his fellow pilots had planned their escape flight carefully. They had chosen the perfect moment, the hours when the gravitational engines on Venus's equator would release their pulse of energy. The nearest Hab, with an orbit nine million kilometers beyond Venus's orbital path, was within reach of a shuttle at that time. Benzi and his comrades had volunteered for Platform duty, knowing that nearly everyone on the Islands would be gathering by their screens to witness the awesome events below.
Probes transmitting from the planet's surface had given the Islanders images of crumbling mountains, hills swaying on molten lava, pyramids crowned by lightning as Venus was assaulted. Few had paid attention to the shuttle as it left the port and began to orbit Venus, ostensibly to view the world from above. Benzi remembered the bright fan of colored bands that had suddenly appeared above the northern pole as the dark world below began to turn more rapidly. That had been his last glimpse of Venus before the shuttle thrust out of orbit.
He had arrived at an asteroid enclosed by a vast metallic shell. The Hab was a world of wide corridors, simple rooms, and a garden of forests, lakeshores, hills and plains at its center that seemed meant to be a monument to Earth. Its people were individuals whose strongest passions were apparently directed toward knowledge and speculation. He saw them not as inhuman, but rather as people whose true humanity had triumphed over qualities that were usually linked to his species' baser instincts.
Benzi avoided thinking of Iris and Chen during his earliest years in the Hab. They had their dream and he had his; their lives could no longer touch him. News of the Project's setbacks had left him unconcerned, since he was beginning to think as Habbers did, to see most events as little more than transitory stages in a long life. The Project would need more Habber assistance again; eventually Earth would allow more Habbers to return. He had forgotten that Islanders, with briefer lives, could not be so patient. Iris's death had reminded him of that.
He had given up his life on the Islands. He could never have remained happily in those gardened environs or lived on the surface, where the dark clouds would always have hidden the heavens from him. Iris could live in her dream, seeing Venus as it would be; he had seen only a prison. He was free now, but could still not think of himself as a Habber. By his own choice, the Link inside his head that connected him with his Habitat's cyberminds was often silent.
The guilt he felt over his mother's death separated him from many of his fellow Habbers. Iris had once represented everything he was trying to escape, so driven by her own dream that she was unable to see his. He had escaped from her, but now she held him once more; he was aiding others who shared her dream. He had sought to shed a little of his remorse by agreeing to ferry settlers from this camp outside Tashkent; he wondered if he would ever be free of that guilt.
* * *
Four Guardians sat in the small room at the base of the tower; they were hunched over the table, playing a game on a portable screen. They fell silent as Benzi stepped out of the lift. The uniformed people spoke to him only when it was necessary and muttered about him when they thought he was out of earshot.
The Guardians had various assumptions about Habbers, many of them contradictory. The Habbers were here to spy on Earth; they were here because they secretly longed to return; they had altered their bodies somatically to the point where they were hardly human, or else their rational, distant manner was only the pose of people pretending they were different. Habbers dreamed of conquering Earth, sabotaging the Venus Project, or of abandoning near-space altogether. Whatever the Guardians believed, they also seemed to think that the Mukhtars now had the upper hand in their dealings with the Associated Habitats and were using the Habbers for
Probes transmitting from the planet's surface had given the Islanders images of crumbling mountains, hills swaying on molten lava, pyramids crowned by lightning as Venus was assaulted. Few had paid attention to the shuttle as it left the port and began to orbit Venus, ostensibly to view the world from above. Benzi remembered the bright fan of colored bands that had suddenly appeared above the northern pole as the dark world below began to turn more rapidly. That had been his last glimpse of Venus before the shuttle thrust out of orbit.
He had arrived at an asteroid enclosed by a vast metallic shell. The Hab was a world of wide corridors, simple rooms, and a garden of forests, lakeshores, hills and plains at its center that seemed meant to be a monument to Earth. Its people were individuals whose strongest passions were apparently directed toward knowledge and speculation. He saw them not as inhuman, but rather as people whose true humanity had triumphed over qualities that were usually linked to his species' baser instincts.
Benzi avoided thinking of Iris and Chen during his earliest years in the Hab. They had their dream and he had his; their lives could no longer touch him. News of the Project's setbacks had left him unconcerned, since he was beginning to think as Habbers did, to see most events as little more than transitory stages in a long life. The Project would need more Habber assistance again; eventually Earth would allow more Habbers to return. He had forgotten that Islanders, with briefer lives, could not be so patient. Iris's death had reminded him of that.
He had given up his life on the Islands. He could never have remained happily in those gardened environs or lived on the surface, where the dark clouds would always have hidden the heavens from him. Iris could live in her dream, seeing Venus as it would be; he had seen only a prison. He was free now, but could still not think of himself as a Habber. By his own choice, the Link inside his head that connected him with his Habitat's cyberminds was often silent.
The guilt he felt over his mother's death separated him from many of his fellow Habbers. Iris had once represented everything he was trying to escape, so driven by her own dream that she was unable to see his. He had escaped from her, but now she held him once more; he was aiding others who shared her dream. He had sought to shed a little of his remorse by agreeing to ferry settlers from this camp outside Tashkent; he wondered if he would ever be free of that guilt.
* * *
Four Guardians sat in the small room at the base of the tower; they were hunched over the table, playing a game on a portable screen. They fell silent as Benzi stepped out of the lift. The uniformed people spoke to him only when it was necessary and muttered about him when they thought he was out of earshot.
The Guardians had various assumptions about Habbers, many of them contradictory. The Habbers were here to spy on Earth; they were here because they secretly longed to return; they had altered their bodies somatically to the point where they were hardly human, or else their rational, distant manner was only the pose of people pretending they were different. Habbers dreamed of conquering Earth, sabotaging the Venus Project, or of abandoning near-space altogether. Whatever the Guardians believed, they also seemed to think that the Mukhtars now had the upper hand in their dealings with the Associated Habitats and were using the Habbers for
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