Benzi turned a bit in his seat. “Mother, are you saying that —”
“I’m saying that I’m sorry for much of what I’ve said to you. If I had it to do over, I would have been kinder to you.”
“If you had it to do over; you would have done the same, and that’s all right. Maybe we would have been closer if you hadn’t been chosen for the Institute, if we hadn’t been parted. But you couldn’t have turned down such a chance.”
Iris shook her head. “No, I couldn’t have.”
“I wouldn’t have asked you to give up what you’ve done. But I wish you could see — that you could understand —” Benzi seemed to be struggling for words. “Your dream may not be mine,” he finished.
She wanted to protest that he would have come to share it, but she could not begin their old argument again, not now. She might have been able to face her death here bravely if she had known her son would make his own contribution to the Project, but her dream had only led him to his death. She reminded herself that Benzi would not have been in this ship if he were not a pilot, if he had heeded her protests against such a choice. That thought was unworthy, and shamed her. She thought of Angharad, whose line would end here.
Te-yu was making her way back to her seat; Iris lowered her eyes, afraid to look at what the pilot was carrying. Te-yu had to end it the way she thought best; Iris would try to talk her out of taking her life, but would not forcibly restrain her.
“Well, what do you think?” the pilot said. Iris looked up; Te-yu was holding small, glassy containers of food. “Oysters. How’s that sound? And we’ve got broccoli, bamboo shoots with mushrooms, and fish in wine. Or, if you prefer, we could try the smoked salmon and a piece of North American beef. Somebody on Island Eight is going to be mighty sorry about missing these imports — probably paid enough for them too.”
Iris let out a yelp, relieved, surprised that she could still laugh.
They ate in silence. Te-yu was clearly savoring the food; Iris, after waiting for the containers to heat hers, found that she could not swallow it. Benzi was picking at his oysters with his fingers.
“There’s one thing I regret,” Te-yu said, her mouth full. “I was always going to ask Chen to do one of his carvings for me, kept meaning to ask.”
“I didn’t know you knew Chen that well,” Iris said.
“Oh, I don’t, but I think most of his friends have a carving of his by now. He’s done a few for others. I hear that even a couple of Linkers have them.”
Chen, Iris thought, had never told her that.
“I saw him a few times with Benzi,” Te-yu continued, “gave him a few tips about piloting. Once, he came over to my room and put in some time on my band and simulator.”
Iris was puzzled. “Why would he do that?”
“He did it for me,” Benzi said. “It was a surprise. He wanted to know a little bit about it, wanted to be able to talk to me about what I was doing. He thought it might help him understand me, I guess. It was a nice gesture, when you remember that he wasn’t any happier about my choice of work than you were.”
Iris looked away, unable to meet her son’s eyes for a moment.
“I want to ask you something,” Benzi continued. “When you were on Earth, before you were chosen, when you were still in Lincoln, what drew you to this place? I don’t mean that business about working for the glory of the Nomarchies or whatever — that’s not what I’m asking.”
It had been a long time since her son had asked her such a question. “I saw a chance for something new,” she replied. “I saw that Earth didn’t have to live with its limits, that we could reach for more. I wanted to do something for the future instead of only clinging to what was.”
“Doesn’t it occur to you that the Project might only be another way of clinging to the past? Do you think the Cytherians are going to be any freer than Earthfolk in the end? Don’t you know that they’ll come up against the same limits unless they become something else?”
She couldn’t listen to this talk, which sounded like something a Habber would say. “You might have shed such a mistaken idea,” she blurted out, “if you’d stayed in school and learned more of the Project’s history.” She saw immediately that she had said the wrong thing; a muscle twitched in Benzi’s face as he stared past her.
Te-yu fidgeted, as if uneasy at hearing the conversation. “Well, maybe I’ll get a carving anyway,” the pilot said lightly. “Chen could always do one as a model for my spot on the memorial pillars.”
Iris looked up at the screen. The ship’s air seemed warmer; she could feel the darkness and the atmosphere pressing in on them. The ship’s two lights were feeble beacons. As she watched, one beam suddenly went out.
Te-yu cursed. Swinging one arm, she dashed the remains of her feast to the floor.
The tiers of the northern Bat’s docks were a lattice on which tiny lights, embedded in the metallic beams, seemed like ornamental jewels. The latticework stretched up to the Bat’s dark belly; above the Bat, bright wings reached beyond the shadow of the Parasol, dwarfing the structures below.
Chen crawled along one metal beam toward the entrance ahead. Next to him, on the lowest level of the docks, the pitted hull of a docked ship was a giant, curving wall. A component along the beam had failed just after the ship had docked; Chen had managed to replace it, and now the automatic ship’s tanks of compressed oxygen, which it had carried up from the north pole’s installation, were being lifted out by massive metal claws and placed in the lift. The Bat’s work would continue with only a small interruption; a steady stream of tanks would be flung into space.
The entrance yawned open. Chen pulled himself inside; the door closed as air cycled into the lock. As the inner door opened, Chen entered a small room where five other workers sat in front of consoles; one of the women glanced up at him as he removed his helmet.
“It’ll do for now,” Chen said to her, “but we’ve got to get a new panel of components in there soon.” The woman shook her head; he wasn’t telling her anything she did not know. He had replaced the failed component with a slightly damaged but still usable panel, one he had repaired himself. “The Administrators ought to be tougher with Earth. They want to push everything to its limit, but it’d cost them even more if —”
The woman had a funny look on her freckled face; her blue eyes stared blankly at him. “Hey, Simone,” he said, “what’s the matter?”
“You better talk to them.” Simone’s head jerked toward the entrance behind her.
Wu Fei-lin and Tonie Wong were standing just inside the door. Chen made his way toward them, still holding his helmet. Tonie suddenly covered her mouth; Fei-lin was staring at him with small, sad eyes.
“They sent us to tell you,” Fei-lin said as he took Chen’s helmet. “Maybe a Counselor thought you should hear it from a friend. An airship — an airship’s falling toward the surface. The Islands are tracking it, but I don’t know what they can do.” Tonie gripped Chen’s hand. “Iris is on the ship,” Fei-lin continued. “So is Benzi.”
Chen staggered a bit; Fei-lin caught him. He drew in his breath in short, sharp gasps as his friends helped him out of his suit. “Their helium cell’s damaged,” Tonie said. “They won’t be able to —”
Chen covered his face as Tonie and Fei-lin held him. “They’re still alive,” he muttered. “They’re still alive” He would know if Iris were dead; he would feel it.
“Oh, Chen,” Tonie said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
He found himself remembering the moment, nearly ten years ago, when Fei-lin and Tonie had made their pledge at last. Chen had been Fei-lin’s witness; he had asked Iris to attend the ceremony with him, though he had expected her to make some acid remark about people who had faith in such bonds. Surprisingly, Iris had seemed moved by the ceremony, and afterward had joined the celebration. They had all drunk too much; Tonie had babbled about how everything had turned out for the best and how lucky they all were to have found out who they really loved. Iris had co
me to Chen’s room later; it had been one of their better times and, for that brief moment, Chen had believed that they might draw together once more.
But Iris had not come back to him, and now he would lose his son as well. He suddenly hated the pilots who had lured Benzi to their work and to his end.
A Counselor would mourn with him, but the Counselor would also point out how many lives the Project had claimed. The Counselor would say that Iris and Benzi would not be forgotten, but Chen knew that their memories would grow dimmer even in the minds of their friends. The Counselor would tell him that his bondmate and son would want Chen to go on with his work.
“They’ll have to be rescued,” Chen said as he withdrew from his friends’ arms and straightened. “They must be finding some way to get to them.”
“I don’t know,” Fei-lin replied. “The Islands haven’t said —”
“Let’s go.” Chen palmed open the door and entered the lift; after a moment, Tonie and Fei-lin followed. His head swam as the lift whisked him up past the docks; his ears throbbed. When the lift came to a stop, Chen stumbled out and raced through the curving corridor, then halted in front of one door, pressed his palm against it, and entered.
As he had expected, the small room where the Bat workers dined was crowded with people waiting to offer their sympathies. They would try to console him and soothe his grief; a few might sit with him around his bunk later and wait for him to pour out his heart to them. Someone else would take over his shift and arrangements would be made to have him sent back to the Islands. Eventually, he would be expected to go on, to put his grief behind him, to accept what was unacceptable.
He looked around the room as Fei-lin came up to his side. Most of the people there were wearing the gray garments of workers, but in one corner, he saw that a few blue-clad pilots had joined the group. Benzi was a pilot; they were probably mourning the loss of one of their number. On the wall screen behind the pilots, a woman was speaking; Chen tried to concentrate on her words.
The ship was down in the Maxwell Mountain region. They were calling to the ship, but had had no response from Hong Te-yu, the pilot, or anyone else. The ship had jettisoned its helium, and was trapped. They did not know how much damage the ship’s cabin had sustained, or even whether anyone aboard was still alive. The feasibility of a rescue attempt was being studied. The woman on the screen recited these facts in a toneless voice; the screen winked out. Several people in the room let out a sigh.
Hands stretched out to him; Chen waved them away, and then saw that Rose Milon was sitting at one table. The head of the Bat’s engineering team had come to offer her condolences. Chen elbowed his way toward the gray-haired woman.
“What are they going to do?” he burst out.
“They’re trying to decide. Please, sit down if you like.”
Chen remained on his feet. “My bondmate and my son are down there. The longer they take to decide, the more danger they’re in.”
Rose gazed at him solemnly. “We don’t even know if they’ve survived. You can’t expect —”
Chen leaned on the table and thrust his face close to hers. “I can expect more than this.”
“This isn’t our decision,” Rose replied. “It’s up to the Island Administrators to consider all factors and —”
“Damn it, Rose. Why do we have to wait for them?”
A few people nearby murmured to one another. An idea was forming in Chen’s mind; he had no time to examine it or to consider whether or not it would work. “We have automatic ships,” he heard himself say. “Every one of them’s been to the surface thousands of times. We could set a new course for one, send it down near where the ship is. The scoop that usually carries the oxygen tanks could bring the ship up again.”
“And just how do you think the downed ship’s going to get to the scoop? What if its treads were damaged in the landing? What if the ship’s sensors are out? They might not even know a ship’s landed, or be able to get a fix on where it is. And their comm’s dead.” Rose glared at him. “You have to face it, Chen. The passengers might be dead too. We can’t take useless risks.”
“It wouldn’t work anyway,” a man said. Chen stood up; one of the pilots had come over to Rose’s table. “Those ships are set on one course, down to the pole and back. Sure, we can punch in a new flight path, but you’d have a better chance if you also had a pilot aboard, someone who could operate the ship manually and bring it down as close as possible.” The tall, thin pilot paused for a moment. “This isn’t just crating oxygen tanks up, you know. You’d need someone aboard in case a problem came up.”
“We can’t risk a pilot,” Rose said firmly.
“Then I’ll have to go with the ship,” Chen responded. It had come to this; he would have to face his fear of descending through those thick, dark clouds to that deadly surface at last. He pushed his fear aside as he thought of Iris and Benzi; his fear for them was greater than his fear for himself. “The pilot who’s down there with my bondmate and son let me use her simulator a couple of times. I know a little about piloting.”
The tall pilot near him shook his head; his thin lips curled. “Don’t be a fool, man. There’s a difference between simulations and running a ship. You wouldn’t be safe alone.”
“I’ll take the chance.”
“No you won’t.” The pilot lifted one dark brow. “I’ll take the chance, though. You can come along for the ride, if you want. Might be wise to have someone like you aboard just in case we need some minor repairs on the way. We aren’t going to have time to give the ship a thorough check.”
Chen gaped at the man. “But this isn’t your concern.”
“There’s two pilots down there. That’s my concern.”
Rose slammed a fist against the tabletop. “You’re both mad. We can’t allow this. The Administrators have to decide if it’s worth the risk. What do you think they’re going to say if we lose one of our own ships? They have enough trouble getting us what we need here. How are they going to explain it to Earth?”
“We’re wasting time,” the pilot answered. His hand gripped Chen’s shoulder. “I say we suit up and get out of here while there’s still a chance of reaching them in time.”
“I can’t allow that,” Rose cried. The others in the room had backed away from the table, as if reluctant to interfere. “The least you can do is call the Islands and tell them your plan, let them decide if it’s worth trying.”
“There’s no time for that,” Chen replied. If the Island Administrators heard of this scheme, they were likely to order them not to try it. The others here, whatever their feelings, would then do their best to restrain them, and he could not fight them all. “I’ll take the blame.”
Rose’s face was livid. “I’ll have to save you from yourself, then,” she said. “I’ll alert everyone on the Bat. You won’t get near a ship.” She jumped to her feet and turned in the direction of the screen. Fei-lin leaped forward and grabbed her arm. Rose swung at him as Tonie locked her arms around Rose’s waist. “Do something!” the engineer screamed at the other workers. No one moved; Chen saw that most of the people were on his side.
“Come on,” the pilot said. Chen followed him as the two men pushed through the crowd to the door and entered the corridor. “This plan of yours had better work,” the tall man muttered as they hurried down the hall. “If it doesn’t, a lot of people in there are going to be in trouble. I bet old Rose is already noting names for reprimands.”
“If it doesn’t work, we’ll have troubles of our own,” Chen said.
The pilot slapped a door; they entered a lift. “Someone in there’s going to start thinking about what a reprimand could mean,” the pilot said, “and then they’ll send out a call. Better hope we can get to a ship before that happens.”
The lift hummed as they dropped toward the docks.
“Iris,” Benzi said, “there’s something you should probably know.”
Iris turned her head toward her son. “What is it?”
“Why speak of that?” Te-yu interrupted.
“Why shouldn’t we be honest now?” Benzi said. “We’re not going to get out of here, Te-yu. It doesn’t matter what we say.”
“If it doesn’t matter, then we might as well keep silent. Sharing any burdens our consciences carry isn’t going to make it easier to die.” Te-yu rested one hand against her harness. “We still have a chance. We can’t give up hope.”
Iris was silent. What could her son want to tell her? That he might have wanted to seek training as a torchship pilot, that he might have eventually tried to leave the Islands for that sort of life? She had often suspected that he harbored such a desire, though she had tried to deny it and had never mentioned her suspicions to Chen.
Benzi leaned over the dead comm. “Too bad Chen isn’t here,” he said. “Maybe he’d know how to get that thing working.”
The ship suddenly shifted under them, rocking Iris against the right side of her seat. “Harnesses!” Te-yu cried. Iris pushed the button on her armrest; the straps of the harness snaked around her. The ship bounced, then rolled sharply to one side; Iris hung upside down from her harness for a long moment before the ship rolled again, then righted itself.
They were now leaning sharply to the right. “Are you all right?” Iris heard the pilot say.
“Still here,” Benzi replied.
“I’m all right,” Iris said. She gazed at the small screens in front of her; at least most of the sensors still seemed to be working. One screen showed the position of their cabin; they were sitting on the edge of a rise, with a steep slope just below them. Part of their right tread was no longer touching ground; if the craft shifted again, they would be hurled down the slope. Iris shuddered and turned away from the screen’s diagram.
Venus of Dreams Page 38
