Children of God s-2

by Mary Doria Russel

  "It would redeem what happened to you," Sean Fein suggested quietly. He nearly recanted under the sear of the black-eyed stare, but forced himself to go on. "Look, y’never know, Sandoz!" he cried. "What if that bloody Austrian admissions committee had accepted young Mr. Hitler for art school? He was pretty decent with landscapes and architecture. Maybe if he’d gotten his wretched arts degree, everything would have been different!"

  "A few words, Emilio!" said John with urgency. "An act of kindness, or love, or courage—"

  Sandoz stood still, his head turned down and away from them. "All right," he said reasonably, looking up. "For the sake of argument, let’s assume that unintended consequences can be for good as well as ill. The trouble with your proposition, as applied to my case, is that there was never any opportunity for me to give Hlavin Kitheri or his associates a stirring sermon on liberty or the value of souls—Jana’ata, Runa or human." He stopped, waited, eyes closed. He was tired, naturally. That was part of it. "I don’t recall being allowed to say a single word, actually. I did scream quite a bit—fairly incoherently, I’m afraid." He stopped again and took in an uneven breath, letting it out slowly before lifting his eyes to their faces. "And I fought like a sonofabitch to keep those fuckers off me, but I doubt even the most charitable of observers would have called that a display of courage. ’An amusing exercise in futility’ may have come to mind."

  He paused again, breathing carefully. "So you see," he resumed calmly, "I don’t think there is a shred of hope that anyone abstracted any edifying lessons about the sanctity of life or the political virtues of freedom during my… ministry to the Jana’ata. And I suggest, gentlemen, we drop this subject for the duration of our journey together."

  THE OTHERS WATCHED, BLINKING IN THE AFTERMATH, AS SANDOZ LEFT the room under his own power. No one noticed when Nico, standing unobserved in the corner, left the commons as well and went to his cabin.

  Opening the storage cabinet on the wall over his desk, Nico rummaged through his small collection of personal treasures and located two hard cylinders of unequal length: one and a half Genoa salamis he had hoarded away. Laying them on his desk, he sat down and breathed in the fragrance of garlic while giving serious thought to the issue of salami. He considered how much he had left, and how long it would be before he could buy more, and how Don Emilio felt when he had a bad headache. It would be a waste to give salami to a person who was only going to throw it up. Still, Nico thought, a present could make a person feel better, and Don Emilio could save it for later when the headache was gone.

  People often laughed at Nico for taking things too seriously. They would say something seriously, and he would take it seriously, and then be embarrassed when it turned out that they were only joking. He could rarely tell the difference between that kind of joking and sensible talk.

  "It’s called irony, Nico," Don Emilio had explained to him one night. "Irony is often saying the opposite of what is meant. To get the joke, you must be surprised and then amused by the difference between what you believe the person thinks and what he actually says."

  "So it would be irony if Frans said, Nico, you’re a smart boy."

  "Well, perhaps, but it would also be making fun of you," Sandoz said honestly. "Irony would be if you yourself made a joke by saying, I’m a smart boy, because you believe you’re stupid and most other people believe this of you as well. But you’re not stupid, Nico. You learn slowly but thoroughly. When you learn something, you have learned it well and don’t forget it."

  Don Emilio was always serious, so Nico could relax and not try to find hidden jokes. He never made fun of Nico and he took extra time to teach him and made it easy to remember the foreign words.

  All that, Nico decided, was definitely worth half a salami.

  THE LAST THING EMILIO SANDOZ WANTED WAS A VISITOR, BUT WHEN HE responded to the knock on his door with a parsimonious "Piss off!" there were no footsteps and he could tell that whoever it was intended to stay there as long as necessary. Sighing, he opened the door and was not surprised to find Nico d’Angeli waiting expectantly in the curving hall.

  "Buon giorno, Nico," he said patiently. "I am afraid I would rather not have any company right now."

  "Buon giorno, Don Emilio," Nico responded pleasantly. "I am afraid this is very important."

  Emilio took a deep breath, and almost gagged on the smell of garlic, but he stepped away from the door, inviting Nico in. As was his habit, he moved to the farthest corner of his small room and sat on his bed, back against the bulkhead. Nico perched on the edge of the desk chair and then leaned forward to place half a salami on the foot of the bunk. "I wish to make you a gift of this, Don Emilio," he said without further explanation.

  Gravely, and breathing shallowly, Emilio said, "Thank you, Nico. This is very thoughtful, but I don’t eat meat anymore—"

  "I know, Don Emilio. Don Gianni told me: because you still feel bad about eating the Runa babies. This salami was just a pig," Nico pointed out.

  Smiling in spite of everything, Emilio said, "You’re right, Nico. This was just a pig. Thank you."

  "Is your headache better now?" Nico asked anxiously. "You can save this for later, if you’re going to throw up."

  "Thank you, Nico. I took some medicine, and my headache is gone, so I won’t throw up." He sounded more certain than he was: the garlic was staggering. But this was clearly a present of significance from Nico, so he slid down the bed and picked up the salami with both hands, to signify his wholehearted acceptance of it. "It would please me to share this with you," he said. "Do you have a knife?"

  Nico nodded and pulled out a pocketknife and then smiled at him shyly: a rare occurrence and one that was remarkably cheering. Dutifully, Emilio unwrapped the salami, a process that went fairly easily because his hands were okay today. Nico took it from him. Drawing his blade toward his thumb with great care, he cut two round, slender wafers from the end. Emilio found himself accepting one of these with the kind of dignity he’d once reserved for a consecrated Host. It’s only a pig, he reminded himself, and managed to swallow after a while.

  Nico, chewing, beamed greasily around his slice, but then remembered something he’d been meaning to say for some time now. "Don Emilio," he began, "I wish you to absolve me—"

  Sandoz shook his head. "Nico, you must go to one of the priests to confess. I cannot hear confessions anymore."

  "No," Nico said, "not a priest. You yourself must absolve me. Don Emilio, I am sorry that I beat you up."

  Relieved, Emilio said, "You were only doing your job."

  "It was a bad job," Nico insisted. "I’m sorry I did it."

  No excuses about following Carlo’s orders. No hedges. No self-serving justifications. "Nico," Emilio said with the quiet formality the occasion required, "I accept your apology. I forgive you for beating me up."

  Cautious, Nico pressed, "Both times?"

  "Both times," Emilio confirmed.

  Nico looked solemnly glad to hear this. "I took your guinea pig to the sisters. The children promised to take good care of her."

  "That’s good, Nico," Emilio said after a time, astonished by how much it helped to know this. "Thank you for doing that, and for telling me."

  Heartened, Nico asked, "Don Emilio, do you think we are going to do a bad job on that planet?"

  "I’m not certain, Nico," Emilio admitted. "The first time I was there, we wanted very much to be good people and to do the right things, but it all went wrong. This time, our motives for going to Rakhat are not… pure. But who knows? Maybe things will turn out well in spite of us."

  "That would be irony," Nico observed.

  Emilio’s face softened and he gazed at the big man with real affection. "Yes, indeed. That would be irony." He was glad Nico had stopped by, he realized. "And you, Nico. What do you think? Will it be a bad job down there?"

  "I’m not certain, Don Emilio," Nico said seriously, mimicking Sandoz’s own tone and words as he often did now. "I think we should wait until we get the
re and see what’s going on. That’s my advice."

  Emilio nodded. "You’re very sensible, Nico."

  But Nico went on, "I think that the man who did bad things to you— that Kitheri? He might be sorry, like I am. I think his music is wonderful— better than Verdi, even. Someone who makes such good music can’t be all bad. That’s what I think."

  Which was a great deal harder to accept, but might have some germ of truth…. Emilio stood then, to signal the end of the visit, and Nico rose as well, but did not move to the door. Instead he reached down and gently lifted Sandoz’s right hand and bent low over it, to kiss it. Embarrassed, Emilio tried to draw back, to refuse this homage, but Nico’s gentle grip seemed unbreakable.

  "Don Emilio," Nico said, "I would kill or die for you."

  Emilio, who understood this code, looked away and tried to imagine how he could respond to such a display of undeserved devotion. There seemed only one reply possible and, eyes closed, he examined himself to see if he could say this with the honesty such a man deserved. "Thank you, Nico," he said finally. "I love you, too."

  He hardly noticed when Nico left.

  31

  City of Gayjur

  2080, Earth-Relative

  MANY YEARS LATER, JOSEBA URIZARBARRENA WOULD REMEMBER THE children’s chorale—and the K’San word for emancipation—during a conversation with the daughter of Kanchay VaKashan. Puska VaTrucha-Sai was a respected parliamentary elder in Gayjur when Joseba first met her, and he often found her viewpoint illuminating as he and the other priests pieced together the history of the Runa revolution.

  "There had been sporadic fighting for years," Puska told him, "but in the beginning, Fia advocated ’passive resistance.’ There were general strikes in several cities. Many of the urban Runa just walked away, refusing to give themselves up to the cullers."

  "How did the government respond?" Joseba Urizarbarrena asked.

  "By wiping out villages that gave shelter to the city Runa. Before long, they were burning out natural rakar fields in the midlands—to starve us into submission." She stopped, remembering, reassessing. "What tipped the balance was when Fia believed they had begun to use biologicals against us. When she was a child, Fia had seen diseases used against a people called the Kurds. When the plagues began, we thought that Runa behind djanada lines were made ill and then smuggled south and left to infect all who came in contact with them."

  "But that sickness might also be explained by the sudden mixing of Runa populations during the rebellion," Joseba suggested. "The sharing of disease reservoirs, the exposure to unfamiliar environments? Swamp harvesters working with city specialists—people exposed to local illnesses they had no immunity to, and spreading them?"

  "Yes," Puska said after a time. "Some of our scientists said so. It was not a consensus view at the time…" She sat as straight as possible, her ears high. "The djanada appeared to leave us no alternative but to strike back with overwhelming force. The people were dying. Thousands and thousands died of plague. We were fighting for our lives." She looked to the north, and forced herself to be just. "So were they, I suppose."

  "Sipaj, Puska, someone wonders if the Jana’ata themselves changed or if the Runa idea of the Jana’ata changed."

  Puska considered this for a while, and then began to use English pronouns, as many Runa did now, to signify a strictly personal comment. "My idea of the djanada changed when I left Trucha Sai." She paused for a time, eyes on the middle distance. "When we first went to Mo’arl—. Sipaj, Hozei: the things we saw! I keened every night for a season. There were roads paved with our bones, crushed and mixed with limestone, levees along the rivers—three times the height of a woman—all bone. Boots from the skins of our dead—even Runa wore them in the cities! There were shops—" She looked now directly at Joseba. "Platters of tongues, platters of hearts. Legs, shoulders, feet, fillets and chops! Rump and tail and elbows and knees—all beautifully displayed. Runa domestics would come and pick out the cut of meat to serve to their masters. How could they stand it?" she demanded. "How could the djanada have asked it of them?"

  "Someone is unsure," Joseba said honestly. "Sometimes, there’s no choice. Sometimes the choices aren’t thought of. People can get used to anything." Puska lifted her chin, and then let her tail drop, unable to imagine how that vanished world had functioned. "Yet," Joseba pointed out, "there were some Runa who remained with the Jana’ata—"

  "Sipaj, Hozei: those people were traitors," Puska told him with flat conviction. "You must understand that. They became very wealthy, selling the corpses of dead soldiers to the djanada, who would pay anything for even small scraps of meat. But those Runa paid in kind for their treachery: eventually the djanada ate them, too."

  "Sipaj, Puska, someone is sorry to keep asking—"

  "There is no need for apology. Someone is content to answer."

  "There were Runa who stayed with the djanada, even after the war. Even now." He watched her carefully as he asked this, but Puska did not sway. "They have said to us that they loved the Jana’ata."

  "That is sometimes so. The Runa are a noble people," she said. "We repay kindness with kindness."

  "Do you believe those Runa wrong to live with the Jana’ata? Are they traitors, like the black marketeers?"

  "Not traitors. Dupes. In the end, they’ll be eaten. The djanada can’t help it. It’s the way they are. The djanada are guilty in their genes, in their whole way of life," she told him calmly.

  It was then that he recalled the chorale. "Sipaj, Puska, someone wishes to understand this clearly. You are patient and someone is grateful. It is said in the north that Hlavin Kitheri had begun to emancipate the Runa—"

  For the first time, Puska became upset, rising and beginning to pace. "Emancipation! Emancipation meant, We’ll eat you when you’re older! The djanada told us we were stupid! Here is stupidity: Hlavin Kitheri walking out alone to do battle with an army of two hundred thousand. Refusing to negotiate with us was stupid! We offered them terms, Hozei! Just free the captives and we’ll leave the north to you. Hlavin Kitheri chose combat. He was crazy—and so were all the others who believed in him."

  She was looking directly into his eyes now. "Sipaj, Hozei, the Runa did everything for the djanada. They kept us enslaved and fed us only enough to make us good slaves. Until your people came and showed us that we could feed ourselves as much as we needed, our minds were kept small and slow so that we’d accept our slavery. Hear me, Hozei! Never again. Those times are gone forever. We will never be slaves again. Never."

  He stood his ground, but it was not easy: a Runao risen up in righteous anger was a formidable menace. "Sipaj, Puska," he said when she had brought herself to quietness, "you grew up with Ha’anala. Did you ever wonder about her? Was she crazy, too?"

  There was a silence before Puska said, "Someone thought of Ha’anala. She was not crazy. But she left the people to go with the crazy ones! So someone’s heart was confused. Supaari was one of the people, but Ha’anala never came home."

  "Did you know where she went, after she left Trucha Sai?"

  "She went north." There was an uncomfortable silence before Puska admitted, "Someone thought she might be in Inbrokar."

  "During the siege?" he asked. Puska raised her chin in affirmation. "Puska, what did you hope for Ha’anala?"

  "That she would come home," Puska said firmly.

  "And when she didn’t?"

  The swaying began at last, and when Puska spoke, it was not to answer his question but her own conscience. "The djanada changed first. They gave us no choice! The djanada made us fierce." Not looking at him, she added, "To be hungry is a terrible thing. Someone hoped that Ha’anala would die quickly."

  "And when Inbrokar fell, how many died quickly?"

  She looked away, but Puska VaTrucha-Sai was a woman of courage and, once again, she left the safety of the herd. "They were as grass to me," she said. "I did not count them."

  32

  City of Inbrokar

  2072, E
arth-Relative

  "THEY’RE OUTSIDE THE NEW WALLS NOW," TAKSAYU REPORTED, HER words echoing hollowly down the stone throat of the wind tower in the embassy courtyard.

  "And my lord husband?" Suukmel Chirot u Vaadai called from below, looking up at Taksayu’s gown and slippered feet. "And the Paramount? Can you see them?"

  "There!" Taksayu said, after a time, arm extended southward, toward a flash of armor. "The Paramount wears a gold ventral plate and caudal guard. And—yes, silver arm and thigh plates. The ambassador is to his left, all in silver. They are at the head of the war party, with the nobles behind them."

  "And the others?" Suukmel asked, looking up at her Runa—what? she wondered. Not maid, any longer. Companion, often. Ally, perhaps? There was no word in K’San for Taksayu now. "How many are there?"

  So many, Taksayu was thinking, with an illicit thrill. We are so many! How could she describe this to a woman who’d never seen beyond the curtains of her conveyance or the walls of her compound? All her life, the lady Suukmel had held in her mind the subtle structure of power and relationship, the delicate web of Jana’ata politics, but this was not abstraction. It was physical might. "The rebels are as the hairs of a body," Taksayu ventured. "As the leaves of a marhlar, Mistress: too many to count."

  "I’m coming up," Suukmel declared. The city was ruled by rumor now that the power grid for the radio system had failed, and Suukmel was starved for information. Ignoring Taksayu’s protests, she forced herself to climb the internal spiral of the wind tower to see the gathered multitude herself, but when she arrived at Taksayu’s side and lifted her veil, she was staggered.

  "Are you ill?" Taksayu cried, gripping Suukmel’s arms, afraid the reeling woman would fall.

  "No! Yes! I’m not—" Suukmel dropped her veil, and closed her eyes behind it. Beyond the distance of a hallway or the length of a banquet room, all the colors seemed to blur. "Explain this," Suukmel said, steadying. She lifted her veil again. "Tell me what I am seeing. Everything is confused."