their own ends.
None of the Guardians here knew that Benzi had spent his early life on the Plains of North America and had grown up on Venus's Islands, and that was just as well. He preferred being seen as an odd creature in human form rather than as a traitor to the Nomarchies.
The door slid open as he walked outside. Dawn had come; in the camp, lines of people stood outside the dining halls, waiting for their morning meal. The Mukhtars, he admitted to himself grudgingly, were handling this situation in a fairly rational way. The camp's primitive conditions and the impossibility of knowing when one might be allowed to leave discouraged most of those who might otherwise have come. Earth could rid itself of a few potential troublemakers while ensuring that those who got to Venus would be strong, determined, and willing to work for that world. Fear of losing a chance to emigrate kept the camp relatively quiet; the confiscation of nearly everything the hopeful emigrants owned made it possible to run the camp more economically. It might have been wiser in the long run to treat these people more kindly, thus gaining their loyalty and gratitude, but that would only have encouraged too many others to join them.
Benzi sometimes pitied the people in the camp, but at least they were aware of the price they would pay to reach their goal, something he had not known when he joined his life to the Habs. The would-be emigrants did not harbor kindly feelings toward him; they assumed that any delays were partly the work of the Habbers, and the Project Council let them believe that.
He shivered a little in his long coat. The air was warming rapidly, but he was still unused to the extremes of temperature here. He thought of the Plains on the other side of Earth. His grandmother's town of Lincoln, like this camp, had been a lonely outpost set against a wide and beckoning horizon, its only connection with the outside world one floater cradle where an airship arrived from time to time.
Te-yu was circling the tower. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her blue jacket as she walked toward him. "You're up early," she said.
"I couldn't sleep."
"Your Link is there to calm you, among other things."
Benzi smiled. "I don't imagine you open yours any more often than I open mine."
"You're wrong. Sometimes I need it more here. I feel very far away from our Hab when it's open but entirely cut off when it's closed."
Their Links, unlike those embedded in the foreheads of Earth's Linkers, were hidden. They wore no tiny jewels on their brows to indicate the presence of a Link, but Earth's authorities had insisted on outward signs that they were Habbers. As a result, he and Te-yu wore pins made of silver circles on their collars. They never left their rooms without pinning the circles to their coats or shirts; it was a way to be certain that others knew exactly what they were.
The people here, like those he had known on the Islands, were uncomfortable and anxious without such outward signs of status — jewels for Linkers, pins for various specialists, uniforms and insignia for Guardians, and the lack of pins for workers and ordinary citizens. One could see immediately what another was and consequently know how to behave.
Habbers needed no such signs. Before Benzi had joined them, he had believed, as did so many others, that this was because Habbers disdained such distinctions. They were all given the Links that on Earth were the privilege of an elite, and were all equals inside their own worlds. He had learned instead that other signs marked the difference between one Habitat-dweller and another — a stance, a gesture, a distant, contemplative gaze, a mind that could almost pierce his own through a channel in his Link.
"I spoke to my grandmother last night," he said. "She's aged so much. It wasn't until she spoke that I knew she hadn't really changed. I told myself she might be happy to hear from me, but maybe I only awakened memories she'd
None of the Guardians here knew that Benzi had spent his early life on the Plains of North America and had grown up on Venus's Islands, and that was just as well. He preferred being seen as an odd creature in human form rather than as a traitor to the Nomarchies.
The door slid open as he walked outside. Dawn had come; in the camp, lines of people stood outside the dining halls, waiting for their morning meal. The Mukhtars, he admitted to himself grudgingly, were handling this situation in a fairly rational way. The camp's primitive conditions and the impossibility of knowing when one might be allowed to leave discouraged most of those who might otherwise have come. Earth could rid itself of a few potential troublemakers while ensuring that those who got to Venus would be strong, determined, and willing to work for that world. Fear of losing a chance to emigrate kept the camp relatively quiet; the confiscation of nearly everything the hopeful emigrants owned made it possible to run the camp more economically. It might have been wiser in the long run to treat these people more kindly, thus gaining their loyalty and gratitude, but that would only have encouraged too many others to join them.
Benzi sometimes pitied the people in the camp, but at least they were aware of the price they would pay to reach their goal, something he had not known when he joined his life to the Habs. The would-be emigrants did not harbor kindly feelings toward him; they assumed that any delays were partly the work of the Habbers, and the Project Council let them believe that.
He shivered a little in his long coat. The air was warming rapidly, but he was still unused to the extremes of temperature here. He thought of the Plains on the other side of Earth. His grandmother's town of Lincoln, like this camp, had been a lonely outpost set against a wide and beckoning horizon, its only connection with the outside world one floater cradle where an airship arrived from time to time.
Te-yu was circling the tower. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her blue jacket as she walked toward him. "You're up early," she said.
"I couldn't sleep."
"Your Link is there to calm you, among other things."
Benzi smiled. "I don't imagine you open yours any more often than I open mine."
"You're wrong. Sometimes I need it more here. I feel very far away from our Hab when it's open but entirely cut off when it's closed."
Their Links, unlike those embedded in the foreheads of Earth's Linkers, were hidden. They wore no tiny jewels on their brows to indicate the presence of a Link, but Earth's authorities had insisted on outward signs that they were Habbers. As a result, he and Te-yu wore pins made of silver circles on their collars. They never left their rooms without pinning the circles to their coats or shirts; it was a way to be certain that others knew exactly what they were.
The people here, like those he had known on the Islands, were uncomfortable and anxious without such outward signs of status — jewels for Linkers, pins for various specialists, uniforms and insignia for Guardians, and the lack of pins for workers and ordinary citizens. One could see immediately what another was and consequently know how to behave.
Habbers needed no such signs. Before Benzi had joined them, he had believed, as did so many others, that this was because Habbers disdained such distinctions. They were all given the Links that on Earth were the privilege of an elite, and were all equals inside their own worlds. He had learned instead that other signs marked the difference between one Habitat-dweller and another — a stance, a gesture, a distant, contemplative gaze, a mind that could almost pierce his own through a channel in his Link.
"I spoke to my grandmother last night," he said. "She's aged so much. It wasn't until she spoke that I knew she hadn't really changed. I told myself she might be happy to hear from me, but maybe I only awakened memories she'd
Similar Books
