Templum Veneris

by Jeremy L. Jones

  He started to sit up and, again, the woman pushed him lightly down by the shoulder. This time, Viekko got up anyway. He still felt a blinding pain over most of his body, but the fornocha dulled it enough to allow him into a sitting position.

  “Please,” said the woman sternly. “You need rest…”

  “I need to go. I need to find my people before…”

  A man flipped aside a cloth hanging over what looked to be the only exit from the room and stepped inside. At that moment, Viekko found himself eye to eye with one of the Corsario. The skin on his lean, muscular frame was still flaked in whatever white mud or paint they used for battle, and he was smeared with a few ruddy streaks of blood as well. Four or five dreadlocks fell down around his shoulders, and he still carried his lanca fogo. He watched Viekko as he crossed the room like a wild animal guarding his territory. There was something else in his face that Viekko couldn’t quite identify; something familiar about him, especially around the eyes, although Viekko couldn’t even begin to think of why.

  The raider set his weapon against one of the walls. “What is your name?”

  “Viekko Spade.”

  The man nodded. “My name is Alexandre. And my wife, Daphne.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” said Viekko, although it really wasn’t. The man continued to watch him in a way that made him tense. Viekko wasn’t armed, which put him in a rather unpleasant position if the man decided to cut his throat.

  “I guess I have you both to thank for not leaving me out there,” said Viekko, mostly to cut the silence.

  Alexandre stopped to stand next to the bed. “The Cythereans have been behaving strangely for some time. Then you arrived. Tell me, what is the Rainha planning?”

  His tone was not harsh, nor was it inviting. It was plain and direct as was his look. Viekko sighed. “I have seen many strange things since I arrived. But I know nothing about the Rainha. Or what she intends.”

  Alexandre continued to look down on him. “Tell me why you killed the Cytherean soldiers. Tell me why you allowed us to escape.”

  Viekko sighed again and slowly pushed himself off the bed. The little girl standing nearby ran behind Daphne’s dress. The other children became noticeably tense as they watched Viekko get to his feet. By the time he was upright, it was only by sheer force of will that he didn’t collapse. “I don’t know. I suppose I couldn’t stand by and watch those who can’t defend themselves be killed for fun.”

  Alexandre’s eye twitched. “That was your only reason?”

  Viekko breathed deep trying to bear the pain until it subsided. “Should there be another reason?”

  Alexandre started pacing in front of the bed. “There are people inside Cytherea who give us aid. They tell us where we can raid before the soldiers arrive. Do you know of these people?”

  Viekko shrugged. “Never met them. If they exist, they do not speak of it.”

  Alexandre started pacing faster. His face grew more and more annoyed. “You are saying that you attacked the soldiers and put yourself in danger only to help us? I do not believe it. That is not the way people behave. What do you want?”

  Viekko tried taking a few shuffling steps. He had to hold on to the side of the bed, but it appeared he could move, albeit slowly, under his own power. “Right now, I want to go back to my people. They are waiting for me outside the city. I want to go back to where I came from.”

  Alexandre grunted and turned his back to Viekko. “Go then. Leave this place and do not return. If I see you again, I will not hesitate to kill you as I would any Cytherean.”

  Daphne had been silent during the exchange, but as Viekko started to make movements toward the cloth-covered door, she went to stop him. “Don’t go, Viekko. You are too weak.”

  “I’m fine,” he replied, still bracing himself on the side of the stone slab. “Tell me where the city is. I can find my way from there.”

  “Come to the Sala to eat.”

  “Daphne!” snapped Alexandre.

  The woman’s head whipped around, and she addressed her husband in an even sharper voice. “You claim that people do not care for one another. But we do. We always have. That is what makes us different from the Cythereans. Do you fight so much that you forget why you fight?”

  “For all we know,” Alexandre replied, “his treachery could be a clever act to make us trust him. So the Rainha can learn of our movement and destroy us completely.”

  “He saved your life! We can feed him before he goes on his way. The Rainha will only learn that we are kind.”

  Alexandre’s face contorted as if several retorts rushed to his mouth at once. In the end, he said nothing but just brushed past Daphne and Viekko on his way out.

  Daphne watched him go and shook her head. “I apologize for my husband. These have been hard times, and they have taken their toll on him.”

  Viekko limped forward and found he could stand without leaning on the slab. “He’s right to be suspicious. He must be to protect his people. No one should apologize for protecting those they love.”

  Daphne took his arm and helped steady him as he walked. “You will come to the Sala, yes? Eat something before you return to your people?”

  Viekko was about to say no. Every part of his brain told him that the sooner this hell-hole was behind him, the better; and every moment he stayed here, the more likely he would be left behind. However, his stomach loudly voiced the opinion that one moves quicker if they have something to fill their belly. “Yes, thank you. I will eat.”

  Daphne took him by the arm and helped him limp through the door into what was, by all measure of comparison, a blast furnace. It was like some deity took a hair drier the size of a moon, turned the power up to maximum and aimed it at the Venusian landscape. As they stepped out into the sweltering winds, he felt Daphne’s grip on his arm tighten as if she were worried that the sudden blast of wind would knock him off his feet, and part of him was grateful for it.

  Viekko couldn’t see much through the blowing dust, sand, and haze, but the village looked little more than a collection of mud lumps dried to brick-like hardness in the blistering heat. He could just barely make out the shadows of people hurrying to get from one little dung heap to the next. Daphne pulled a hood over her head and led Viekko faster through the howling winds.

  If she said anything, Viekko couldn’t hear it above the roar of the storm. His chest throbbed, and every step added a jolt of pain to it. Still, with Daphne’s help, he made it through the village toward a large, looming structure in the distance.

  At first, it looked like just another lump, only much larger. Most of the houses were barely big enough for Viekko to stand up in, but this one towered over the rest like a small mountain. As they got closer, Viekko started to make out shapes. It was still made of the same dark, gritty material as every other structure in the village, but someone had tried to give this a little architectural flair, with the rough shapes of columns on either side of an arched doorway. The whole effect reminded him of the Rainha’s opulent Sala with its glistening white columns, looming arches, and towering spires. These people were clearly trying to ape something similar but lacked the tools, material, or the know-how to do it any justice.

  Daphne helped him through the arched door, and once the wind faded into the background, he heard something he had not heard since he arrived on Venus; music. It wasn’t terribly complex, just a series of polyrhythmic drum beats over a lilting flute melody, but it was music. Inside, Viekko instinctively turned in the direction of the sound and saw three people playing hand drums while another played along on a wooden flute. A fifth person sat cradling a rudimentary string instrument and, when the flute player reached a certain point, added a delicate string tone to the melody.

  He saw something else that he hadn’t seen since he arrived; dancing. The musicians stood on a wooden platform that served as a stage, and there was a large group in front moving to the music. Most were children of varying ages dancing in the wild, carefree way children
do, but there were adults as well among them. Conspicuously, several couples danced together in the crowd—not just dancing side by side, but holding each other and moving as one to the music. It looked strange to Viekko after the Cytherean Sala. He saw lots of passion and lust there, probably more then he’d seen anywhere else. What was missing was affection. The space in front of the musicians had it in bulk.

  The rest of the room was crowded with people sitting on reed mats in tight circles, eating some kind of paste with their hands out of shallow, brown bowls. The women in the groups tended to be dressed like Daphne, wearing loose, drab dresses. A few of the men, especially the older ones, were dressed similarly in long robes or togas but an equal number squatted in the circles wearing nothing but a thin strip of cloth around their waist.

  Daphne led him to a circle. “Please sit here, Viekko. I will get us something to eat.”

  The others cleared a space for him. One of them reached for another reed mat and handed it over. Viekko rolled it out on the ground and, wincing in pain, managed to sit down cross-legged among the group.

  Whatever they were eating, these people didn’t get enough of it. They looked like refugees from some Corporation internment camp. The skin on their faces hung so that he could see the shape of their skulls. A couple of boys in their early teens wore only the linen loincloth, and Viekko could easily count the ribs in their chest. Beside them were more children of all ages, two adult couples who cuddled close together while they ate and an older woman. They all dipped their fingers in the bowls and sucked off something that looked like oatmeal while watching Viekko with a healthy amount of suspicion.

  The older woman spoke first. “You… are not Cytherean, are you?”

  “No,” said Viekko. “I am from Earth. We came to visit Cytherea. Things didn’t go well.”

  The woman arched an eyebrow. “You came to make war?”

  “No. We came to make peace. War just… happened. Not our best work.”

  The older woman seemed satisfied with this and went back to her bowl. Someone else in the group, a girl of around eight, looked at Viekko. “What’s Earth like?”

  Viekko thought for a moment. “You have a small group of people who can take whatever they want. Then there’s a larger group who are left to fight over the rest. So it’s a lot like Venus. Earth’s colder though, with more trees.”

  Daphne returned, handed Viekko a small earthenware bowl full of the greyish paste, and sat down next to him. He did as the others were doing and dipped his fingers into the mush and brought some to his lips. It tasted like thick, salty, barley porridge only with less flavor, but he was so hungry that he quickly sucked the food from his fingers and went for more.

  As he ate, he looked around the cavernous room at the circles of people and caught Alexandre’s eyes watching him. It wasn’t overtly threatening, but he clearly wanted Viekko to know he was watching.

  Viekko leaned close to Daphne. “Why don’t you sit with your husband?”

  Daphne sucked some food from her fingers. “He is not happy about you, I think. Better if you two keep your distance.”

  “He mentioned Cythereans helping your people. What did he mean?” Viekko took another bit of porridge on his fingers.

  “We are often told which farms to raid and when. The information comes on notes left to us. Sometimes included with piles of weapons. Sometimes with children.”

  Children. The word inspired Viekko to look around. Up to this moment, he had just accepted what he was seeing and didn’t think about it too much. Now that he looked again, he noticed that there were almost as many children here as adults. Maybe more. They laughed, played and danced among people who could barely put enough food in their bodies to live. It was not the kind of environment that inspired a lot of breeding activity.

  “Cythereans bring children?” asked Viekko.

  “Cythereans leave babies and young children outside the gates,” Daphne said it as if it were an obvious fact of life. “We raise them among us. We make them strong and teach them to fight and raid so that the others may live.”

  Viekko thought back to the familiarity he felt when he first met Alexandre. “Was your husband left outside Cytherea?”

  Daphne nodded. “Yes, I believe so. Why do you ask?”

  Viekko looked again at Alexandre, who still watched him from across the room, and an uncomfortable feeling made Viekko shift on the mat; a strange Deja vu that shot a twinge of fear down his spine.

  Before he could make the connection, Viekko’s thoughts were interrupted by some commotion on the stage. The musicians stopped playing, and three young men climbed up to the platform. Two on either side cradled the primitive firearms, and the one in the center held a sheet of parchment paper. That man started speaking, and everyone in the Sala quieted to listen. “Our allies in Cytherea were impressed by the raid earlier today. I think there is one man to thank for that.”

  He motioned toward Viekko. Immediately he felt every eye in the room on him. One by one, people cracked smiles, held up their hands and started snapping their fingers. The reaction spread until the entire room sounded like hail on a wooden roof. Viekko could only give a little wave and fight the tide of embarrassment rising up his neck.

  When the applause—such as it was—died down, the man in the center continued. “Our contact was so impressed by our actions that he found two more weak points this very day where we can raid. They gave us more weapons to use against the Cythereans. I propose we organize a team to carry out this plan.”

  The crowd started snapping their fingers again but, this time, Alexandre stood up and jumped onto the stage, jostling the young man out of the way. “Can nobody see what is happening here? The time of Maximilliano has come again!”

  While Alexandre continued to harangue the crowd, Viekko leaned close to Daphne again, “What does he mean, ‘the time of Maximilliano?’”

  “Many, many years ago, a Cytherean fought to install his house as the reigning family of Cytherea,” Daphne began. “He sent people to us as friends and used us to fight their battle. When the war was over, and his family controlled the Sala Gran, he turned on the Corsario.”

  “Are we going to let ourselves be used like this again?” Alexandre preached to the crowd, “Just a pawn in another Cytherean game of power and influence? I say we leave the fighting to them. Let them battle each other and wait in the shadows beyond the wall. We will pick the bones of the dead when the Cythereans destroy themselves.”

  “As you have claimed before!” said the young man, waving the parchment paper in the air. “But we have tried to raid without guidance from within. We run into Cytherean patrols and die quickly. Without this information, these people starve.”

  “They starve with it!” Alexandre motioned toward the crowd. “But for the first time in all of history, the Corsario have a chance to live untethered to the Cytherean plow. For the first time, our blood and pain shall serve the Corsario and not Cytherea!”

  The heated public debate continued, and Viekko took another look around the room. There was something about these people that Viekko felt connected to. They reminded him of his people on the Meridiani colony of Mars; hard, passionate, strong people who rarely had anything to their name but four walls and a scrap of food after a hard day. But, at least, the people of the Meridiani colony were always free. They had little, but what they had they were able to keep for themselves.

  Viekko started to get up, and even though the wound in his chest felt like it was on fire, he managed to get to his feet. Holding the bandage, he limped through the crowd toward the stage, where Alexandre was now in the middle of a full-blown argument with all three of the young men. Viekko stopped in front of the stage. “Excuse me. May I be heard?”

  Alexandre stopped in mid-sentence and glared at Viekko. “What do you have to say that is of use to us?”

  Viekko took another deep breath to push down the pain. “I got an idea that will allow you to feed these people and never be under Cytherean
control again.”

  The young man with the parchment gave Viekko the same suspicious look as Alexandre. “And how do you think we can do that?”

  Viekko held out his hand. “May I see what your contact asks of you?”

  The man hesitated but handed the parchment to Viekko. It looked like a crudely drawn map of Cytherea; he could make out some of the more prominent landmarks like the Rainha’s Sala Gran, the peak of Maxwell Mons and the Modesto Wall. There were two X’s at points just beyond the wall, several kilometers away from each other by Viekko estimation.

  “Can you get in touch with this person?” Viekko asked.

  The man breathed deep as if considering this. “It is possible, but only for emergencies, as each time we put our allies in danger. But it is possible.”

  Viekko rolled up the parchment and handed it back. “Then contact them. Tell them you need more places to attack. Five at least. More if possible. Are there any other Corsario villages like this one?”