“So it’s mutual rebellion,” he said, answering his own original question.
“More has been built on less.” D’Yquem tips his glass. “Say, remember the pilings?” D’Yquem says.
“They still haunt my sleep.” Sinking the pilings for the Lens almost broke the Lens project in its early going. In many places, Veneria’s mud is little better than brown water. “Soup” is what D’Yquem calls it. Pilings had to be sunk repeatedly and to depths three or four times greater than they would on a comparable terrestrial location.
“We learned something from them.”
“You mean, besides ‘don’t build a tall heavy structure on Venus’?”
“We got core samples.”
“I recall Rostov saying that the Venerians would never allow that.” Rostov (2,3,5) had been TA’s staff geologist in those days. He had begged to be allowed to take core samples to prove or disprove Venerian legends of reloquere and the Sunset. Naturally, he’d been denied, just as human archaeologists were denied the chance to dig in Jerusalem because religious leaders feared what they might find—or not find.
“And they never did, as research. But for structural engineering …” D’Yquem grins, always a disconcerting image. (Those English teeth!)
“So Rostov found—”
“Nothing. No evidence at all that Venus had ever undergone radical, transformative geological or climactic shifts. Not in the past half a billion years, that is.” He grins again. “Your girlfriend and her people live a long time, but not that long.”
Jor has never truly really believed Abdera’s stories—no more than he believed in the strict Christianity of the Lennox family.
Nevertheless, the work of reloquere has continued at a faster pace. When work on the Lens first commenced, Sunset was said to be far in the future—the equivalent of a human century.
But as the Lens neared completion, so, it seems, has the disassembly of Venerian civilization. Based on what Jor sees now, in the streets and mudflats, it could be a matter of weeks … possibly days.
He had asked Abdera: “Where will you go when reloquere comes?”
“With my clan.”
“Where will they go?” Sometimes she is too literal. On the other hand, he realizes that she is the one speaking a different language.
“Into the Bright Sea.”
“All of you?”
“There are many skiffs, most of them stored for a long time.”
“And then?” He thinks she’s joking.
“Return to the land wherever it forms.”
“Sounds awful.”
“It is. But it’s necessary.”
The subject changed then, and for some time thereafter Jor concentrated on Abdera’s somewhat grim acceptance of reloquere.
Only now does he recall her hint that she had been through it before.
But there is no word. And he has no way of reaching her.
In the afternoon, Jor is called to TA headquarters, the oldest of the four towers in the Terrestrian compound, to see the five bombers in their holding cell.
Venerian premales are shorter, broader, brighter green than females like Abdera. Unlike her, they wear the garb of sea farmers … clothing that seems to be fashioned from scales, like a knight’s armor.
Jor begins to think of them as teenaged boys … mischievous, trying to prove themselves, not terrorists. This is silly, he realizes, and not just because he has fallen into D’Yquem’s conceptual trap.
Even if these young creatures did try to harm the Lens, their questioning has been harsh: Jor can see signs of bruising and branding. It appears that one of them has a broken arm.
“Have they said why?” he asks Hollander.
“They just sing and pray,” the security man tells him.
Jor is exhausted. He goes.
The next morning, Jor is up earlier than usual—and he always rises earlier than most, no matter how hungover—and upon arriving at his desk finds two flimsy documents, the coin of the realm in the Lens offices: first, a secret report that all five of the Venerian premales died in custody the night before.
Which is terrible news.
The relationship between TA and the Venerian council of clans is comfortably colonial—from Authority’s point of view. After all, Terrestrians possess spaceships, therefore power.
In practice, however, the balance frequently shifts. Venerians are technologically savvy, armed, and, as their own recent history shows, willing to fight.
Why have they allowed Terrestrians to establish Venus Port at all, much less build the Lens—which surely suggested an even larger footprint? The official answer was technology transfer: Terrestrians were paying for time and territory with information—hence the colonial smugness.
This was another question Jor had put to Abdera in their early days, only to receive what he could only describe as an amused shrug. “You gave us land near one of your largest cities,” he had said.
“Not very much of it. And we use very little, as you’ve seen.”
“What do you think of the Lens?” Jor had never asked her; when they met, the tower was already rising. Permissions had been obtained from the clans.
She had smiled—a humanoid gesture—and slithered up and down his body in a Venerian one, the total effect being quite … arousing. “If it will bring more attractive, rich human males, how could I dislike it?”
Jor wasn’t ready to accept this glib answer. “It will bring all kinds of humans, and while many will be richer and more powerful than me, none will be more attractive. Some of them will be cruel and greedy and dangerous.”
Now she was serious. “I know.” Then she offered the Venerian equivalent of a shrug. “It really doesn’t matter.”
She did not need to say why: Sunset.
“Don’t you think of us as invaders?”
“Some do.”
“But not you.”
And here he was rewarded with a smile of unrestrained Venerian amusement. “Only sexually.”
Which is another aspect of their relationship that binds them—at least Jor to Abdera. Their lovemaking is frequent, satisfying, innovative … and frequently (by Jor’s standards) almost public. Which adds to the excitement.
He was sexually experienced before meeting Abdera, of course, but entered that phase of their relationship as ignorant as a fundamentalist bride. He had heard nothing about Terrestrian-Venerian sexual relations beyond the usual ignorant rumors.
But, in the twilight, garments gone, the classic moves dominated. Abdera was more aggressive than women in Jor’s past … but he found that he enjoyed it.
Jor believes that this intimacy gives him greater insight into Venerian character and customs. And while it is true that he has learned several phrases and knows more about Venerian food and drink … he realizes on this grim day that he is no better informed than Tuttle or the others in TA.
And with five premale Venerians dead in TA custody, he feels overwhelmed, unsure, and outnumbered.
Only then does he find a second message—from Abdera, in her charming, flowery style: “We must meet by midday or I will perish from the shame of my actions. The landing.”
Although most Terrestrians, especially those newly arrived from Earth, argue the point, Venerians are more advanced than humans. The assumption that they are somehow equivalent to European civilizations of the late Middle Ages grows out of ignorance and xenophobia, and a mistaken belief that an advanced civilization requires a large population.
There are, Jor knew, fewer than 100 million Venerians. Naturally they have fewer, smaller cities. Their economy is largely directed toward sea farming in the Twi-Land waters, especially Bright Sea—which is why Venus Port was built where it was. (Venerian sea farming was so extensive, involving the actual herding of aquatic creatures we still did not truly understand, that the word “fishing” seemed inadequate.)