Child of Venus (46 page)

“But that's ridiculous,” Mahala said. “Nobody's going to
ask for a promise that might keep a partner from—”

“I know. I did what anybody else would have done. What I didn't expect is
that he'd come up with the idea of volunteering again and putting in even more—”

Frania stopped suddenly. Mahala and Solveig stood with her at the side of the road as a passenger cart rolled past them.

“It isn't working,” Frania continued. “It isn't working out at all.” Her head was bowed, her shoulders slumped. The confidence she had shown among her fellow pilots was gone; she was again the shy, uncertain child she once had been. “I thought that I could live like this, but I can't.”

“Ragnar must love you,” Solveig said. It was the kind of remark Mahala would expect Solveig to make about her brother, useless and possibly untruthful as it was.

Frania's eyes narrowed. “I don't know if he loves me or not. That isn't why he wanted a bond anyway. He wanted someone to hang on to, somebody to keep him from being completely alone, but he still made sure he picked somebody who would have to go off and leave him by himself most of the time.”

Mahala felt sympathy for Frania, but her pity for Ragnar was mixed with fury at him for causing her friend pain. “How can he treat you this way?” she asked.

“Oh, Mahala—I knew what he was like. I saw what our life together was probably going to be like, and then I told myself that maybe I was wrong, that maybe he would change.”

“So what are you going to do?” Solveig asked. “Break your bond? That might be easier to do here than in some of the other settlements—people here are a little more understanding of such things.”

“No,” Frania said, “I won't do that.”

They continued along the road, Mahala and Solveig on either side of Frania. “What's the point of an open break anyway?” Frania went on. “That would only make things worse for him, for both of us. We don't see each other that much, and whether I spend my time off here or in a new settlement doesn't really matter. If he wants to be alone, he can come back here, but maybe he'll want to stay with me in Sagan if I'm there. And maybe he'll decide later that being in Sagan is more interesting than signing up for another stretch on a Bat.” Frania put a hand on Mahak's arm. “It'll be different there, won't it? A new start for the new era—that's what some are calling it. Maybe that's what Ragnar needs.”

Frania left long after last light, in better spirits and with some of the assurance that she had displayed among her fellow pilots restored. She would come back tomorrow, to share another meal and to have more time with her aunt Amina.

“You needn't come in early tomorrow,” Tasida said to Mahala after Frania was gone. “We don't have anything scheduled after first light except analyzing medscans.”

“That's why I should be there,” Mahala said. “We should discuss who's going to replace me.”

Tasida shrugged. “We'll have plenty of time for that. It'll probably be Haroun—he'll be expecting me to take him on, now that you're leaving, and he did very well as an apprentice.”

Chike had sent a message, saying that he would be working a late shift tonight. “I'll go meet Chike at first light,” Mahala said, “and then join you after that.”

Tasida glanced at Amina. “It's good that you'll both be going to Sagan,” the physician said. Tasida and Amina would not say so outright, but they obviously expected her and Chike to make a pledge before too much longer.

Solveig yawned. Dyami stood up. “Time to get some sleep,” he said, and then his eyes narrowed. “It seems we have visitors.”

Mahala turned toward the glassy walls at the front of the common room. The soft glow of a light wand held by a slender shadowy form moved through the darkness, trailed by another indistinct shadow. “Frani's back,” Mahala said, recognizing the blue of a pilot's coverall in the light, “and somebody's with her.”

Dyami went to the door as it opened. Frania came inside, saying, “We met each
other a little way from the bridge, so I thought I might as well walk back with him,
and—”

“Balin,” Dyami said as the Habber emerged from the darkness.

“I should have sent a message,” Balin said, “but I've only
been on Island Two for three days, and I didn't want to tell you anything until—”

“—and maybe you simply wanted to surprise me,” Dyami said softly.

“That, too.”

The two men gazed at each other in silence, and then their arms were around each other. Amina glanced at Tasida, then beckoned to Mahala and Solveig.

“Come on,” Amina whispered as she led them all to the door; Frania followed them outside.

“Frani,” Amina said then, “I'll walk back to the dormitory with you and ask if your comrades can spare me a bed. I've got a day-long shift at the refinery, starting early, so I won't be there long.” She turned toward Mahala. “And maybe you two won't mind sleeping at the office with Tasida tonight.”

“Of course not,” Mahala said.

“Let them have at least a bit of time to themselves.” Amina looked back at
the house. “Dyami's missed him so much. He got past the worst of it, but I wondered if
he would ever get completely past it, and now—” She sighed. “I hope it isn't
just for a little while, before Balin leaves again.”

“Now that I know I'll be leaving in a month,” Mahala said, “I'm beginning to miss Turing already.”

“You're not sorry you agreed to go to Sagan,” Chike said.

“No, I'm not.”

She sat with him on a slope overlooking the north dome's lake. Frania had left Turing; she had not wanted to visit her house herself, but had asked Mahala and Chike to check on it for her. The three young women living there were keeping the place neat and had acquired three cats of their own, who kept the house free of mice and the other small creatures that had established small colonies in all of the settlements despite the best efforts of the settlers. Two of them had asked about the figurines Ragnar had carved in wood or cast in metal that sat on the shelves of one common room wall, wanting to know if they were for sale. Mahala would send a message to Frania about that and let her handle any arrangements.

She thought about one carving she had seen, of her own face, and wondered when Ragnar had carved it and why he had given her an expression that seemed both pensive and implacable.

“I was thinking,” Chike said, “of asking you something before we
leave Turing. Maybe this is the time to ask you—” He paused. “To ask you if you
would consider becoming my bondmate.”

“Chike—”

“Let me finish, Mahala.” He reached for her hand. “The reason I haven't asked before is that I was almost certain you'd say no, not because you don't care for me but because you've decided that we have a bond already.” He shook his head. “That isn't what I meant to say. I meant that whether we have a bond or not, we'll be together, that there will always be something between us.”

Mahala said, “That's exactly how I feel. You didn't have to say it.”

“It was time to say it.”

“I love you,” she said, “and I always will love you in some way, and that's enough right now.”

“That's just the way I feel.”

Mahala thought of Dyami and Balin. Balin had said little to her uncle's housemates except that he would be staying at Turing's Habber residence while setting up some new educational programs for Turing's children and young people. Balin had hinted that he might seek Dyami's advice and that the new programs would be a more radical departure from the standard primary curriculum. Presumably Balin's efforts were a part of the new era, and she hoped that the work would keep him here for a while.

“Maybe I need you more now,” Chike said, “because everything's going to change. A few years ago, I could look ahead and the alternatives were fairly clear. I'd finish my schooling and become a specialist in chemistry, or I would be advised to leave and apprentice myself, probably as a lab assistant, and I'd live on an Island or maybe in a settlement and bring up however many children my bondmate and I could get permission to have and live out my life in service to the Project. Now I can't be sure of anything.”

“You don't regret that,” Mahala said.

“Not at all. You know that. But it does make me feel that I need just one thing that is certain, that you'll be there for me.”

“I'll be there.” She leaned against him, suddenly grateful for his love.

 

21

May 655

From: Harriett Teresas, Commune of Teresa Marias,

Lincoln, Nomarchy of the Plains Communes

To: Mahala Liangharad, East Dome,

Cytherian Settlement of Sagan

Greetings from Earth
!

If you don't know who I am and haven't checked any records yet, I'm a kinswoman, a cousin of yours, Harriett Teresas. In case you haven't looked at a genealogical chart or called up a recitation of our list of ancestors, I am a descendant of your great-great-grandmother Angharad's first cousin Elisabeth, who had a daughter, Lilia. Lilia's daughter was Sylvie, who took over this farm back in 593. Sylvie merged our farm and household with—well, a Plainswoman can spend hours going through her line of ancestors, so I won't go into all of that.

Sylvie had a son, Gregor, who left Lincoln, and then much later in life a daughter, Maria, who's my grandmother. Maria's still alive, but she's well into her middle years, since she didn't give birth to my mother Teresa until she was in her late twenties, but a fair number of Plainswomen are becoming mothers later in life these days, instead of following old custom and having their children in their teens. And my name is Harriett Teresas, and as I said, I am your cousin, but it must seem like a very distant relationship to you.

If you'd like to view a mind-tour of Lincoln, please feel free to call one up, and bill it to my account, I already gave permission for that. In the meantime, I can tell you that this town has changed quite a bit since your great-grandmother Iris Angharads left for Venus over a century ago.

For one thing, it's smaller, and Lincoln wasn't any too populated to begin with; over three thousand people live here now, which is actually more residents than we had here a few years ago—but I'll get to that.

My mother, Teresa Marias, who was elected as mayor of Lincoln a couple of years ago, is head of this household and in charge of our farm, and we still live in the same house—with some improvements, needless to say— where your great-grandmother Iris grew up. We've probably got more room than she and her housemates had, though, because there aren't as many of us. Our regional Counselors are stingy about granting permissions to have children, and the fact is that the Nomarchies don't need as many of us to run our farms. In the old days, many women could get permission for at least two children, a girl to run the farm and continue the line and a boy to wander off to other places to work and spread the line's genes around, but I can think of only a few women who ever got permission for more than one child, and some who never get permission at all, and if you're told to have a boy, you just have to leave it to a sister or a female cousin to carry on your line.

I'm going to tell you about myself now and a little more about Lincoln, and then you'll understand why I'm sending you this message. I'm twenty years old, and I grew up in Lincoln. By the time I was six, I had learned how to read and was spending a good deal of my credit on screen lessons. You probably know how unusual that is here, since farmers don't need lessons except for subjects that are related to agriculture or running a farm, but my mother actually encouraged me in my studies.

One reason was her pride in knowing that Iris Angharads was part of our line. I grew up hearing stories about how Iris learned to read in secret, even when her friends made fun of her, and how she was chosen for the Cytherian Institute and later gave up her life for the Venus Project. Our line may not have as many branches as it once did, but at least we know we have one branch on Venus, and we are very proud of that. But Teresa also encouraged my lessons because she saw that a time might come when I'd have to know more than how to run a farm. “Things can change,” she always said. “They've been the same for a long time now, maybe for too long.” And as it turned out, she was right. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

About seven years ago, our regional Counselor, Torie Crawfordsville, called us all to a meeting in the town hall Everybody in Lincoln—farmers, shopkeepers, the older boys and any men who happened to be passing through, and all of the children who were old enough to behave properly and understand what was being said— went to the meeting, because Torie had said that it was going to be really important. That was when she told us that the Administrative Committee for our Nomarchy had been directed by the Council of Mukhtars to open a primary and secondary school in Lincoln. Some of the older students would come here from other Plains towns and live in houses with some of the teachers while the school was in session, but any child in Lincoln who had the aptitude and was willing to do the work would also be admitted to the school. And they really did mean anyone—boy or girl, the child of a shopkeeper or a farmer— everybody would have a chance at an education.

After Torie Crawfordsville made that announcement, there wasn't a sound in the room. People were stunned; I was wondering if some of the old women might even drop dead from the shock. Torie went on to speak about the curriculum and the teachers and how some of the young people in Lincoln might go on to become teachers to another generation of children, and I was thinking: I'll be able to go to school, they'll have to let me in, and I'll be prepared because of all those screen lessons I took. It won't be just teaching images giving me lessons anymore, it'll be real teachers and people from other places and students like me who want to learn new things and are curious about the world and who won't make fun of me because I know how to read and want to get something more from a mind-tour than a mindless adventure and want to grow up to be more than a farmer and Plainswoman who sits around gossiping, drinking whiskey, and bedding any attractive man who comes through Lincoln and is willing.