“Sure.” Derek poised his hands over the command board.
“It’s file number AT-3642.”
Derek entered the number and brought up the picture on the wall screen. It was a black-and-white still shot, taken from one of their ancient satellites. It showed a gray raised ring with a dark center and long pale ridges radiating from the sides. Derek studied it for a moment.
Ben leaned one hand against the back of Derek’s chair and peered at the image, as if trying to see it in greater detail.
“Looks like a tick,” Derek said. A tick was a type of volcano found only on Venus. It got its name because from above it looked like a gigantic, round-bodied insect with its crooked legs sticking out at irregular angles.
“Yeah, it does,” said Ben, watching Derek carefully. “Except it’s never been mapped.”
“Oh? Well, that describes a lot of the planet.” Venus had three times the land area of Earth. Detailed mapping was the work of multiple lifetimes. “Do you want me to put it on the list for close study?”
“No, no.” Ben shook his head. Especially since it does seem you’ve never seen it before. “You’ve got your hands full. Just see about routing me a couple of close-ups during the next flyover, okay?”
“Okay.” Derek made a note on one of his flat screens. “Was there anything else?”
“Not really.” Ben straightened up. “Will I see you at the reception?”
“Maybe.” Derek turned his attention back to his command board. The lava delta reappeared on the wall, this time with the white lines of a measuring grid laid over it. “When I’m done here.”
“You should consider putting in an appearance,” Ben suggested with a small smile. “I think Grandma Helen is counting noses. If she isn’t, she’ll be reviewing the tapes later.”
Derek glanced up. “Thanks, Dr. Godwin. I’ll show myself.”
“Good choice.” He patted the boy on the shoulder and showed himself out.
Ben walked down the broad corridor to the elevator bays and, as was his habit, took the sweeping staircase instead. Space was Venera’s one true luxury, and Ben had to admit he reveled in it. The stairs were wide, and the ceilings were high. There was room for people coming up, going down, and just standing around talking or leaning against the outer railing. The elevator shafts made mini-atriums, so he could look the whole, long, dizzy way down and up again and hear the sounds of purposeful life drifting to him from each of the twenty-four decks. Ten thousand people living and working peacefully together. It could be paradise if it were allowed to be.
Ben turned off at the landing for the administration level, getting ready to head for his office. But he stopped in mid-stride and glanced at the clock on the wall. Quarter of five, with the reception at six. No one would think anything of it if he didn’t stay at his desk until the required hour.
And what Ben really wanted to do could not be done in the office.
So he returned to the stairs and walked down three levels to the residential section. The apartments took up most of the two levels above the farm and one level below. Everyone had a full suite of rooms: bed, bath, study, living, and kitchen. Even the visitors. With the soaring ceilings, full-spectrum lights, and generous use of e-windows and greenery, you could almost forget you were in a colony.
In his own rooms, Ben always kept one of his screens set to show the clouds outside. He did not want to forget.
Other than that, Ben’s apartment was pretty much as he had moved into it. Someone looking for evidence of the owner’s personality would have had to work hard. After a while, they might have picked out the shiny chunk of obsidian on the end table by the couch, the brightly polished garnet on the half-wall that divided the kitchen from the living room, and the piles of open screen rolls on the desk, coffee table, and couch. From this they could have concluded that the owner liked rocks and was dedicated to his work.
As his door shut behind him, Ben crossed to the sofa. He picked up a pile of screen rolls to clear space for himself and sat down. His briefcase rested on the coffee table. He didn’t jack it in; he just woke it and called up a privately encrypted file that waited for both the password and the scan of his fingertips from the command board.
The file opened for him and displayed a picture identical to Derek’s AT-3642.
It did look like a tick. It had the circular center and the ridges radiating out like crooked legs. In black and white and two dimensions, those ridges appeared to be level with the grounds—until you had spent a day looking at everything you had as if they were alien artifacts because you couldn’t help yourself, until you enlarged it and refined it and squinted at it for hours.