Beneath him, the clouds of Venus roiled, the Roar like some dark, unwavering eye looking up toward him, as if to get a good look for the next time he came to visit.
“Not a chance,” said Kelvin, waving. “I am never going back to see you, buddy. I’m not stepping one meter outside of Venusport, no matter what!”
At that moment, the audible alerts that had diminished to a whisper grew raucous again, and a flashing holograph bigger and brighter than any before erupted in front of his face.
“Orbital decay! Orbital decay!”
Kelvin sighed, and reached for the controls.
MICHAEL CASSUTT
As a print author, Michael Cassutt is mostly known for his incisive short work, but he has worked intensively in the television industry over the past few decades, where he is a major Mover and Shaker. He was co–executive producer for Showtime’s The Outer Limits—which won a CableACE Award for best dramatic series—and also served in the same or similar capacities for series such as Eerie, Indiana and Strange Luck, as well as having worked as the story editor for Max Headroom, as a staff writer on The Twilight Zone, and having contributed scripts to Farscape, Stargate SG-1, and many other television series. His books include the novels The Star Country, Dragon Season, Missing Man, Red Moon, Tango Midnight, the anthology Sacred Visions, coedited with Andrew M. Greeley, and a biographical encyclopedia, Who’s Who in Space: The First 25 Years. He also collaborated with the late astronaut Deke Slayton on Slayton’s autobiography Deke! His most recent books are the Heaven’s Shadow series, written with David S. Goyer, and consisting of Heaven’s Shadow, Heaven’s War, and Heaven’s Fall.
In the compelling story that follows, he demonstrates that dangers that you ignore are still dangers, and that some warnings had better be listened to, whether you think you know better or not.
The Sunset of Time
MICHAEL CASSUTT
“DON’T WORRY, YOUR GIRLFRIEND WILL BE HERE.”
D’Yquem (Exile Quotient 1,2,3,4,5,6,7) gestures with his brue, the cheap brand created by Petros (1,3,4,6), owner of the 13-Plus Tap, which is the least of the three bars that cater to the Terrestrian population of Venus Port. It is the one Jor (2,4,7) prefers, for its low prices, panoramic view, and especially the absence of Terrestrian Authority figures—or anyone whose EQ is under 12.
“You keep calling her my girlfriend.”
“Suggest another name then,” D’Yquem snaps. He emigrated to Venus from England, and his manner is still annoyingly upper-class, aristocratic. “We’ve already rejected ‘tart,’ and ‘sweetie’ is unbearably cloying. ‘Impedimenta’ is clearly inaccurate since she’s more independent than you.”
“Drink your brue,” Jor snaps, turning so he can watch the entrance. Having fled Chicago and a suffocating Midwestern American existence, he is an unlikely friend to D’Yquem.
Yet they do share similarities. Both are tall and thin, though Jor’s complexion is darker, and his stomach is beginning to expand, thanks to the nightly ingestions of brue. D’Yquem remains pale and almost skeletal.
Their other commonality is, according to D’Yquem, “We’re both hereditary kicks. Horse-holders. Second-raters. Never heroes.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m the snarky one at every meeting,” he says, which Jor knows to be true. “And you’re the one who trails behind the boss but does all the work.”
“But I’m a project manager!”
“But not the head of TA.” Which is Harrison Tuttle (4,5), a dull, petty American from New York who controls every aspect of Terrestrian life, from the assignment of living quarters in the four towers to approved styles of clothing—but pays no attention to the progress of the Lens.
Unlikely friends or not, nine out of every tenday, Jor and D’Yquem can be found in 13-Plus … though normally at the bar, not at a table. In days past, they used the vantage point to evaluate newly arrived female Terrestrians.
But tonight Jor is anticipating the arrival of the Cherished Abdera, Golden Glowing of the Clan Bright Sea—“Abdera” for sanity’s sake—the female Venerian with whom he has been friendly for a considerable time. Jor has pondered the nature of their relationship since its beginning two years past. “Girlfriend” is certainly not the correct term, not in his mind, and certainly not in hers. Venerians don’t have unauthorized, prematrimonial associations among themselves … understandable given their five identified genders, bitter clannish rivalries, complicated inheritances, ridiculously long life spans, and uncertain periods of sexual activity.
Nevertheless, it is fair to state that Abdera—who, in the permanent twilight of the Twi-Land, and allowing for oddities of dress and her light green coloring, could pass for a human female of thirty—is indeed Jor’s girlfriend.
And tonight, for the first time in their relationship, Abdera has not only volunteered to enter the 13-Plus—where Venerians of any gender are rarely present—she has fixed a rendezvous.
Which she has now missed! And by a considerable amount of time. In all their time together, Abdera has never been late. “Tardiness,” as D’Yquem frequently says, “is a Venerial sin.”
(In addition to the labeling of Jor’s relationship, D’Yquem’s favorite topic is Foolish Terrestrian Terminology. His usual starting point is the Terrestrian name for natives of the second solar planet, frequently reducing it to a joke at Jor’s expense, as in, “Wouldn’t you rather have a Venusian girlfriend than a Venereal one?” Or similar.)
Jor feels that his friend is tiresome on the subject. But this is one of the topics that recurs under the influence of brue—which is vital to Terrestrian survival on Venus. “Maybe I should have gone to her.”
“And risk being run down by a rogue skiff? Picked up by TA’s curfew cops and brought before Tuttle? Sink in the mud and never be found? Don’t be an idiot.” D’Yquem grins again, tipping his half-empty glass (he is not a glass-half-full person) toward the window that looks north toward the Venus Port, and the human-built tower that looms above it. “Enjoy the view. It’s almost clear this evening, and the Lens actually glows.”
Venus Port lies in the northern third of the Twilight Lands, the broad band of habitable temperatures that circles Venus from pole to pole. Travel too far east, you broil in the Noon Lands if you don’t drown in the Bright Sea, or vanish into the many jungles and swamps.
Too far west, and you freeze in the eternal darkness of Nightside.
Humans know that the sky and stars and sun can be seen from Nightside: the low temperatures freeze any open water and eliminate the otherwise-permanent cloud cover that shrouds the rest of the planet.
But the sky above Venus Port is generally uniform, gray, like Chicago on a dreary winter afternoon, changing colors only when it rains—which is frequently. Terrestrians have no day, no night, no seasons, all of which contributed to TA’s adoption of the brutal tenday workweek, not that the controlling organization needed additional means of exploiting its workers.
Now and then, however, due to some yet-to-be-understood dynamics in the Venerian atmosphere, the gloom lifts a bit, and some stray beams of sunlight brighten the upper reaches of the Lens.
From this distance, Jor can’t see the rivets, the individual girders, the discolorations, the patchwork … just the giant glassy disc and its twin focal arms.