Child of Venus

by Pamela Sargent

  “The Habbers are asking that both Earthfolk and Cytheri-ans now join them in the exploration of space,” Masud continued. “They propose to build a Habitat that will be not only a community but a voyager, a Habitat that will move across the vast interstellar distance to this alien beacon. The Habbers might have undertaken such a great voyage by themselves, but it is their wish that we join them, that people from both Earth and Venus accompany them on this journey. We have, all of us, been looking inside ourselves for too long. It is time, and long past time, that we look outward again.”

  Fingers closed around Mahala’s arm. “I can’t believe it,” Solveig said, tightening her grip. “I didn’t dare imagine that anything like this could happen.”

  Masud al-Tikriti fell silent for so long that Mahala wondered if he might be listening to some prompting from his Link. “Let me be clear about this,” he said in a lower voice, “so that there will be no misunderstanding. The time of animosity and mistrust among the inhabitants of this solar system is now past. The Council of Mukhtars, the Project Council, the Administrators of the Islands and the Councilors in the settlements, and the Habbers who speak for their people—all of us must become the representatives of a united humankind.”

  Mahala waited, expecting him to say more, even though there was little more he could say that would add anything to what he had already said.

  “More details will be forthcoming later on,” Masud said, “about the plans for mining and refining operations on Mercury and for the proposed space vessel, but for now, I urge all of you to ponder what you have heard and to look forward to a new era in our history. My thoughts and prayers are with us all.”

  The image of Masud vanished; the screen winked out.

  “Six hundred light-years,” Solveig said. “Do the Habbers actually think it’s possible for us to go that far in any reasonable time?”

  “Obviously they do,” Dyami said. He wore the same mixture of expressions Mahala had seen on Masud al-Tikriti’s face: the joy and the hope and the fear and uncertainty. “They were able to increase the rotation of Venus with gravitational pulses almost a century ago. I think they’re capable of designing a drive that can carry a vessel across interstellar space.”

  “Maybe they’ve already done so,” Solveig said.

  “Maybe,” Dyami murmured.

  Everything would change, Mahala thought; everything was going to be different. Hope flared within her before doubts assailed her again. Would this mean a new era of cooperation and peace, or would these new developments only fuel suspicion and distrust? Plans for an ambitious interstellar voyage might rouse people to greater efforts at cooperation, but they might also distract people from the problems of the discontented on Earth, and from the efforts that were still needed to transform Venus.

  Now she understood why Dyami had been so worried about how their fellow Cytherians might react to this great change. Administrator Masud had emphasized that the Project would go on, that the effort to terraform Venus would not be neglected. But many would now be wondering if their dream might yet be abandoned and that this new project, intentionally or not, might lead them to that abandonment.

  18

  Two days after Masud al-Tikriti’s announcement, Mukhtar Tabib al-Tahir gave a brief speech on all of the public channels. The few Guardians remaining on the Islands would be reassigned to duty on Anwara. Those who wished to remain as settlers on the surface of Venus would be allowed to resign from the Guardian forces and travel to the domes to stay, subject to the approval of each settlement’s Council.

  This was yet another sign that a new era of cooperation was at hand, according to the Mukhtar. But to Mahala it seemed that Mukhtar Tabib was also trying to call people back to more immediate concerns. The preparations for a voyage to a distant star where an alien civilization would reveal itself would inspire all of humankind and lead to even greater accomplishments. Yet the realization of that hope lay far in the future, seeming to be as far away as the transformation of Venus into a green and growing world.

  To travel to a star system six hundred light-years away, as Solveig had explained to the excited and curious children whom she was now teaching, meant going to a place from where it took light six hundred years to reach the solar system. “After making that elementary point,” Solveig continued, “I decided that an educational mind-tour would do better at presenting the paradoxes of time dilation at relativistic speeds than I could. After that, they really got excited. You mean time will slow down for the people if they’re traveling at close to the speed of light? You mean only a few years will go by for them while a whole lot of years pass here? That was our lesson for the day—they weren’t interested in anything else.”

  Mahala was silent as she walked with her friend, thinking of the challenges the journey would present. To get to the nearer stars would have been difficult enough, but to aim for a star system six hundred light-years away—it was enough to make her wonder if they were overreaching themselves. But the effort, whatever it took, would help to bring about the new era Mukhtar Tabib had evoked, an era of change and renewal for all of humankind. There was also the promise of what awaited them in that distant star system: contact with a nonhuman culture, an alien intelligence. In the meantime, they possessed the precious and certain knowledge that they were not alone in the universe.

  “I’ve had time to think,” Solveig said, “and I still can’t get over my astonishment. Even so, Mukhtar Tabib almost made me wonder if some people are having doubts about the Venus Project. It’s as if he’s trying to say that even if we fail here, we might succeed somewhere else eventually.”

  “It’s much too soon to assume that the Project might fail,” Mahala said.

  “It still won’t hurt to have something else to inspire us,” Solveig murmured, “and keep us under control—another great venture to keep us occupied.”

  “You’re sounding more cynical.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Mahala. I do feel more inspired. There’s finally something more for me to look forward to than making the best of my life here. Now I can hope that maybe I’ll actually have a chance to be chosen as one of the spacefarers. It’s a slim chance, but better than no chance at all.”

  “Yes,” Mahala said, knowing that the same ambition was growing inside her.

  “Of course that’ll just make it even harder later on if I’m not chosen.”

  Maybe Solveig was thinking that someone who was subject to her dark moods would not be considered suitable for such a voyage. “I wouldn’t worry about that now,” Mahala said. “We don’t know anything about what sorts of people might be chosen, only that they’ll come from Earth, Venus, and the Habitats.”

  “And more specialists in astronomy and astrophysics will be needed now. Maybe I’ll be able to go back to the Islands and finish my studies.”

  They had followed the creek to the lake. More people were out, walking near the wooded slopes or sitting in groups on the shore. The day after Administrator Masud’s announcement, Mahala had reported to Tasida as scheduled, and the two had gone to the house of Tasida’s pregnant patient, who had gone into labor at first light. Mahala had noticed how few people were out, how many seemed to be keeping close to their homes.

  During the past days, people had resumed their usual activities. On the surface, life in Turing, and presumably in the other settlements, was going on as it had. Work in the external operations centers and maintaining life support were not tasks that could be postponed, while crops in the greenhouses still had to be tended and harvested and airships checked and repaired. The night after Masud’s announcement, it was rumored that one group of people had gathered in Turing’s Buddhist temple and another group at the mosque to discuss the Administrator’s statement and all of its implications, and Risa had called with a tale of people in Oberg demanding a meeting with their elected Councilors.

  But there had been no disturbances, nothing that indicated that any of the Cytherians were overly nervous or fearful
of what might happen now. Surely the Guardians would not be leaving the Islands if the Administrative Council had expected any serious trouble.

  Even so, it seemed to Mahala that the people around her were only going through the motions of normality, that their usual routines might only be a way of keeping their new concerns at bay. She suspected that most of them were also gathering to talk to friends or engaging in long discussions over all available channels with people they knew in other settlements. Risa had called three times already in the past couple of days to tell Dyami and Mahala the latest speculations among the members of her household, while Einar and Thorunn had followed an hour-long call to Solveig with several messages.

  Benzi, however, had remained silent. He had been involved in the meetings that had led up to Masud’s announcement; that much she knew. She did not know exactly when he had found out about the alien signal, but suspected that he had learned of it at least two years ago, when the Habbers had finally determined that it was the product of another intelligence. Now she wondered how great a role he might have played in recent events.

  Mahala gazed out at the lake. “I got a message from Ragnar before,” Solveig said. “He says that Frani’s going to be back on pilot duty in three days. He’s working darktime shifts and spending his free time on a sculpture of her.”

  “Didn’t he say anything about everything else that’s going on?”

  “No. He’s got his bondmate and his work and his art, and he doesn’t pay much attention to anything else. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think he hadn’t even heard the announcement.”

  “Mahala!” Someone was calling from farther up the hill. “Mahala!”

  She knew the voice. Mahala turned around and looked up. Chike Enu-Barnes was making his way down the slope, his smile visible even from a distance.

  “What are you doing here?” she called out.

  “You must have given me a good recommendation,” he said as he came up to her. “A chemical engineer at the ceramics plant said he’d looked at my record and that I could have a job here if I wanted it.”

  She had forgotten that she had mentioned Chike to Dyami; her uncle must have recommended him to the engineer. She clasped one of Chike’s hands in greeting, suddenly overjoyed to see him, pleased to know that he would be here in Turing.

  “My airship got here four hours ago,” Chike continued. “I met some of the workers at the plant, and they told me I could pitch a tent on the grounds near there until I found somewhere else to live. I asked where you and your uncle lived, and they told me, so I left my things there and came here. A blond woman at his house pointed me this way.”

  “Amina,” Mahala said as she released his hand.

  “That’s what she said her name was.”

  “You should have told us you were coming,” Mahala said.

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Mahala murmured.

  “I am, too, especially now.” He linked his arm through hers, then offered his other arm to Solveig. “I wanted to be here, with everything that’s going on.” He glanced at Mahala. “I wanted to be with you.”

  “Sounds as though you’re worried,” Solveig said.

  “I am worried,” Chike replied. “My brother Kesse hasn’t found out much, but he suspects that much of what’s going on is still being sorted out There’s a rumor on Island Two that Administrator Masud made that speech when he did because the Mukhtars pushed him into it. Supposedly Masud wanted to wait a while, until he could be more specific about future plans, but the Mukhtars wanted to lay everything out in the open to see what the reaction would be, and the Habbers agreed with them. If everything works out, well have this wonderful new era to look forward to, but if it doesn’t, Masud al-Tikriti and Mukhtar Tabib might make very convenient scapegoats.”

  “They can’t take back what they’ve said,” Solveig said softly. “That would only cause even more trouble.”

  “They wouldn’t have to take it back,” Chike said. “If the plans for the Mercury operation and for an interstellar vessel and space exploration lead to unexpected problems and delays, or everything turns out to be much more costly than they anticipated, that would be enough to bring the new era to a halt. And there wouldn’t be much then to keep the Habbers from launching a space expedition by themselves.” He slowed his pace. “It’s only rumors. I’m probably being too pessimistic—don’t pay attention to me.”

  “I won’t,” Mahala said, not wanting this new dream to die so quickly.

  The Garden

  19

  Cutting off sunlight to Venus with the Parasol had enabled the Cytherian atmosphere to precipitate into carbon dioxide, to allow sterile oceans to form without boiling away in extreme heat, and had greatly cooled the planet. Without construction of the Parasol, getting to this stage in terraforming Venus would have taken many millennia, might even have eventually proven to be impossible. Even so, the successive members of the Project Council had always known that their progress would be slow and incremental, to be measured in stages, with each completed step likely to present a new problem to be solved.

  Shading Venus had cooled the surface, but had required the development of a new and hardy strain of algae, one that could survive in darkness, without photosynthesis, and feed on the planet’s sulfuric acid. Extracting hydrogen from Saturn, an operation undertaken by the Habbers three centuries earlier, then sending the hydrogen sunward in massive tanks and hurling it into the Venusian atmosphere, had been necessary to create water, while the traces of ammonia in the Saturnian elements were needed to produce nitrogen.

  But even massive quantities of imported hydrogen were not enough to combine with all of the free oxygen produced by the changes in the Venusian ecosphere. To remove more of the oxygen had required the construction of thick-walled robotic factories at the poles to separate the oxygen from the atmosphere, compress it, and then carry it on robot-piloted shuttles and scooper ships to the Bats, where the oxygen could either be used for other operations or flung into space. The surface operations had always been automatic, but to have cyberminds run the rest of the oxygen disposal process on the Bats would have been too costly for the Project, much more costly than training workers for duty on the two satellites. Bat duty had soon evolved into one of the Cytherian rites of passage, a way for Cytherians to earn some respect and to feel that they had important roles to play in the Project, but the cost of that duty was paid in lives.

  Within a few months after the announcement of the new era and the new phase of the Project, machines that resembled diggers and crawlers, with drills and claws and shovels as attachments, were at work mining the surface of Mercury. These machines were built by Habber technology, and soon after the first machines had been sent on their journey sunward to Mercury from the Habitat nearest Venus, the mechanical miners were making new replicas of themselves from Mercury’s resources and adding new attachments to their arsenal of tools. Viewing sensor images of the machines at work often produced a feeling in Mahala that the machines were more than mechanical constructions and more than mindless servants of the Project; that they were in fact a community of intelligent robots doing their work, breeding their young, and making a home for themselves on that barren and hostile surface. The electromagnetic mass drivers that the Habber robots were building were not, it seemed, there only to fling ingots of calcium and magnesium to Venus, but also to serve as a monument to this cybernetic offshoot of human civilization.

  Such speculations flickered through Mahala’s mind whenever she thought about the latest Habber accomplishment. Clearly such machines could have done even more of the work of terraforming on Venus herself. Fewer people, and perhaps none at all, might have had to endure shifts of largely tedious work in the external operations centers of the domes; surely similar machines might have been used to run all operations on the Bats, making it unnecessary to endanger the lives of any workers there.

  But it was useless to waste even a
moment brooding on such matters. Earth could more easily afford to lose people than other resources, resources harder to come by and more costly than human workers. Those laboring for the Project had also been given a purpose in life through their labors.

  During the year after Administrator Masud’s declaration of a new era, Mahala turned more of her attention to the Project’s past. When she was not with a patient, being tested on her medical knowledge by Tasida, analyzing medical scans, examining patients, treating injuries, administering rejuvenation therapy, or studying medical procedures, she was often reading print accounts of the Venus Project’s history or calling up visual records.

  Perhaps there was more of her historian grandfather Malik in her than she realized. Maybe the prospect of a new era with new challenges to be met had awakened her interest in the events that had led humankind to this juncture. Seeing how people had met and overcome the early obstacles to the Venus Project gave her more hope for the future.

  What she had not expected was that the more she discovered about the Project’s past difficulties, the more uncertain its present seemed to become. The people of the past, or their children and grandchildren, could expect to live to see the conclusions of various important and distinct stages of the Project—the completion of the Parasol, the construction of the Islands, and then the movement of people to the domed surface settlements. No one alive now, and no descendants who were likely even to remember present-day Cytherians, would live to see the next stages of the Project: an ocean burgeoning with life, a profusion of plants covering the land outside the domes, people able to leave the domes wearing only protective suits and masks. No one with any memory of Mahala’s time and of the generations that would follow would ever walk unprotected on the surface of Venus, to breathe its air and look up at a sun only partly eclipsed by whatever remained of the Parasol.

  The people who had come here had dreamed of making a new world for their children. Instead, they might only have imprisoned them, yoked them to an end that they would never see and that might never be achieved. And now there was another dream calling to them from the stars, another dream whose realization they would not live to see.