“What now?” demanded Quintaro.
“That ground looks awfully soft,” replied Scorpio. “I know this is a VZ4, but I don’t know if even it has enough muscle to get us out of there if we bog down.”
“It’s not there,” said Sapphire.
“What’s not there?” asked Scorpio, surprised that she’d offered an unsolicited comment.
“What I want,” she replied. “Go around it.”
“Okay.”
“To the right,” she added.
“You sure?” he said. “If Merlin’s correct, that’s the direction your kid sister’s coming from.”
“Shut up,” she said, and turned to look out over the landscape.
Scorpio followed her instructions, found a long-unused path—he hesitated to call it even a trail—and began carefully moving along it.
How are you doing back there? he asked.
I’ll live, answered Merlin. Or if I don’t, it won’t be the wounds that kill me. We’re getting close.
We’re getting close to the guys that tried to kill you. I don’t know that we’re getting close to the godstone.
I still can’t read her mind, but she’s getting so excited the whole vehicle reeks of it.
It does?
Well, it does if you’re a Venusian.
Scorpio kept to the path. In about a mile it widened, and suddenly the rain completely stopped. One minute it was pouring as it had been doing for months, and one minute it was like a dry summer day on Earth.
“What happened to the rain?” asked Quintaro. “It’s like there’s an invisible wall, and nothing’s falling on this side of it.”
“I don’t know,” replied Scorpio. He glanced at Sapphire. “One of us doesn’t seem surprised.”
She offered no reply, as he had known she wouldn’t, and he continued moving forward. The path, which was once again a trail, remained thoroughly muddy.
That’s damned strange, he thought.
What is?
The rain’s stopped. Yet the trail’s as muddy as if it has been pouring for weeks, right up to a minute ago.
I have no answer.
I’ll settle for a guess. I don’t feel good about this.
Scorpio waited for a comment from anyone, even Quintaro. When none was forthcoming, he sent the vehicle forward. He proceeded for three hundred yards, then four, then five—and then he heard it, like the loudest kind of thunder, but it was coming from ahead and below, not above.
“What the hell is that?” demanded Quintaro nervously.
“A waterfall,” said Scorpio. “Like it or not, this is the end of the line.”
“Not quite,” said Sapphire. “Keep going.”
“Those falls can’t be a mile away,” protested Scorpio. “Just where the hell do you want me to go?”
“I’ll tell you when to stop,” she said.
What do you think?
You might as well, answered Merlin. One way or another we’re going to her destination. Why walk?
Scorpio began moving the vehicle very slowly. He’d gone another quarter mile when two slightly older, less elegant, mud-covered vehicles came into sight off to his right.
Quintaro pulled a pulse gun out of his pocket and started to take aim when Sapphire brought the edge of her hand down on his wrist, so hard that Scorpio could hear the bone crack even over Quintaro’s scream of pain.
“You goddamned bitch!” he bellowed. “I’m trying to protect our fucking interest!”
“You don’t even know what our interest is,” she replied, her voice thick with contempt.
“I know what mine is,” he snarled, “and no one’s going to double-cross me!”
He turned and took a swing at her with his uninjured hand. Scorpio didn’t see what happened next, but an instant later Quintaro collapsed, unconscious, on the floor of the vehicle.
Suddenly, Sapphire reached forward and handed Scorpio a wad of bills. “Here is what he owed you,” she said. “You know, of course, that he had no intention of ever paying it.”
“I know,” said Scorpio, pocketing the cash.
“He is of no further use to us,” she continued. “Stop the vehicle.”
Scorpio came to a stop, and she opened a door and shoved Quintaro’s body out into the mud.
“Is he dead or alive?” asked Scorpio.
“One or the other,” said Sapphire. “Now proceed.”
“To where?”
“Do you see that tall skeleton of a dead tree ahead of us?”
“Hard to miss. First dead tree I’ve seen since we started.”
“That is our destination.”
“We’ve come all this way for a barren tree?” said Scorpio.
“Do not appear a bigger fool than I think you to be,” replied Sapphire.
“Are we trying to beat the other party to it?”
“It makes no difference, for they are the same.”
Scorpio frowned. Does that make any sense to you?
None.
Scorpio drove to within fifty feet on the tree and came to a stop. He and Sapphire got out immediately, and he walked around the back, unlatched it, and helped Merlin to the ground. The Venusian was still unsteady on his feet, but he walked by his partner’s side, trying his best to ignore his pain.
The two other vehicles had stopped also, and Scorpio observed them closely, waiting to see just how much this other blue-skinned woman resembled Sapphire—but when she emerged from the second vehicle, he stared, blinked, rubbed his eyes, and stared again.
They could be twins! he thought.
Or somehow even closer, answered Merlin.
“There will be protections, of course,” said Sapphire.
The woman Scorpio now thought of as The Other Sapphire uttered a terse command, and two men who had been driving the vehicles walked cautiously toward the tree, weapons in hand. When they got within five feet of it there was a sound of static and both men collapsed, one screaming, one unconscious or dead.
“Now it is our turn,” said Sapphire.
“I’m not going to walk right up to it,” answered Scorpio. “I just saw what happens to men who do that.”
“Nevertheless.”
“It might help if you tell me what I’m looking for.”
“You already know,” she said.
“Is the tree the godstone?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what is it, where is it, and what does it look like?”
“The stone is irregularly shaped, perhaps a foot in width. Do you see that hole at the base of the tree?”
“Yeah. Looks like some animal has burrowed in.”
“Eons ago, one probably did. But now that is where the godstone is. You will approach on hands and knees, hopefully below the tree’s ability to see or detect you, and bring it back.”
“That’s suicidal,” said Scorpio.
“Perhaps not.”
“I’ll prove it to you,” he said. He reached into the vehicle, pulled out Quintaro’s pulse gun from where it had fallen, bent over, and hurled it sidearm at the hole. It was never more than eighteen inches above the ground—and it burst into flame when it was within three feet of the tree. Scorpio straightened up. “Like I said, suicide.”
“It must be retrieved,” she said, and for the first time he detected a trace—more than a trace—of emotion in her voice.
“Oh, Merlin and I can get it for you,” said Scorpio. “I’m just trying to come up with a price.”
“You’ve been paid.”
“I’ve been paid for taking you here. Risking our lives to retrieve a protected treasure wasn’t part of the bargain.”
“You will get it now!” she demanded, her face suddenly a mask of fury.
“I’m thinking,” he said. “I’d ask for this vehicle, which would certainly bring a healthy price once we clean it up, but we both know it’s stolen property. And something tells me that you’re not going to share the godstone with me, no matter what you promise. You’re re
ally not in a very good bargaining position, Blue Lady.”
“I can kill you right now,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I’m a little harder to kill than you think,” said Scorpio. “But even if you can, you’d better be sure you know how to get the stone without me.”
She glared hatefully at him but said nothing.
“Okay,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “There’s got to be a black-market dealer who’s not too fussy and has a market for a VZ4. I’ll take the vehicle once we’re done here. Do we have an agreement?”
She nodded.
“All right.” He pulled out his laser pistol and aimed a beam right at the tree trunk, about ten feet above the ground.
“What are you doing?” demanded Sapphire.
“It’ll take a lot more than this to melt a stone,” said Scorpio. As the trunk began smoldering, then burst into flame, he trained his beam on a low-hanging branch. “Damned good thing it’s not raining here. No way I could set it on fire if it were.” He turned to Sapphire. “Somebody on your side has a hell of a lot of powers but very little brain.”
In seconds, the branch was aflame, and Scorpio trained his weapon on another branch. As he did so he leaned down, picked up a heavy stick, and hurled it at the opening. Nothing happened, except that the stick bounced off the trunk.
“Okay, Merlin,” he said. “In and out quick. I don’t know when this damned tree might collapse.”
The Venusian limped ahead, reached the tree, inserted his head and neck into the opening, and emerged a moment later with an irregularly shaped crystal in his mouth.
“The stone!” breathed Sapphire.
And suddenly Scorpio became aware of the other blue woman racing forward, an ecstatic expression on her face, the mirror image of Sapphire’s. At first he thought she was intending to stop at Sapphire’s side. Then he realized that she was heading straight at Sapphire, probably to give her a hug of shared triumph. But finally he saw that she wasn’t slowing down, and that Sapphire had turned to face her and was making no effort to avoid the collision—except that there wasn’t a collision at all. He couldn’t tell which of them absorbed the other, or if both had somehow formed halves of a totally new body, but suddenly there was just one female—he hesitated to think of her as a woman—standing before him.
She took the stone from Merlin and held it up. Scorpio noticed that there was an irregularly shaped hole in it, maybe two inches across, very near the center.
Sapphire began uttering a chant, not quite singing it but more than merely reciting it.
You recognize the language? asked Scorpio.
I know every tongue in current use on Venus, but I’ve never heard this one before.
Suddenly, the stone became brighter, then brighter still, and finally blindingly bright. Scorpio had to close his eyes, and though he was standing right next to it, he couldn’t feel any additional heat.
Then a powerful masculine voice broke the silence.
“At last!” it bellowed. “At last I live again!”
Scorpio opened one eye, expecting to be blinded again. Instead he saw a huge blue man, twelve feet tall, burly and heavily muscled, sporting a thick beard, and clad in a glittering robe that seemed to be a softer, pliable version of the stone.
“A thousand times a thousand years I have waited for the day I always knew would come!”
He reached out and enclosed Sapphire’s extended hand in his powerful fingers. As he made physical contact with her, as their hands touched, both of them became as bright as the stone had been a moment ago, and they began growing until they soon were taller than the tallest of the surrounding trees. He spoke once more, his voice as loud as a thunderclap: “I am complete again!”
Scorpio tried to watch them, but again his eyes could not stand the brightness, and he had to close them. He kept them closed for almost a minute, then he suddenly sensed that the brightness had dissipated.
He opened his eyes, as did Merlin, and found that they were alone, that there was no trace of either Sapphire or the being—he couldn’t help thinking of it as a god—that had been imprisoned in the stone.
He suddenly remembered the stone, leaned down, and picked it up.
The hole is gone, observed Merlin.
I know, answered Scorpio silently. He’s complete again.
Scorpio carried the stone to his vehicle and placed it on a cushioned seat.
Pity to leave the other two vehicles behind, but hot or not, the VZ4 is worth more than both of them put together. Let’s head back to McAnany’s tavern, and get those repairs made to the ship.
And the stone?
I think we’ll keep it as a souvenir, replied Scorpio. After all, how many bona fide gods and goddesses do we plan to meet in the future? He helped Merlin into the vehicle, climbed in himself, and began heading back the way they’d come. Now let’s get the hell off of Venus as quick as we can. He increased the speed.
Why so fast? asked Merlin.
I’m not a practitioner of any religion, and I like it that way.
What’s that got to do with anything?
Scorpio shrugged. “Maybe nothing,” he said aloud. “But we’ve just turned a god loose on the world, and I don’t think he plans on going back into retirement anytime soon.”
IAN McDONALD
British author Ian McDonald is an ambitious and daring writer with a wide range and an impressive amount of talent. His first story was published in 1982, and since then he has appeared with some frequency in Interzone, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and elsewhere. In 1989 he won the Locus “Best First Novel” Award for his novel Desolation Road. He won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1991 for King of Morning, Queen of Day. His other books include Out on Blue Six and Hearts, Hands and Voices, Terminal Café, Sacrifice of Fools, Evolution’s Shore, Kirinya, Ares Express, Brasyl, as well as three collections of his short fiction, Empire Dreams, Speaking in Tongues, and Cyberabad Days. His novel, River of Gods, was a finalist for both the Hugo Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2005, and a novella drawn from it, “The Little Goddess,” was a finalist for the Hugo and the Nebula. He won a Hugo Award in 2007 for his novelette “The Djinn’s Wife,” won the Theodore Sturgeon Award for his story “Tendeleo’s Story,” and in 2011 won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel The Dervish House. His most recent books are the starting volume of a YA series, Planesrunner, another new novel, Be My Enemy, and a big retrospective collection, The Best of Ian McDonald. His latest novel is Empress of the Sun. Born in Manchester, England, in 1960, McDonald has spent most of his life in Northern Ireland, and now lives and works in Belfast.
In the eloquent and evocative story that follows, we trace a trail of flowers across the planet Venus toward a troubled and uncertain destiny.
Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan
IAN McDONALD
INTRODUCTION BY MAUREEN N. GELLARD
MY MOTHER HAD FIRM INSTRUCTIONS THAT, IN CASE OF A house fire, two things required saving: the family photograph album and the Granville-Hydes. I grew up beneath five original floral papercuts, utterly heedless of their history or their value. It was only in maturity that I came to appreciate, like so many on this and other worlds, my great-aunt’s unique art.
Collectors avidly seek original Granville-Hydes on those rare occasions when they turn up at auction. Originals sell for tens of thousands of pounds (this would have amused Ida); two years ago, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum was sold out months in advance. Dozens of anthologies of prints are still in print: the Botanica Veneris, in particular, is in fifteen editions in twenty-three languages, some of them non-Terrene.
The last thing the world needs, it would seem, is another Botanica Veneris. Yet the mystery of her final (and only) visit to Venus still intrigues half a century since her disappearance. When the collected diaries, sketchbooks, and field notes came to me after fifty years in the possession of the Dukes of Yoo, I realized that I had
a precious opportunity to tell the true story of my great-aunt’s expedition—and of a forgotten chapter in my family’s history. The books were in very poor condition, mildewed and blighted in Venus’s humid, hot climate. Large parts were illegible or simply missing. The narrative was frustratingly incomplete. I have resisted the urge to fill in those blank spaces. It would have been easy to dramatize, fictionalize, even sensationalize. Instead I have let Ida Granville-Hyde speak. Hers is a strong, characterful, attractive voice, of a different class, age, and sensibility from ours, but it is authentic, and it is a true voice.
The papercuts, of course, speak for themselves.
Plate 1: V strutio ambulans: the Ducrot’s Peripatetic Wort, known locally as Daytime Walker (Thent) or Wanderflower (Thekh).
Cut paper, ink and card.
Such a show!
At lunch, Het Oi-Kranh mentioned that a space-crosser—the Quest for the Harvest of the Stars, a Marsman—was due to splash down in the lagoon. I said I should like to see that—apparently I slept through it when I arrived on this world. It meant forgoing the sorbet course, but one does not come to the Inner Worlds for sorbet! Het Oi-Kranh put his spider-car at our disposal. Within moments, the Princess Latufui and I were swaying in the richly upholstered bubble beneath the six strong mechanical legs. Upward it carried us, up the vertiginous lanes and winding staircases, over the walls and balcony gardens, along the buttresses and roof walks and up the ancient iron ladderways of Ledekh-Olkoi. The islands of the archipelago are small, their populations vast, and the only way for them to build is upward. Ledekh-Olkoi resembles Mont St. Michel vastly enlarged and coarsened. Streets have been bridged and built over into a web of tunnels quite impenetrable to non-Ledekhers. The Hets simply clamber over the homes and lives of the inferior classes in their nimble spider-cars.
We came to the belvedere atop the Starostry, the ancient pharos of Ledekh-Olkoi that once guided mariners past the reefs and atolls of the Tol Archipelago. There we clung—my companion, the Princess Latufui, was queasy—vertigo, she claimed, though it might have been the proximity of lunch—the whole of Ledekh-Olkoi beneath us in myriad levels and layers, like the folded petals of a rose.
Old Venus Page 56
