Child of Venus (13 page)

“You always said you wanted to see other places,” Ragnar said. “Even Turing's a start.”

“You don't understand.” Mahala sat down on the floor. “It
isn't that simple. My grandmother acts as if my uncle and great-uncle want to take me away
from her, and in a way, they do. I think Dyami's hoping I'll get into an Island school,
and Benzi—” She sighed. “I'm not sure what he wants... but he expects
something from me. He sort of said that living in Oberg might hold me back.”

Solveig handed her brother the bag, then sat down next to Mahala. “But your grandmother must want what's best for you, too.”

“Oh, she does, but she would be just as happy if I apprenticed myself in a few years and settled down in Oberg.”

“Maybe you'll end up doing that anyway.” Ragnar picked another piece of fruit, then bit into it. “Just because you're going to Turing doesn't mean you'll do well in school later. You might mess up.”

Solveig made a face at him. “That's a great thing to say.”

Mahala said, “I don't know if I'm going.”

“But why wouldn't you?” Solveig asked.

“Nobody's going to force me. I'm the one that has to decide. Risa and Sef need me, too, you know—I'm the only grandchild they have.” She could not explain her feelings to them. Dyami and Benzi had all the best arguments on their side, and even if they did not, she ought to do what she could for Amina's niece. Risa and Sef would miss her, but she would visit often, and they would have their housemates and their other obligations to occupy their time.

She was afraid. That was what she could not tell Solveig and Ragnar. To leave meant uncertainty. Mahala was beginning to see why it might be easier to settle for what she already had.

“I'll miss you,” Solveig said.

“You sound as if I've made up my mind to go.”

“You'll go, Mahala. You're a fool if you don't. You should do anything you can that might give you a chance at what you want. We won't get that many chances.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know perfectly well,” Solveig replied. “You'll have better teachers in Turing, and that'll give you a better chance at an Island school later. You might find some kind of work you really want to do. Stay here, and it still might happen, but it isn't as likely.” The blond girl drew up her knees and rested her arms across them. “You said it yourself. Your uncle thinks living here might hold you back, and your grandmother would be happy if you lived the way she does. Is that what you want?”

“I don't know.”

“You do know, Mahala. They tell us about the Revolt and how it made us free. We're not free. The Project still owns us.”

“We can decide what we want to do,” Mahala objected. “We elect our own Councils instead of the Island Administrators or the Mukhtars or somebody else telling us what to do.”

“We can decide what we want to do as long as it helps the Project. We live inside these domes and dream about a world we'll never see.” Solveig sighed. “Sometimes I wonder what the Administrators would do if they thought the Project might not succeed.”

“What do you mean?” Mahala asked. It was something she had never heard said.

“Even if they knew things wouldn't work out, they couldn't come out and admit it. I'm not the only one who wonders about that—I've heard older kids talking about it, when the teachers aren't around. What are they going to do, tell people that all their work's for nothing?”

“But the Habbers are helping,” Mahala said. “Why would they bother sending their people here and keeping a ship in orbit if they thought the Project would fail?”

“That's a good question,” Solveig murmured. “Maybe we need
more help from the Habbers than the Administrators will admit. Maybe their help is the only thing
keeping us going. And ask yourself this—why's your Habber uncle so interested in getting
you out of Oberg? Why was he talking to Dyami before about what you ought to do? Maybe he knows
something we don't”

Mahala shook her head. “I'm the only child in our family. Who else can he look out for here? That's all it is.”

“Maybe you're right,” Solveig said, “and everything's going along fine. Still, you should think of yourself and what you might want later.”

Mahala glanced up at Ragnar. The boy had been so quiet that she thought he might not have been listening, but he was leaning against a shelf, the bag hanging from his hand, his pale eyes on her.

“What do you think?” Mahala said to him.

“Do you really have to ask?” Ragnar's mouth twisted. “You know what I'd do. Make up your own mind, Mahala. I know you want to leave—you're just afraid.”

“I can't just think of myself.” Risa was speaking through her.

“You wouldn't be,” Solveig said. “You'd be doing something for yourself and maybe helping that girl, too—look at it that way.”

“Yeah,” Ragnar muttered. “You can have it both ways.”

“I'd miss you, Solveig. You're the best friend I have.”

Ragnar snorted. “That isn't much of a reason to stay.”

Solveig wrinkled her nose. “And getting away from you is another good reason for her to go.”

Ragnar hefted the bag. “We'd better go inside.”

They moved toward the door. As they stepped outside, Mahala saw Dyami coming toward them along the path. “I was going to come home in a little while,” she called out.

“I'm sure you were,” her uncle said. “Einar called Sef and said he and Thorunn had fed you. I thought I'd come over and walk you home.” He paused. “We were worried about you.”

“I'm fine.”

Dyami nodded at the other children. “What's in the bag?”

“Peaches,” Ragnar said, “for our breakfast. How soon are you going to go back to Turing?”

“As soon as possible. Tomorrow, or the day after at the latest.”

“Then Mahala has to make up her mind fast if she's going to go along.”

“I see she's been discussing things with you.” Dyami glanced from
the boy to Mahala. “You can have more time to think about it. Maybe you should wait until your
school break. You don't have to travel back with me now if you'd rather—”

“Why think about it any more?” Mahala gazed up into Dyami's face, but could not read his expression in the darkness. “If I stay here, it'll just give Risa and everybody else more time to talk me out of going.”

Dyami's lips curved into a smile. “Have these two been trying to convince you to stay?”

“No. They think I should go, too. But you better not say that to Risa.”

“I won't.” Dyami held out a hand. “I'll take that inside if you like—I should greet your parents before we go.”

Ragnar handed him the bag. “So you're going after all,” he whispered as the door to the house slid shut behind Dyami.

“Yeah.” Mahala swallowed.

“Maybe tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

He turned away without speaking and went inside. “It's good you're leaving,” Solveig murmured, “but I'm
still going
to miss you. Promise you'll call or at least leave messages once in a while.”

“I promise.” Mahala clutched her friend by the elbows. “Maybe it won't work out. I might want to come back.”

“Don't go there feeling like that, Mahala, or it probably won't work out. Look forward to it. You have to do the best you can.” There was a tremor in the tall girl's voice. “You'll be visiting here, anyway, during breaks.”

“And maybe you can come to Turing.”

“Maybe.”

“I'll call you when I know what time we're looking.”

“No.” Solveig wiped at her face with the edge of one sleeve. “I'll say good-bye to you here. It'll just be harder later.” Mahala heard a choked sound and realized that the other girl was crying. She threw her arms around her friend, afraid she would cry herself.

The door to the house opened. Solveig freed herself from Mahala as Dyami came outside, then ran toward the house. “I'll call you as soon as I get to Turing,” Mahala said.

“Call me after you're settled.” Solveig disappeared inside.

Dyami was silent as they walked toward the wide stone path that led to the road. Birds chirped from the nearby trees as they settled down to rest; Mahala heard the sound of voices through a house's open entrance before the door closed. Then, for just an instant, the silence pressed in around her until a distant shout and the howl of a cat dispersed it. She had sensed the silence before, a stillness that made her feel as if the dome that enclosed her could also suppress all sound. Could there be such a silence on Earth, where people were free to move across its surface and breathe its air? It seemed to her that there would always be something to hear there—the wind she had heard only in mind-tours of distant places, the roll of thunder, the crashing of waves against the dikes built to hold back the risen sea.

They came to the road and stopped under one of the lanterns to wait for a cart. “Is Risa still upset?” Mahala asked.

“A little. She's saying that it probably makes sense for you to live with me for a while and that you can always come home when Frania's over her loss. Risa's not really upset with you—she's a lot angrier at Benzi and me. Given that we've just about admitted that your life here would be more limited than it might be somewhere else, I can't blame her. It's as if we're saying that her efforts aren't good enough.”

“What if—” She hesitated. “What would happen if the Project
didn't work? What if it turns out we can't ever make Venus what we want?”

“Well, there may be some obstacles that turn out to be more of a problem than expected. Even so, we have to assume that we can find a way around them.”

“But what if we can't?”

“How can I answer that?” Dyami's voice sounded strained. “To be honest, I haven't thought about it that much. I doubt many people have, especially those who had to live through the time before the Revolt. Better to avoid thinking about it. We have to believe that a new world's possible here, or else we're throwing our lives away.”

“Dyami!” a voice called from behind them. “Mahala!”

She turned to see Ragnar running toward them, a cloth bag slung over one shoulder. He slowed to a stop, then set down the bag.

“What is it?” Mahala asked, wondering if he had come after her to say farewell.

Ragnar said, “I have to ask you something.”

“What?”

“Not you, your uncle.” Ragnar squatted by his bag. “Tell me if this stuff's any good.” He pulled a wood carving from the bag and handed it to Dyami. Mahala had seen it before; the carving was of a stretching cat with an arched back.

“Why do you want my opinion?” Dyami said.

“Because you'll know if it's any good. If you think it's shit, tell me—I don't mind.” Ragnar pulled out another carving of a girl's head and shoulders. Mahala recognized Solveig and felt a bit annoyed that the boy was showing the carving to Dyami when he had never shown it to her. “And here's some sketches.”

He pulled out a pocket screen. Dyami knelt; Mahala peered over Ragnar's shoulder as he called up his sketches. There was one of a few boys playing outside the school and another showing two men fishing from a boat. A third showed a square, simple house like those in Oberg, with a greenhouse and a stone path leading to the front door. Ragnar had drawn a low wall in the distance, yet the house was surrounded by a grassy plain, with no other dwellings in sight.

“Why aren't there any other houses?” Mahala said.

“I was thinking about being alone, having a whole dome to myself, so I drew it that way.” Ragnar set the screen down. “I can show you more if you want.”

“I'd like to see more,” Dyami said, “but I've seen enough already to know you have talent. If you keep at it, you'll create some beautiful things.”

“I'm going to keep doing it. I wish I could do it all the time. Whenever I'm in a mind-tour, I keep thinking of things that would make it better. Then I get some wood or I draw, and it's like I'm thinking with my hands. Is that what it's like for you?”

“Something like that.” Dyami rested a hand on the boy's shoulder. “I used to think, when I was a boy, that I noticed things other people didn't see—a certain cast to the light, for instance, or the way a man walks when he's happy. Often they were just little details, but I'd see them and feel as if the people around me were partly blind, because they didn't see them.”

“It's like that for me,” Ragnar said eagerly.

“I think we're all like that in the beginning,” Dyami said, “and then we lose it. When I was still a child, I started to grow afraid of what I might see instead of being open to it. The Habbers, from what I can tell, never lose that quality— my friend Balin tells me that, in a way, many of his people are artists of a kind throughout their lives.”

“Benzi isn't like that,” Mahala said.

“Benzi came to his Habber life later, so maybe he'd already lost some of that vision. I didn't find it again myself until I went to live in Turing. That was when I first saw that I might have the makings of a craftsman—started with carvings and worked up to casting sculptures at the refinery. So you, Ragnar, are way ahead of where I was at your age.”

Ragnar rose and picked up his bag. “I have to ask you something. If I gave you some credit, could I be kind of like an apprentice to you?” He seemed to hold his breath as he waited for an answer.

Mahala smiled. “You can't be an apprentice for something like that—it isn't real work.”

“I didn't ask you, I asked Dyami. Well? I've got some credit saved up. All you have to do is look at things I do and tell me what I'm doing wrong. You're about the only person I know who can teach me things like that.”