking its docks shone against the Island port's dark metal surface.
Risa was on her way home to Oberg. She looked away from the screen, still weary after the party a few of her friends had given for her on the northern Bat.
She had finished her last shift on the winged satellite above the north pole of Venus. The northern Bat, and its twin over Venus's south pole, had large wings that extended beyond the Parasol's shadow to provide the satellites with solar power. Below the workers’ living quarters, each Bat had a latticework of docks for the scooper ships that traveled to the surface.
The process of terraforming was releasing much of the planet's oxygen. Some of the oxygen would remain locked in rock; some would combine with the hydrogen brought from Saturn to form water. The rest of the excess oxygen, however, had to be removed if the atmosphere was ever to support life. Two installations near each of Venus's poles drew in the atmosphere, separated the oxygen from other elements, and then compressed it. Robots ferried the oxygen containers to the scooper ships, which carried it up to the Bats. Much of the oxygen was dumped into space; the rest was used on the two satellites or was ferried away for other purposes.
This process was automatic, but people were needed on the two winged satellites to maintain the docks and service the ships, and all the workers there lived with the fear that the volatile oxygen might explode. Risa had never experienced such a disaster, but she knew a few older people who had lost friends in an explosion.
Along with other able-bodied young people who were not needed for other tasks, Risa had volunteered for duty on one of the Bats. She had worked her two-month-long shifts ever since her sixteenth birthday. Her father had not been happy with her decision; he knew that some young people saw Bat duty partly as a rite of passage and also as a chance to be away from their families for a while. Such motives did not concern her. The Project needed workers on the Bats, and she wanted to be useful.
Risa had gone back to Ober
g between shifts to train for the work she would be doing when she returned to her settlement for good. She would now become a permanent member of the team that had trained her and would work at maintaining dome installations. She would also be free to spend more time on her household's business and at work that would earn more credit for herself. Once she had looked forward to this time; now she felt a pang of regret. Decisions she had been free to postpone might soon have to be made; her adult life as one of Oberg's settlers would truly begin.
The weight holding her down dissipated. Risa waited until a light overhead signaled that the ship was safely lowered into its dock and the entrance sealed off above, then released herself from the harness. The floor under her feet was now a wall. She reached for her duffel and began to climb down the center of the ship, clinging to the handholds and securing her feet in the small indentations along the wall while trying to keep out of the way of other passengers.
She was inside the large, cylindrical dock that held the shuttle. Most of the others were already pushing through the dock's door. The pilot climbed down the shuttle's ladder, followed by a Guardian in a black uniform. Risa's nose wrinkled in distaste; she disliked the Guardians. A Guardian pilot always accompanied each shuttle, as though the travelers were simply waiting for a chance to flee to the nearest Hab; she viewed such suppositions as an insult. Seeing the Guardians who were stationed on the Platform made her grateful she lived in a domed settlement, where they had no need of such people.
She walked into a long, lighted corridor. Most of the passengers had already climbed into one of the carts that would take them to the airship bays. A couple of women in the cart beckoned to her; she was about to walk toward them when she spotted Evar IngersLens striding in her direction. The young man waved at her; she stepped back from the cart as it rolled away.
“Risa,” Evar said as he took her hands. “I thought I'd catch you. It just so happens that I'll be piloting the next airship to Oberg, so you'll be traveling with me. They're still loading cargo, so it won't be leaving for a couple of hours.” He smiled, obviously glad to see her; his blue eyes shone with anticipation.
Two hours, she thought, enough time to find a free cubicle in the pilots’ quarters for some hasty lovemaking before departure. Then, after they arrived in Oberg, Evar would expect her to invite him to her house. In her last message, she had told him that she needed time to consider their relationship. Evar had clearly taken her words literally. He had given her the time; presumably she was now prepared to plan their future.
“I'm not quite myself today,” she said as she slipped her hands from his. “I just want to stretch my legs a bit and then rest until it's time to go.”
“I'll walk with you, then.” He took her duffel before she could refuse and slung it over his shoulder. Her eyes fell to the black and red sash he wore with his blue pilot's coverall. More people, especially among the pilots, were wearing it lately. As they walked down the corridor, the sash reminded her again of the true reason she was unwilling to make any commitment to Evar.
The sash marked him as a member of the Ishtar cult. Risa had always prided herself on her tolerance of any system of beliefs, as long as the believers left others free to reject them. Ishtar's followers were not so tolerant; they imagined a world where everyone believed as they did. To her, this was utter folly; how could people from so many different Nomarchies and traditions get along if concessions weren't made to the beliefs of others?
Two pilots passed them, both wearing the sash of Ishtar. The cult had originated among the more ignorant Project workers. Those simple people had believed that the effort of terraforming would rouse the Spirit that now lay dormant on Venus, and that this Spirit had to be placated. The believers, dimly aware of theories that Venus might have developed into an Earth-like planet if its planetary evolution had not taken a different turn, saw terraforming as a way to restore Venus to what it should have been. But Venus, and the Spirit now called Ishtar after an ancient goddess, would resist humankind's efforts. Risa did not care to think of the rumored rituals by which Ishtar was appeased.
She hoped that Evar was sensible enough not to believe in the actual existence of such a Spirit; he could hardly see every quake as a sign of Ishtar struggling against Her transformation. Along with many others, he probably saw Ishtar only as a symbol of what the cult's followers longed to create—a future world free of barriers among the settlers, when the technology that now separated them from their world would no longer be needed.
She understood why Evar and so many of the pilots might be attracted to such a group. The pilots were the most mobile of all the groups here and were often away from their primary residences for long periods. Knowing that others sometimes did not view them as true settlers, they tended to be more fervent in their professions of loyalty to their world. They also had to endure the presence of Guardians aboard shuttle flights, a reminder to them of the pilots who had deserted Venus long ago; wearing the sash was a way of showing how the pilots felt about the Guardians and their suspicions.
Being in Ishtar, according to Evar, marked him as a true Cytherian, one yearning for a world free of both Earth and the Habbers. The problem with Ishtar's adherents was that they seemed to regard other people as less loyal to Venus.
“This was your last shift on the Bat, wasn't it?” Evar asked.
She nodded; he knew perfectly well that it was.
“You'll be back in Oberg then, tending to your household's affairs,” he continued. “Time to think of a bondmate and the next generation, wouldn't you say? You're twenty-four now—you shouldn't put it off much longer.”
“I couldn't think of it while I was working on the Bat.”
“Well, plenty of others do. I mean, accidents don't happen all that often, but if they do, it's a consolation to a family to know that the ones they lost left children or stored seed behind. But you don't have to think of that now. There's nothing to stop you from settling down.”
His conventionality suddenly irritated her. “Maybe I'll have a child without a bondmate,” she said. “I might find a man who'd be willing to donate sperm and renounce any formal ties with the child. It'd certainly make things simpler.”
He halted. She had expected to shock him a little; instead, he laughed. “Oh, Risa. You don't mean that. People would wonder.”
“My father and his companion never had a bond,”
“That's different.” Evar shook back his sandy hair. “Bettina's older—she grew up on Earth, and her people didn't have bonds, and I suppose she's a bit old-fashioned. Anyway, she and Chen live together as if they're bondmates, so it comes to the same thing. And everyone says you have a chance to be on the Oberg Council some-day, so you ought to think of your reputation. You don't want people to say you act like a Habber, without any ties.”
She glared at him, wondering exactly what he meant. Was he telling her that, because her brother had abandoned the Project for a Habber's life, she had to be careful? She had never known her brother Benzi; his actions had nothing to do with her. Benzi had broken with his family; as far as she was concerned, he did not exist.
Evar's eyes widened a little; he smiled blandly. He was only giving her commonplace advice. Among diverse groups of settlers, it was wise not to be unnecessarily offensive; that usually meant conservative public conduct and keeping more questionable pursuits to oneself.
“It's funny, hearing you tell me how I should act,” Risa said. “You should save your advice for some of the people in Ishtar's inner circles. They don't bother with bonds, and I've heard plenty about their rite. If anyone else acted the way your precious Guide does, people would have some choice names for her.”
He peered at her earnestly, almost pityingly. She had hoped that, just this once, she could rouse him from his placidity.
“You don't understand,” he responded calmly. “Their bonds are with Ishtar and among themselves, and there's no need for them to be formal. They're breaking down the barriers that divide people, liv
ing the way all Cytherians will someday, sharing themselves and all they have with each other. Yet they're wise enough to know that most of us aren't ready for that. They're examples of what we might become, and it's the obligation of our Guide to allow the Spirit of Ishtar to fill her.”
Risa sniffed. “That isn't the only thing that fills her. What does she do at those rites—take on every man there?”
“Certainly not. You should come to our meetings sometime. We do allow people to find the truth in their own way, you know—belief is harder for some than for others. What's important is fellowship and knowing that we're part of something larger than ourselves.”
“We're part of the Project, and we're settlers. That should be enough.”
She walked on; Evar paced at her side. “I thought you were more open-minded,” he said. “You usually go out of your way to be fair, but you aren't very fair to us.”
“I'm fairer than you. I don't care how many people join Ishtar or rut with your Guide, as long as they don't keep harping at the rest of us about their wonderful truth.”
She pressed her lips together. Evar had been her lover for two years; it had been easy to let him assume they would become bondmates. He eased her loneliness, and she did not expect to meet anyone who might fire her passion among the relatively limited number of available men. Evar was steady and reliable; because his pilot's duties would take him away for extended periods, she would be freer to run her household as she saw fit. But she could not abide the thought of suffering endless lectures on Ishtar or the likelihood that any children they had would grow up wearing the sash.
Like Evar, she dreamed of building a new world, but she had hoped that the new society would be rooted in more rational ways of thought.
“You should join us,” he said. “It isn't as if you have to accept everything right away—it's making the effort that's important, and showing the willingness to become a true Cytherian. You ought to be more sensitive to that than most, after what your brother did so long ago—you'd only be showing where your true loyalties lie if you join.”
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