Venus of Dreams Read Free

al-Anwar had been one of the earliest of Earth's Mukhtars; that simple title, which any village elder in his part of the world might have claimed, belied his power. The Mukhtars who had preceded him had survived Earth's wars over resources and had seen many of the ravaged world's people abandon Earth for space, to make new homes in hollowed-out asteroids and, later, inside vast globes built out of the resources sunspace offered. Those left behind on Earth had gathered together, seeing that the world could now be theirs and the destiny of their people fulfilled.
    The New Islamic States became the first Nomarchy, which stretched from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean to the Central Asian plain. A few people in that region had seen their chance for power at the end of the last of the Resource Wars, when the Russians who had dominated them for so long had finally lost their grip on that territory. If the soldiers of the New Islamic States could seize control of the weapons in Earth orbit, the world would be theirs.
    Those soldiers, along with the rest of Earth, endured the humiliation of being forced into peace, for those living on the space stations had repudiated any allegiance to Earth and taken control of the orbiting weapons, and it was then that the Islamic soldiers saw their opportunity. They became the first to negotiate with the spacedwellers, and swallowed their pride to plead their case, for they saw that the spacedwellers did not want the burden of holding Earth in check, and were already planning to abandon the home world for habitats in space.
    The New Islamic States did not win the Earth. It was thrown to them, a worn-out husk that the spacedwellers no longer wanted. Unity under one power might enable Earth to rebuild; it had not mattered to the spacedwellers which group held that power.
    The first Nomarchy's old enemies, drained by war, made an alliance with the Islamic States; nations that had once been stronger were in no position to fight. Once, the Mukhtars and their people had been suspicious of the culture that had dominated the world; now they saw that they would have to make it their own in order to survive.
    Earth began to rebuild. More Nomarchies were formed, each with some autonomy, but ruled at first by one of the first Nomarchy's Mukhtars, and later by those the Mukhtars had trained. The Guardians of the Nomarchies, all that remained of the armed forces that had once fought Earth's battles, would maintain the orbiting weapons systems and keep the peace.
    Karim al-Anwar might have contented himself with helping to keep what Earth had managed to wrest from the ruins. But where others saw people finally at peace, Karim saw people who needed a new dream, a goal that might lift them to greater endeavors that would rival the accomplishments of the Associated Habitats and their people, who had abandoned Earth. The people of the Nomarchies needed more than the placid hope of preserving what they had. They had been fortunate; Earth's most destructive weapons had been used only intermittently during the Resource Wars. Yet Karim believed that, without an outlet, widespread violence might once again be visited upon his world.
    Karim might have had hidden reasons for his dream. Perhaps he had wanted his name to live forever; perhaps his vision had been the product of a half-mad mind wanting to dominate human history. Maybe he had wanted to bury the shame of knowing that his own people would have had no power if the spacedwellers had not given it to them. There was no way for Iris, as she learned of Karim, to be sure, for Karim's true self had been swallowed by the legend he had helped to create.
    Karim had dreamed of transforming another world. The ways of the Associated Habitats were a break with Earth's past, while Karim sought a continuity with the older culture. Planets were the proper homes of humanity, not the closed Habitats. There were worlds within Earth's grasp, planets that could become new