Child of Venus (35 page)

But other Habbers might not be like any of those people. Many, perhaps most, might feel that events on Earth and Venus had nothing to do with them and that the future of those worlds was no longer their concern. Would they leave? Were they preparing to tell Earth that they might leave? Such a threat might get them concessions of some sort, but what could Earth grant them?

“You two are being unusually quiet,” Chike said at last.

“No wonder the Mukhtars have to keep such tight control of information,” Mahala said. “If most of Earth even suspected that only the Habbers stood between them and total disaster, they might begin to wonder why they needed to be governed by Mukhtars and Linkers at all.”

“It isn't just Earthfolk who would feel that way, either,” Solveig said. “What about our world? We need the Habbers as much as Earth does—maybe more, when you consider how much more difficult the Project would be and how much longer it would have taken even to get to where we are without the technology the Habbers offered. What happened during the Revolt would be nothing compared to what might happen if the Habbers abandoned us.”

Chike rested his back against the wall. “Linker Jamilah was here for almost a month, going to private meetings with the Project Council before she left for Earth. Now Masud al-Tikriti is meeting with Habbers a lot more often than any of his predecessors did.”

Mahala tensed in surprise. “What are you talking about? How would you know, anyway?”

Chike averted his eyes for a moment, then focused on her again. “I thought maybe you already knew that.”

“I didn't.”

“My brother Kesse told me.” Chike rested his hands on his knees. “Oh, he didn't tell me outright, but I know what he's saying in his messages even when he doesn't come right out with it. Administrator Masud has been meeting with your kinsman Benzi, as a matter of fact. He sees him at least twice a week.”

Chike's brother, Mahala recalled, was an organic chemist who was also an aide to one of the Administrators; he would be in a position to know who went to meet with Masud. She suddenly resented that she had not known any of this, had not even suspected, that Benzi had never sent her a message even hinting at his meetings with Masud.

Benzi might, of course, simply be trying to protect his Cytherian relatives, especially if the meetings concerned sensitive matters. He might be thinking that there was no reason for Mahala to know that Masud al-Tikriti was conferring with him, that she would only worry or grow too curious about matters that did not concern her.

“We shouldn't even be talking about any of this,” she said in a whisper.

“I told you,” Solveig said. “Nobody's going to hear anything we say in this room.”

“That isn't what I meant.” Mahala kept her eyes on her friend. “I meant that there's nothing any of us can do about it.”

“Everything's changing,” Chike said. “I can feel it.
Something's going on, and sooner or later—” His voice had risen a little; he
cleared his throat, then stood up. “We'd better get to supper now before the others
start wondering where we are.”

Orenda Tineka had left a message requesting that all of the students from the Islands come to one of the meeting rooms immediately after breakfast. That was unusual, Mahala thought as she left the narrow lavatory cubicle she and Solveig shared with four other students. Normally the hour after their first meal was set aside for study, to be followed by an hour of discusssion or a lecture, and the students had been told that a member of the Project Council would be speaking to them about future refinements on Anwara and asking them for their predictions of future problems.

Now that exercise in troubleshooting had apparently been canceled. Mahala pulled a shirt on over her head, then put on a pair of drawstring pants. Solveig sat on a cushion, already clothed in a loose blue coverall, her head bent over her pocket screen.

“I wonder what's going on,” Mahala said.

Solveig looked up. “I couldn't begin to guess.” She got to her feet; Mahala followed her out of the room and down the bright corridor. She had grown used to the light, to the occasional unsteadiness the spin of Anwara induced in her, an unsteadiness that quickly passed. Only a few hours ago, just before falling asleep, she had realized that she was looking forward to her remaining time on Anwara. She had decided not to think about her secretive talk with Solveig and Chike only two days before. They had all, she concluded, probably drawn the wrong conclusions from their easily roused suspicions.

Now, as she followed Solveig into the small meeting room where Orenda was waiting for them, she suddenly had the feeling that Chike's instincts were sound and that she had been trying too hard to ignore her own misgivings.

She and her roommate were the last to arrive. Mahala made her way among the eight seated students and sat down on a cushion near the back, next to Chike. His mouth curved in a half-smile, as if he were about to say: I was right. Solveig sat down in front of them. Mahala waited for Orenda to sit down and say whatever it was she had to tell them, but the tall slender woman was still standing and staring down at the floor.

“I have some news for all of you,” Orenda said, “and I hope that you will regard it as welcome news.” She smiled in the mechanical way that Administrators often did before making public announcements. “It's been decided that you are all to go back to your Island schools. You will continue with your studies there, and given that you haven't been here that long, and that all of you are fine students, it shouldn't take much time to catch up with whatever work you might have missed.”

“This is kind of sudden,” Wendine Hu said in her gentle voice. “We were expecting to be here for at least one term, possibly longer.”

“Yes, I know,” Orenda replied, still wearing her impersonal smile.

“So is this going to count against us?” Stephan AnnasLeonards asked, his narrow face looking even more solemn than usual.

“Of course not. I wish to emphasize that. The decision to send you back to the
Islands has nothing to do with the quality of your work. All of the personnel who have spoken to
you, worked with you, and been mentors to you have commended your intelligence and your character.
This isn't a black mark on your records. On the contrary, we hope that you've gained
something from your time here and—”

“Will we be allowed to return later on?” Solveig asked.

Mahala stared at the blond braids that hung down Solveig's back, surprised that her friend had interrupted Orenda. The older woman folded her arms and frowned, but did not reply.

“Will we be able to come back,” Solveig continued, “or is this it for us?”

Orenda's mouth twitched. “I can hardly answer that now, Solveig. Maybe you'll be assigned here later, maybe you won't. Maybe more students will be coming here another time. All I can tell you is that, at the moment, the Project Council has decided that you should return to the Islands.”

Solveig said, “Does this have anything to do with the fact that two Habs are now on a course that will bring them close to Earth if they continue on their current trajectory?”

Mahala held her breath. The other young people in the room were all looking at Solveig now. Orenda's smile had disappeared completely.

“Well?” Solveig said. “I think it's a reasonable question.”

Orenda can't deny it, Mahala thought. It came to her then that Solveig would be losing more than any of the rest of them when she went back to Island Two. She would lose her sessions with the astronomers here; she would be losing the stars.

“I'm wondering the same thing,” Mahala said. Chike poked her in the side; she ignored him. She was not about to let Solveig be the only one pressing Orenda for an answer.

Orenda was silent for a while, as if trying to decide what to tell them. Then she said, “The fact that two Habitats have departed from their usual orbital paths would have become known within a few days.” The woman showed her teeth. “And we have no reason to assume that their movements are of any concern to us.”

Their adviser, Mahala thought, had waited too long before giving that response. That she had known about the two Habs was no surprise; the astronomers would not have kept that information to themselves for long. All of the Linkers and most of the specialists on Anwara had probably already been informed. If there was no reason to worry about the two Habs, Orenda would have admitted that right away. Either she was completely ignorant of what the Habitats' altered paths might mean or she was worrying about it herself.

“And none of that,” Orenda continued, “has anything to do with your having to return to the Islands.”

“Then it certainly is a striking coincidence,” Mahala said.

“It's nothing of the sort.” Orenda folded her arms. “You place a very high value on your importance, thinking that such things have anything to do with you.”

Mahala put up a hand, then gave Orenda what she hoped was a sheepish enough look. “Sorry, Orenda. I didn't mean it that way.”

She had pushed this far enough, but suspected that the movements of the two Habs had everything to do with the departure of the students from Anwara. If the Project Council and Earth were worrying about Habber intentions, they would soon be asking to meet with them, and Anwara was the place where any such meetings were likely to be held. The last people the Project Council would need here were a group of inquisitive students.

October 649

From: Mahala Liangharad, Anwara

To: Dyami Liang-Talis, Turing

I'm sending this message to you, Dyami, because maybe you can help me sort some things out when I come back If you think I'm being overly cautious by sending this on a closed channel, all I can say is that I feel like being cautious. I know that nobody's likely to call up a personal message on an open channel, and I know that any experienced Linker who's interested can probably get hold of this even on a closed channel. I'm not telling you anything that won't be public knowledge soon—if it isn't already—and this isn't anything embarrassing or disgraceful about myself. It's just—

I'll get to the point. I'm going back to Island Two tomorrow. So are
all of the students who came to Anwara with me. Orenda Tineka, the specialist who was advising us,
assured us all that it's just an unexpected change in plans, that it has nothing to do with
our abilities. Just to check on that, I called up my public record today and found a commendation
for, and I quote, my “ability to think, reason, cooperate with others, and adapt to the
environment of Anwara.” Solveig had exactly the same commendation in her record, and my guess
is that all of the other students do, too.

So we're to go back to the Islands and go on with our studies there, which means all the trouble and expense of bringing us to Anwara in the first place is largely wasted. The Project Council wouldn't have made such a decision unless they were sure the Mukhtars wouldn't object, and it seems out of character for them to decide on this so quickly. Normally, you'd expect them to keep us here for the eight months they'd promised us, and then decide later that bringing students here wasn't worth the trouble.

So I think that something must have happened suddenly to bring the Project Council to this decision. And it just so happens that two Habitats are no longer orbiting

Mars and are moving in Earth's direction. You may know that already, but even if you don't, you probably will soon enough. Orenda confirmed the observations, but Solveig also found out from the astronomers here that those two Habs had changed course. Nobody's keeping this a secret, and Orenda insists it doesn't mean anything, but I wonder. Maybe those two Habs have something to do with why they're sending us back to the Islands.

I wish we could stay here. During the first month, I was wondering if I'd ever get used to Anwara, and now I'm really sorry that we're going.

Tell Frani—no, don't tell her anything, except that I'm going back to Island Two. I'll send her a message when I get there.

 

16

Solveig took off her band and turned away from the wall screen toward Mahala.
“No change,” she said.

Mahala knew what she meant. After fifty days, the two Habitats that had left their orbits around Mars were still following a course that would bring them within half a million kilometers of Earth.

A few days after the students had returned to the Islands, rumors were already circulating among the Islanders about the two Habitats and what their movements might mean. By then, stories that more Guardians were being sent to Anwara were also part of the talk. At last the Project Council, through the Administrator and Liaison Masud al-Tikriti, had issued an announcement.

The Habitat-dwellers had changed course only to run certain tests on newly installed drives that powered the two Habs. Although Earth's Guardians would maintain their readiness, the Council of Mukhtars and the Project Council had been assured that the Habs had no intention of provoking Earth's forces into a confrontation. In the meantime, the Project Council was holding more meetings with some of the Habbers who were living among the Cytherians, but only to discuss possible ways to speed up the progress of their terraforming efforts.

All of which left Mahala wondering why the Habbers might have needed to install new drives.

“You look worried,” Solveig said as she began to unbraid her long blond hair.

Mahala shook her head, not wanting to give voice to her suspicions. Since coining back to Island Two nearly a month ago, she had sent two innocuous messages to Benzi. He had replied cordially but briefly. He had not asked to see her, which might mean that he had nothing to tell her that was any more illuminating than what the Project Council had already announced.