Children of God s-2

by Mary Doria Russel

  "Supaari, let Isaac go."

  The child’s habitual stillness had become utter immobility, but he did not cry out or weep in fear. Supaari released the boy instantly, his ears dropping in apology. There was no visible response from Isaac, but Sofia let out a breath and looked up at the Jana’ata looming over her. "Come back here and sit down," she said evenly, and when Supaari did, she told him, "There are other ways to hunt! The Runa can build deadfalls for you. Or traps."

  "Traps," said Isaac, as tonelessly as before.

  "Take us back to your H’earth, and my daughter and I can eat without shame," Supaari insisted. Kneeling, he stared at the baby lying in her arms, but then lifted his eyes. "Sofia, I can never go back to my people. I can never be as I was. But I don’t think I can stand to stay with the Runa," he said with soft desperation. "They are good. They are honorable people, but…"

  "But." They both noticed Isaac’s word this time, and it hung in the air with everything it implied left unsaid.

  She reached out to run the back of her hand along a lupine cheek. "I know, Supaari. I understand."

  ("Understand.")

  "I think I can live with your people. Ha’an. You. Your Djimi. Djorj. You were friends to me and I believe I could—" He stopped again, gathering courage, throwing his head back to look at her from the distance of his pride. "I wish also to find Sandoz and offer my neck to him." She tried to say something, but he went on resolutely, before Isaac could mimic his words. "If he does not kill me, then Ha’anala and I will live with you and learn your songs."

  "Learn your songs," said Isaac. He glanced at the adults then: a momentary flicker of direct attention so fleeting that neither noticed it.

  "Whither thou goest, there go I, and thy ways shall be my ways," Sofia was murmuring in rueful Hebrew. Mama, she thought, I know he has a tail, but I think he wants to convert.

  How could she say no? She had waited out these six endless, fruitless months on the bare chance that her radio beacon might bring a response from unknown humans. Right here, so close she could feel the heat from his body, was a man she knew and cared for, and was beginning to understand. Less alien to her than her own son, more like her than she could have imagined a few years earlier, just as ashamed to discover that his gratitude to the Runa was insufficient to overcome a gnawing need to think a single thought uninterrupted by endless talk, to make a single gesture disregarded and uncommented on, to be able to take a walk without incurring the gentle, insistent Runa dismay that followed any temporary escape from the group.

  "All right," she said at last. "If this is truly what you think is best for Ha’anala. If you wish this—"

  ("Wish this.")

  "Yes. I wish it."

  ("Wish it.")

  They sat a while longer, each sunk in thought. "We should get back to the village," Sofia said after a time. "It’ll be redlight soon."

  ("Redlight soon. Supaari sings.")

  She almost missed it, so nearly immune was she to her son’s toneless voice.

  Supaari sings.

  She had to replay the sound in her head to be certain. My God, she thought. Isaac said, Supaari sings.

  She did not engulf her son in an embrace or scream or weep or even move, but only glanced at Supaari, as surprised as she and as immobile. She had seen too often the way Isaac drained himself away—became Not There in some mysterious fashion when he was touched. "Yes, Isaac," Sofia said in an ordinary voice, as though this was a normal child who had simply made a comment for his mother to confirm. "Supaari sings at second sundown. For Ha’anala."

  "Supaari sings at second sundown." They waited, breathless in the heat. "For Isaac."

  Supaari blinked, mouth open, so human in his reaction Sofia nearly laughed. His daughter in her arms, Sofia lifted her chin: For Isaac, Supaari.

  He stood then and went nearer to Isaac, alert to the smooth, small muscles, to the barely perceptible quiver that would precede flight. By some instinct never before exercised in such a manner, he knew that he should not face the boy, so Supaari knelt at Isaac’s side and sang to the child, softly and unseen.

  Sofia held her breath as the first notes of the evening chant floated out to join the forest choir of cries and hoots, of buzzing rasps and fluting whistles. Listened as Supaari’s bass—melodic and fluid—was joined by a child’s soprano, unerringly on pitch, word-perfect, but in miraculous harmony. Gazed with her one myopic, tear-blurred eye at her son’s face, incandescent in the roseate light: transfigured, alive—truly alive for the first time. And blessed the God of her ancestors, for granting them life, for sustaining them, for allowing them to reach this new season.

  When the chant drew to a close, she filled her lungs with air that seemed perfumed with music. Voice steady, face wet on one side, Sofia Mendes asked her son, "Isaac, would you like to learn another song?"

  He did not look at her but, standing with the uncanny steadiness and balance that had attended his earliest attempt to walk, he came closer. Head averted, her elfin son lifted a small hand and placed on her lips a single finger, delicate as a damselfly’s wing. Yes, please, he was saying in the only way he could. Another song.

  "This is what our people sing at dawn and sundown," she told him, and lifted her voice in the ancient call, "Sh’ma Yisrael! Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad." Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is One. When she was finished, the small finger brushed her lips again, and so she sang once more, and this time her son’s voice joined hers: word-perfect, and in harmony.

  When it was over, Sofia blew her nose on a handful of balled-up leaves and wiped one side of her face against a shoulder clad in one of Jimmy’s remaining T-shirts. For a few moments, she fingered the soft, worn fabric, grateful for some contact with Isaac’s father. Then she stood. "Let’s go home," she said.

  SHE HAD LONG SINCE LOCATED THE MAGELLAN’S LANDER, USING THE ORBITING ship’s transponder to activate its beacon to the global positioning subroutines of the orbiting satellites, which relayed its coordinates to her computer tablet. The abandoned plane was only a few kilometers outside Kashan. As far as she could tell, tapping its onboard systems, it had been locked down properly, was sufficiently fueled to return to orbit, and seemed potentially operational. Activating communications now, she zeroed a time-date stamp, set the transponder for infinite repeat, and recorded a new message. "This is Sofia Mendes, of the Stella Maris party. Today is March 5, 2047, Earth-relative. I have waited 165 days local time for a response to my call from any human on Rakhat. This message serves notice that I am planning to leave this planet in fifteen days Rakhat-relative, using the Magellan’s lander to get to the mother ship. If you can’t get to the lander by that time, you will be marooned here. I regret this, but I cannot wait any longer."

  She had found it difficult to tell Kanchay and the others of her plan to leave Rakhat but, to her relief, there was no great distress among the Runa. "Someone was wondering when you would go home," Kanchay said. "You’ll need to bring goods back to your people, or they’ll think your journey was a failure." The Runa, she was thus reminded, had always assumed that the Jesuit party from Earth had come simply to trade. Suppaari’s sudden decision to go with her, they thought, was a sensible plan to do business abroad, where he was not under a death warrant.

  So this is what the Jesuit mission had come to, and Sofia was content with that; she was, after all, a practical woman and the daughter of an economist. Commerce was perhaps the oldest motive for exploration, and it now seemed entirely sufficient to her. Her grandiose thoughts of a higher purpose seemed revealed for what they were: a reaction to isolation, a desire for significance. Delusional but adaptive, she thought, a way to cope with the fear of dying here, alone and forgotten.

  Energized by the process of analysis and organization, Sofia had spent the months of waiting in thorough preparation for the journey home. In consultation with Supaari, she had drawn up lists of the light, compact trade goods and scientific specimens she thought most likely to be of financial o
r academic value at home: precious stones that were biological in origin, like pearls and amber, but unique to Rakhat; small and ordinary but exquisitely crafted bowls and platters carved from native shells and wood; soil samples, seeds, tubers. Textiles of dazzling complexity; polychrome ceramics of charm and wit. A plant extract that numbed wounds and seemed to speed healing, even for Sofia’s skin. Jewelry. Perfume samples. Vacuum-packed specimens of coatings that seemed impervious to weather; technical manuals from chemists, and formulas, and drawings that illustrated several manufacturing processes that Sofia thought unique to Rakhat. Enough to ensure financial independence, she believed, if there were still patent law and licensing agreements by the time they got to Earth.

  She and Supaari would also be able to sell intellectual property— knowledge of Runa and Jana’ata culture, interpretive skills, unique understanding and perspectives that could be added to the uncounted gigabytes of geological, meteorological and ecological data collected continuously and automatically by the Magellan and relayed home all these years. But Sofia was no fool and her own experience of her home planet did not inspire Panglossian optimism. They might be killed on sight, out of fear of disease and xenophobia. Their cargo might be confiscated and Supaari seized for exhibit in zoos. Her son might be institutionalized and she herself held incommunicado by whatever government they might first encounter.

  Or perhaps, God who has begun this will bring it to perfection, she thought, remembering Marc Robichaux. Perhaps there will be Jesuits to meet us at spacedock. Perhaps Sandoz—

  She stopped, stunned by what it would mean for her to see Emilio again, and for him to meet Supaari. Perhaps, she thought, he’ll have forgiven Supaari by them. Christians are supposed to forgive. It occurred to her that when her reports were transmitted and finally heard at home, Emilio might simply turn around and come back for her as soon as a new ship could be configured. It was just the sort of Quixotic gesture he was capable of. Unnecessary, of course, but typical. We might pass each other! she realized, shivering at the thought.

  No, she decided finally, God couldn’t be that cruel. And she forced herself to think of other things.

  17

  Naples

  August 2061

  "WHAT’S WRONG?" EMILIO ASKED AS GINA STOOD TO CLEAR THE PLATES after a meal that was pleasant enough but oddly charged.

  "Nothing," she said, fussing at the sink.

  "Which means that something is. Even an ex-priest knows that!" Emilio said with a smile that melted away when she didn’t answer.

  Considering how short a time they’d been together, the two of them had already managed to have some remarkably good arguments. They had fought over the proper way to cook rice, the correct strength of coffee and various means of brewing it, and whether artichokes were edible, Gina taking the position that they were evidence of divine beneficence while Emilio declared tree bark more appealing. His favorite thus far was a memorable and still unresolved debate that had initially ended in incredulous shouting, succeeded by outraged silence, over which was more stupefyingly boring, World Cup soccer or World Series baseball. "Baseball uniforms are ugly, too," Gina declared a week later, which started that one all over again. And then there was a really wonderful fight about the cut and color of the suit that he was to wear at their wedding. Eventually Emilio gave in on the lapels Gina liked so he could get the gray silk he preferred to the black she insisted he looked fabulous in, but only because she’d made an aesthetic concession on the baseball uniforms.

  It was fun. They were both products of cultures that considered marital dispute a performance art, and they encouraged Celestina to join in for the sheer pleasure of having her yell exuberantly along with whichever adult was currently her favorite—a status, Emilio had observed, that ordinarily accrued to whoever had thwarted her second to last. But nothing had been in earnest until today, when he’d walked over for lunch, intending to help them pack for the trip to the mountains with Gina’s parents.

  Emilio frowned at Gina’s back, and then glanced at the kitchen clock. A great deal had changed in the years of his absence, but little kids still loved animation. "Celestina," he said evenly, "it’s time for I Bambini." He waited until Celestina had rocketed off to her bedroom to play the day’s installment of her favorite interactive. "Let’s try this again," he suggested quietly when he and Gina were alone. "What’s wrong?"

  She spun around, head up, eyes brimming, and declared in a voice as firm as her chin wasn’t, "You should go back to find Sofia!"

  Stunned, Emilio gaped at her for a moment, then closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, hands resting on the tabletop. When he looked at Gina next, it was with the obsidian stare that had frightened people far better equipped to withstand his anger than she was. "Who told you?" he asked very softly.

  "Don’t look at me like that," she said.

  "Who told you?" he repeated even more quietly, each word separate.

  "What difference does it make who told me? She’s alive. That poor woman—she’s all alone!" Gina exclaimed, starting to cry, but determined now to confront him on the very points of honor she feared he would defend. "You should go back to rescue her. She needs you. You loved her."

  He might have turned to stone. "One," he said at last. "It makes a difference because I intend to kill whoever told you. Two. All we know for certain is that she was alive in 2047. Three. The Giordano Bruno won’t reach Rakhat for another seventeen years. The probability of finding her alive, having survived alone on Rakhat to the age of seventy-one, approaches zero. Four—"

  "I hate it when you’re like this!"

  "Four!" he said, standing now, his voice rising. "Sofia Mendes was the single most competent person I have ever met. I assure you that she would find laughable the concept of needing me, of all people, to rescue her! Five. Yes. I loved her! I also loved Anne, and D.W., and Askama. I didn’t marry any of them. Gina, look at me!" he shouted, stung that she doubted him, enraged that someone had tried to drive this wedge between them. "If Sofia Mendes miraculously walked in that door at this moment, alive, well and in the bloom of her youth, it would change nothing between you and me. Nothing!"

  Gina only cried harder, glaring in wet defiance. Exasperated, he turned abruptly and walked to the kitchen desk, rummaging through the clutter for a code written on a scrap of paper.

  "Who are you calling?" she asked, eyes streaming, as he activated the phone.

  "The magistrate. I want him here. Now. We are getting married this afternoon. Then I am going to call the tailor and cancel the order for that damned suit. And then I am going to murder Vincenzo Giuliani and probably Daniel Iron Horse as well—"

  "Why is Mamma crying?" Celestina demanded, standing in the kitchen doorway, little hands fisted, scowling at him.

  Gina hastily wiped her eyes. "It’s nothing, cara—"

  "It’s not nothing! It’s important and she deserves to understand," Emilio snapped, having understood very little of his own mangled childhood. He canceled the call and got a grip on himself. "Your mamma is afraid that I might leave her, Celestina. She thinks I could love someone else more than I love her, cara."

  "But you do." Celestina looked nonplussed. "You love me best."

  Gina laughed a little and turned to Emilio. "Go ahead," she said in bleary-eyed challenge, sniffing mightily. "Handle this one."

  He threw her a look worthy of a pool shark calling a bank shot to the corner pocket. "You," he told Celestina with perfect aplomb, "are my very best little girl and your mamma is my very best wife." Brows up, he turned back to Gina expectantly and received a nod of ungrudging if somewhat damp commendation. Satisfied, he went back to the mess on the desk, muttering, "Which is to say, she will be my very best wife as soon as I can get the magistrate out here—"

  "No," said Gina, stopping him with a hand on his arm. She leaned her head against his shoulder. "It’s all right. I needed to hear it, I guess. We can wait until September." She laughed again and lifted her head, tucking her hair behind her e
ars and wiping her eyes. "And don’t you dare cancel that suit!"

  Wedding jitters, he thought, looking at her. She’d been uncharacteristically emotional lately and this business about Sofia had capped it all off. Cursing his hands and the braces, he took her shoulders and gingerly held her at arm’s length. "I am not Carlo, Gina. I will never leave you," he whispered, watching to see if she could believe it. He pulled her to him and sighed, thinking, It’s not like either of us is coming to this with a clean slate. Then he looked at Celestina over her mother’s shoulder and raised his voice so they could both hear him. "I love you, and I love Celestina, and I am yours forever."

  "Well," said Celestina, almost six, in the ringing tones of a grande dame of seventy, "I’m certainly pleased we’ve straightened that out!"

  Gina and Emilio stared at each other open-mouthed as the little girl flounced out of the kitchen and went back to her cartoons. "I never said that. Do you say that? Where does she get this stuff?" Gina asked, astounded.

  Emilio was laughing. "That was really good! Don’t you recognize it? Valeria Golina—La Contessa!" he cried. "No—wait, you fell asleep on the sofa, but Celestina and I watched it last Sunday." He shook his head, extravagantly pleased that Celestina was picking up one of his own habits. "She was doing Valeria Golina. That was really good!"

  IT IS DIFFICULT TO SUSTAIN HIGH DRAMA IN A HOUSEHOLD WITH CHILDREN, particularly those who have learned to do creditable Golina impressions. They spent the afternoon arguing with Celestina over the minimum number of stuffed animals (four) and maximum number of party dresses (one) necessary for a two-week holiday in the mountains. Emilio helped mainly by keeping Celestina out of Gina’s hair until Celestina’s best friend, Pia, came over to play, at which time he announced that he intended to fold all the clothes that had been laid out on the bed for packing.