Seas of Venus(135)

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July 2, 379 AS. 0101 hours.




Wilding watched Francine's coiffure echo the fireworks with increased intensity. Charged strands woven among the hairs trapped and re-emitted the light a band higher on the spectrum.

When the fireworks flashed silver, Francine's hair sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow.

She turned to face him. Her body moved against the balcony rail like that of a cat rubbing itself, and the smile on her broad lips was feline as well.

"What are you thinking about, Prince Hal?" she asked in a purring chuckle which admitted she knew what any man was thinking about when he looked at her.

She was here with Tootles. Neither she nor Wilding wanted to arouse the hostility of the Callahan Family; but she would flirt and he—

He had invited her out on the roof of his penthouse.

Members of the Twelve Families and their entourage partied two levels below. A drunken mob of common people spilled onto the street from the ground floor of Wilding House, keeping Carnival in their own way.

More fireworks burst against the dome. Sparks spun down in varicolored corkscrews, and the crowd howled.

Wilding grinned, cat-smooth himself. He pointed a languid finger toward the boulevard. "Oh," he said, "I was thinking about them, Francine. What is it that they really want?"

The woman's stance did not change, but all the softness went out of her features. "Why ask me?" she said in a brittle voice. "How would I know?"

They were no longer flirting.

"Because you should know," he said. "Because I want to know."

Since he was host, he had not drunk heavily. There was enough alcohol in his brain to free the sharp-edged knowledge that he usually hid under an urbane exterior: he was a Wilding. For all practical purposes, he was the Wilding.

While Francine was a tart whom Tootles, Chauncey Callahan, had lifted from the gutter.

Her dress was a metallic sheath. It fitted Francine's hard curves as a scabbard of hammered silver would fit a scimitar. The natural color of her hair was black, and she wore it black tonight. It formed a pair of shoulder-length curls to frame her face, heart-shaped and carefully expressionless at this moment.

A door opened onto the balcony below. Half a dozen slurred, cheerful voices prattled merrily. "And then," Glory McLain trilled, "he wanted her to lie in cold water, I mean really cold, before she came to bed, and—"

The McLain girl's voice lowered into the general babble. The balcony was thirty feet below the penthouse roof; the partiers were unaware that there was anyone above them.

Francine moved away from the railing with a sinuous motion. She did not glance down to betray her concern about being seen—by Tootles, by someone who would mention the fact to Tootles.

Wilding stepped to the side also. "Don't they ever want a better life, Francine?" he said softly.

Fireworks began to spell letters across the dome: W-Y-O. . . .

Common people cheered and drank, while aristocrats gossiped about necrophilia.

The penthouse roof was planted with grass and palmettoes. The seedstock had come to Venus in the colony ships rather than being packed into terraforming capsules. It had not been exposed to the actinic radiation and adaptive pressures which turned the Earth-sprung surface life into a purulent hell.

Francine spread the fingers of one hand and held them out against a palmetto frond, as if to compare her delicacy against the green coarseness.

"They don't want anything better," she said. She turned to look at Wilding. "They don't deserve anything better," she added fiercely. "If they did, they'd have it, wouldn't they? I bettered myself!"

There was a pause in the fireworks and the sound of the crowd in the street. " . . . and I don't mean young girls, either . . ." drifted up from the balcony.

Wilding turned to look out over the railing. He stayed back from the edge so that he could see the half the width of the boulevard while remaining hidden from the partiers on the balcony. In the boulevard women who might have been prostitutes danced a clog-step with partners of all ages, accompanied by a hand-held sound system.

"They've got energy," Wilding said. "They could do. . . . something. Instead, what they get is a constant round of shortages and carouses."

He felt the warmth of Francine's body. When he turned, she was standing next to him again.

"Artificial hatred of neighboring Keeps," he went on, astounded at the harshness in his own voice. "Artificial wars, fought by mercenaries—"

Francine's dress had a high neck and covered her ankles. The fabric was opaque but so thin and tight that the shimmering fireworks displayed her nipples with nude clarity. She was breathing rapidly.

"—under artificial conditions," Wilding said, "so that war can be entertainment but not destroy the planet the way Earth was destroyed. But that's not the only way Mankind can die, is it?"