“Okay, Merlin,” he said. “In and out quick. I don’t know when this damned tree might collapse.”
The Venusian limped ahead, reached the tree, inserted his head and neck into the opening, and emerged a moment later with an irregularly shaped crystal in his mouth.
“The stone!” breathed Sapphire.
And suddenly Scorpio became aware of the other blue woman racing forward, an ecstatic expression on her face, the mirror image of Sapphire’s. At first he thought she was intending to stop at Sapphire’s side. Then he realized that she was heading straight at Sapphire, probably to give her a hug of shared triumph. But finally he saw that she wasn’t slowing down, and that Sapphire had turned to face her and was making no effort to avoid the collision—except that there wasn’t a collision at all. He couldn’t tell which of them absorbed the other, or if both had somehow formed halves of a totally new body, but suddenly there was just one female—he hesitated to think of her as a woman—standing before him.
She took the stone from Merlin and held it up. Scorpio noticed that there was an irregularly shaped hole in it, maybe two inches across, very near the center.
Sapphire began uttering a chant, not quite singing it but more than merely reciting it.
You recognize the language? asked Scorpio.
I know every tongue in current use on Venus, but I’ve never heard this one before.
Suddenly, the stone became brighter, then brighter still, and finally blindingly bright. Scorpio had to close his eyes, and though he was standing right next to it, he couldn’t feel any additional heat.
Then a powerful masculine voice broke the silence.
“At last!” it bellowed. “At last I live again!”
Scorpio opened one eye, expecting to be blinded again. Instead he saw a huge blue man, twelve feet tall, burly and heavily muscled, sporting a thick beard, and clad in a glittering robe that seemed to be a softer, pliable version of the stone.
“A thousand times a thousand years I have waited for the day I always knew would come!”
He reached out and enclosed Sapphire’s extended hand in his powerful fingers. As he made physical contact with her, as their hands touched, both of them became as bright as the stone had been a moment ago, and they began growing until they soon were taller than the tallest of the surrounding trees. He spoke once more, his voice as loud as a thunderclap: “I am complete again!”
Scorpio tried to watch them, but again his eyes could not stand the brightness, and he had to close them. He kept them closed for almost a minute, then he suddenly sensed that the brightness had dissipated.
He opened his eyes, as did Merlin, and found that they were alone, that there was no trace of either Sapphire or the being—he couldn’t help thinking of it as a god—that had been imprisoned in the stone.
He suddenly remembered the stone, leaned down, and picked it up.
The hole is gone, observed Merlin.
I know, answered Scorpio silently. He’s complete again.
Scorpio carried the stone to his vehicle and placed it on a cushioned seat.
Pity to leave the other two vehicles behind, but hot or not, the VZ4 is worth more than both of them put together. Let’s head back to McAnany’s tavern, and get those repairs made to the ship.
And the stone?
I think we’ll keep it as a souvenir, replied Scorpio. After all, how many bona fide gods and goddesses do we plan to meet in the future? He helped Merlin into the vehicle, climbed in himself, and began heading back the way they’d come. Now let’s get the hell off of Venus as quick as we can. He increased the speed.
Why so fast? asked Merlin.
I’m not a practitioner of any religion, and I like it that way.
What’s that got to do with anything?
Scorpio shrugged. “Maybe nothing,” he said aloud. “But we’ve just turned a god loose on the world, and I don’t think he plans on going back into retirement anytime soon.”
IAN McDONALD
British author Ian McDonald is an ambitious and daring writer with a wide range and an impressive amount of talent. His first story was published in 1982, and since then he has appeared with some frequency in Interzone, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and elsewhere. In 1989 he won the Locus “Best First Novel” Award for his novel Desolation Road. He won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1991 for King of Morning, Queen of Day. His other books include Out on Blue Six and Hearts, Hands and Voices, Terminal Café, Sacrifice of Fools, Evolution’s Shore, Kirinya, Ares Express, Brasyl, as well as three collections of his short fiction, Empire Dreams, Speaking in Tongues, and Cyberabad Days. His novel, River of Gods, was a finalist for both the Hugo Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2005, and a novella drawn from it, “The Little Goddess,” was a finalist for the Hugo and the Nebula. He won a Hugo Award in 2007 for his novelette “The Djinn’s Wife,” won the Theodore Sturgeon Award for his story “Tendeleo’s Story,” and in 2011 won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel The Dervish House. His most recent books are the starting volume of a YA series, Planesrunner, another new novel, Be My Enemy, and a big retrospective collection, The Best of Ian McDonald. His latest novel is Empress of the Sun. Born in Manchester, England, in 1960, McDonald has spent most of his life in Northern Ireland, and now lives and works in Belfast.
In the eloquent and evocative story that follows, we trace a trail of flowers across the planet Venus toward a troubled and uncertain destiny.
Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan
IAN McDONALD
INTRODUCTION BY MAUREEN N. GELLARD
MY MOTHER HAD FIRM INSTRUCTIONS THAT, IN CASE OF A house fire, two things required saving: the family photograph album and the Granville-Hydes. I grew up beneath five original floral papercuts, utterly heedless of their history or their value. It was only in maturity that I came to appreciate, like so many on this and other worlds, my great-aunt’s unique art.
Collectors avidly seek original Granville-Hydes on those rare occasions when they turn up at auction. Originals sell for tens of thousands of pounds (this would have amused Ida); two years ago, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum was sold out months in advance. Dozens of anthologies of prints are still in print: the Botanica Veneris, in particular, is in fifteen editions in twenty-three languages, some of them non-Terrene.
The last thing the world needs, it would seem, is another Botanica Veneris. Yet the mystery of her final (and only) visit to Venus still intrigues half a century since her disappearance. When the collected diaries, sketchbooks, and field notes came to me after fifty years in the possession of the Dukes of Yoo, I realized that I had a precious opportunity to tell the true story of my great-aunt’s expedition—and of a forgotten chapter in my family’s history. The books were in very poor condition, mildewed and blighted in Venus’s humid, hot climate. Large parts were illegible or simply missing. The narrative was frustratingly incomplete. I have resisted the urge to fill in those blank spaces. It would have been easy to dramatize, fictionalize, even sensationalize. Instead I have let Ida Granville-Hyde speak. Hers is a strong, characterful, attractive voice, of a different class, age, and sensibility from ours, but it is authentic, and it is a true voice.