The Child Goddess

by Louise Marley

  Oa didn’t want to eat or drink in front of Gretchen, but she was too hungry to resist. She took one of the rolls from the basket, and bit it in two.

  It was fresh, sweet as if it had been drenched in honey. Her eyes closed involuntarily at the relief of it. Her mouth flooded with saliva, and she swallowed. She didn’t see the white hand coming toward her until Gretchen’s sharp-nailed fingers were right in her face. One scarlet nail caught her cheek and scratched it as the woman tore the half-eaten fragment of sweet roll from her mouth.

  Oa’s eyes flew open, and she fell back, away from Gretchen’s reach. She lay on her back on the carpet as Gretchen Boreson thrust the bread into her own mouth and swallowed.

  A drop of warm blood rolled down Oa’s cheek. Gretchen stood abruptly, reaching for her. Her hand wavered toward her face, and her painted lips parted. Oa tensed to wriggle backward, but Gretchen was too fast for her. She swiped at Oa’s cheek, smearing her fingertip with blood.

  Gretchen put the finger in her mouth, and sucked on it.

  Oa stared, openmouthed with surprise.

  Gretchen took her finger out of her mouth and gave Oa a tight, empty smile. A crumb of bread was stuck to her chin. “You enjoy your breakfast now, honey,” she said. A moment later, she was gone, striding swiftly and silently away across the white carpet.

  For several moments, Oa lay where she was, waiting for her to come back. When the door didn’t open again, and there were no sounds beyond it, Oa carefully inched back to the table. Her hunger was a hard, active thing, a twisting demand from her stomach. She knelt again beside the tray. In a rush of appetite, she ate all the bread and drank the juice. She sampled the white fruit, which had gone a little brown but was still sweet and chewy. There was a bowl of shelled nuts, too, white-meated and crunchy, vaguely reminiscent of the fruit of the nuchi. She ate these, thrusting handfuls into her mouth, until they were gone.

  The tray was empty. Her stomach felt tight and swollen, and a burning began at the back of her throat. She sat back on her heels and stared at the spider machine in the corner. He would come again, she knew. Doctor would come, and the spider would crawl on her, endlessly. Isabel had vanished, and with her, all hope.

  All at once her overfull stomach rebelled. Oa raced to the little bathroom, and vomited the meal in one great rush that left her gasping for air. She lay on the cold tile floor, shaking with nausea, and with despair.

  There seemed no reason to get up off the floor. She didn’t want to open her eyes, or even to go on breathing. It seemed to Oa that she had been alone forever, and forever stretched ahead of her, with only pain to offer.

  She struggled to her feet. She bent over the sink and rinsed her mouth with water. She splashed some on her face, not caring that it spattered the scalloped mirror and the wall, and then she looked at herself in the glass. Her scratched cheek stung, but there was no more blood. There would be, though, if pale Gretchen wanted it. Why didn’t Gretchen just take it all, take it from the spider machine, or straight from Oa’s throat?

  Oa examined her arm in the harsh light of the bathroom. Under her dark skin, the vein on the inside of her elbow was a thread of indigo, pulsing gently with the beat of her heart. She knew what veins were. She had read about them in one of the books on Isabel’s computer. They carried her life in their red rivers, the same life the spider machine sucked and sucked at, but never finished. She would have to finish it herself.

  She stood in the bathroom door, surveying the room until her eye fell on the piece of sunset glass. Her feet felt odd as she walked toward it, as if her legs, her ankles, already belonged in some other world. Would Raimu-ke turn away from her if she did it? The ancestors forbade it for the people, of course, but the ancestors did not care about anchens. Their rules did not apply. Tursi had deliberately stranded herself on the northern spit of the anchens’ island, and when the tide came in, she had thrown herself into the water. And Ulan—she tried not to think about what Ulan had done. The anchens had let the birds pick his bones clean on the rocks before they buried him under the kburi.

  Oa picked up the slender scarlet and yellow glass from its pedestal. She held it by the thinnest end, and lifted it above her head. When she brought it down, hard, on the pedestal, it shattered into glittering shards that spread over the white carpet. The piece left in her hand was perfect, long and sharp-edged. Already it had pierced the skin of her palm, leaving a thin line of blood like the blood Gretchen had drawn from her cheek.

  She went to the window with the piece in her hand. She would do it here, she thought, where she could look out over the not-ocean, watch the not-canoes, and simply drift away. Would Micho be waiting for her? Or would it be darkness, like going to sleep, the same darkness Micho had gone into so suddenly . . . she didn’t care, anyway. She wanted only to escape this well of hopelessness, this prison of loneliness.

  The auto-cleaner whirred out of its little closet, and began bumbling about over the carpet, picking up the bits of broken glass. Oa glanced up at the amber light of the spy-camera. Its winking continued unchanged. Perhaps no one was watching. It didn’t matter.

  She crouched beside the sill. The sun shone, brightening the water to an opaque green. Frosty ripples spread across the bay. Oa watched one of the not-canoes float past the city docks, coming toward her. It was narrow and plain, with only a small round white canopy, like a bubble of seafoam on a bit of driftwood. There were people under the canopy.

  She turned her left arm up, resting her elbow on the windowsill. She held the glass shard in her right hand, poised above her arm. She drew a deep breath, and prepared to make a strong slice, one that would go deep, that would make no mistakes. It was the way the anchens killed the fish they caught, slicing off their heads in a quick movement so there would be no thrashing, suffering, gasping fish to feel bad about.

  Below her window she saw the boat bobbing past. The faces in the boat, four of them, turned up as they floated on to the next building, and the next. They reached the end of the bay, and the boat reversed its direction to slice back through the rippled water toward Oa. She lifted her right hand, and took a deep breath.

  The sun reflected off the water, dazzling her eyes. She blinked back tears, and through the haze she saw . . . she thought she saw . . .

  There were two dark heads, coming out now from beneath the canopy. She saw a head of pale red hair on a tall figure with broad shoulders. And she saw one bald head, exposed and shining in the sun.

  Isabel! It was Isabel!

  She leaped up, dropping the shard of glass. She pressed her hands against the window, smearing the pane with the blood of her palm. Could they see her? Did they know she was here? She jumped up and down, once, twice, three times, and waved to Isabel.

  The boat floated past, the heads all turned up. They were looking for her, weren’t they? They must be! But the rising sun would be in their eyes, and the glass was so shiny . . . she had to think of something.

  She had to get out to the little balcony, to get out where they could see her. She rattled the lock, but it didn’t give. She banged at the glass door with her fist, and it shook and sang under her hand, but didn’t break. She glanced frantically around her. What could she use? This glass was so much thicker than the slender red piece.

  Frantically, she bounced on her toes as the boat floated away, on to the end of the dock. It made another slow circle, and turned back toward her.

  She cast about her for something, anything she could use. Her eye fell on the uneven oblong of glass, the clear one with the yellow and blue forms suspended in it. She seized it by its base. It was cold and heavy in her hands, almost more than she could lift. She didn’t stop to think, but swung it with all her might, as far back as her arms would stretch, then forward in a sweeping arc, letting go at the apex, willing it through the windowed door with every ounce of her energy.

  Glass met glass with a great bang. The molded glass object, with its little yellow and blue not-fish, exploded into fragments. Oa ducked
, and covered her face. Tiny shards struck the backs of her hands, caught in the wool of her sweater. When she straightened, and lowered her hands, she saw that a web of cracks had formed in the glass of the door, with a deep indentation where she had struck it. An alarm began to sound, a keening siren that pierced her ears. Heedless of the glass fragments covering the floor, she ran to the cracked door and pushed at it. It bent, but that was all. Below her she saw the boat coming closer, making another pass of the docks. She whimpered, and pushed again. The glass squeaked and seemed to stretch under the pressure of her hands, but it held.

  The boat sliced neatly through the glittering water, away from her, back around the curve of the bay toward the city. The alarm wailed on as Oa watched the little boat slip in among the bigger boats, out of her sight.

  She fell to her knees again in the rubble of glass, hardly knowing that her hands were bleeding and her socks were full of splinters. The alarm stopped ringing, leaving her ears echoing with the silence. The apartment door opened, and Doctor stormed in, shouting. Her chance was gone.

  12

  ISABEL WISHED THEY had not taken the boat trip. The blank, shining windows of the condo towers reproached her with the futility of her efforts. She wanted to call the police, the mayor, anyone. Simon spent an hour explaining to her that the best way to ensure her guardianship of Oa was to negotiate, which meant waiting for the board of regents to convene. Isabel thought she would go mad, waiting the full three days for them all to reach Seattle.

  Now, at last, the moment was at hand. Somehow, the days had passed, days of anxious waiting. Isabel’s stomach crawled with tension.

  A car pulled up beneath the guest suites’ awning to carry her and Simon to the meeting of the board. A false spring met them when they emerged, with a fresh breeze from the harbor that chilled Isabel’s freshly depilated scalp. A cool sun shone from a pale blue sky. Yellow and purple crocuses nodded in the breeze, braving the February chill.

  She touched her cross, wondering where Oa would be when Lent began. She slid onto the wide seat of the car, letting Simon instruct the driver. The car moved slowly through the confined streets of the Multiplex and then more quickly up the steep Seattle hills toward the renovated hospital that was home to the North American branch of World Health and Welfare. Isabel rested her chin on her hand, staring blindly out the window. They turned a corner, coming upon a large gray brick building. Rectangular twin towers rose from its facade, stained with pollution and creeping mold. They were almost past the building when Isabel roused from her reverie, belatedly recognizing what it was.

  “What church is that, Simon?”

  He followed her pointing finger. “Cathedral of St. James, I think,” he said. “I toured it once, a few years ago.”

  “I’m glad to see it’s still there. So many of the old churches are gone.”

  “People like modern architecture, I suppose, at least in North America.”

  “Is the cathedral active, do you know?”

  “There were people inside when I was there. I was told they have no resident priest.”

  She leaned back in her seat with a wordless sigh.

  “Yes,” Simon drawled. “Even ordaining women, there aren’t enough to go around.”

  She cast him a look, and he chuckled. “Okay, okay, I won’t tease you. But you can’t blame me if your chosen institution is dying out.”

  “The institution may die out, Simon, but the idea is eternal.”

  He smiled at her. “People like you sustain it, Isabel.”

  She couldn’t answer his smile. She turned away from his gentle gaze, letting her eyes roam over the drooping cedars and spiky firs that lined the streets. “No,” she said softly. “Not like me. The church will truly be in trouble if it’s dependent on such as me.”

  *

  ISABEL TOOK HER seat in silence, watching Simon greet the regents already seated around the conference table. There were ten men and women, two of them physicians, the rest bureaucrats and politicians. Simon distributed flexcopies to each one. Isabel keyed her reader to the pages she would need, aware of the curious regard of the regents.

  The room was windowless and bare, as austere as Gretchen Boreson’s office was luxurious. Maps provided the only wall decoration. relieved by an occasional chart with numbers picked out in red and blue. Isabel had not been in this particular room before, but it varied little from other World Health conference rooms. She poured a glass of water from the pitcher near her elbow, and sat back in her chair, her hands linked in her lap.

  Gretchen Boreson appeared a few minutes later, dressed in the silver suit, her lips painted a delicate mauve, amethyst earrings glinting beneath her perfect chignon. She tried to smile at the assembled men and women, but her left cheek jerked, tugging at her eyelid, and she pressed her lips together. Cole Markham walked beside her, and trailing them, a large reader folded under his arm, came Paolo Adetti.

  Isabel felt heat rise in her face, and she looked away as they took their seats.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Simon said. “Dr. Martineau, Mr. Annan, Dr. Fujikawa.” He went on, calling each name, ending with Isabel. “The issue at hand is the guardianship of the child from Virimund. Mother Isabel Burke was invited to the Multiplex by ExtraSolar Corporation to fulfil the requirements of an extraordinary empowerment provision.” He paused, looking around the table. “Mother Burke is petitioning for permanent guardianship. And in my capacity as advisory physician for World Health, I question the right of ExtraSolar Corporation to continue building the Virimund power park, in light of the discovery that the planet is inhabited.”

  There was a little rustle in the room as the regents picked up their flexcopies, and shifted in their seats.

  Simon turned to Isabel. “Mother Burke?”

  Isabel’s voice trembled at first. “It appears that the child—” She cleared her throat and began again. “This child has no other advocate than myself, and even now I know very little about her. I’ve collected as much information as I can, but the records are corrupted. We know Oa’s ancestors were the Sikassa, a tribe in the African nation of Mah.” She touched the keypad of her reader. “Drought and famine drove them out of their homeland, and the United Nations mounted a colony ship, the last one before the U.N. disbanded. The launch received little attention due to the world situation at the time. Monitoring stopped after six years, but they were already lost by then. The last record of communication from the colony ship was three years after they left Earth.”

  She glanced up. Adetti was frowning at one of the charts on the wall opposite his chair. Gretchen Boreson sat with her fingers pressed to her left cheek, her eyes on the manicured nails of her right hand.

  Isabel went on. “We understand that ExtraSolar’s hydrogen engineers had no reason to think Virimund was inhabited until the Port Forcemen noticed signs of activity on one of the islands. Then, upon investigation, they found a small nontechnical indigenous population.”

  Adetti interrupted. “Excuse me. Mother Burke.” His fingers on the keys of his own reader were heavy, making angry clicks. “By definition, indigenous implies native. The Sikassa were not native to Virimund, but to Earth.”

  Isabel felt the tension in her stomach blossom and evaporate. It was a relief to have the battle begin in earnest. She leaned forward to include the whole table in her answer. “The term ‘indigenous’ can be applied to ‘any life form that has adapted and thrived in its new environment.’ I quote—” She glanced at her reader. “Auber and Ferrari, of Post-Expansion Anthropology, Volume 112.” She let a beat pass. “Oa knows no other home than Virimund.”

  A flurry of discussion broke out. Isabel sat back, letting it swirl around her.

  A moment later, Simon broke in. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I propose we table the question of the child’s status as indigene until we know more.”

  Adetti cried, “No—now wait a minute! You’re playing with semantics. If you’re going to say that—”

  Simon
’s level voice cut easily through the other physician’s sputtering. “Would the regents agree this question can’t be answered at this time?”

  Several heads nodded, and two or three bent together, conferring. Adetti subsided, but his eyes narrowed and a pulse beat visibly in his temple. Markham leaned toward Boreson to whisper in her ear.

  Isabel resumed. “The hydro workers located the Sikassa’s island by flyer. There was a confrontation, in which two Sikassa and one Port Forceman were injured.” She swept the table with her glance. “The Sikassa were children. All of them. No adults have been found.”

  She felt the tension deepen in the room, as if the lights had dimmed. Gretchen Boreson’s pale blue eyes came up to meet hers. Isabel pressed on. “The Port Forceman and one of the children died. Oa was treated for her injuries by Dr. Adetti at the power park, and survived.” Isabel let her eyes rest on each of the people around the room. “For reasons that are not yet clear, ESC made the decision to bring her to Earth.”

  The Japanese representative, a diminutive man with a hesitant manner, said, “Pardon me, please. Why was this kept from the charter signatories? The rediscovery of a lost colony is a remarkable occurrence, is it not?”

  Adetti opened his mouth, but Boreson shot him a glance, and he closed it again. Boreson said smoothly, “ExtraSolar thought it best to complete its investigation before revealing these events. I’m certain all the regents will agree there are far-reaching ramifications that needed to be explored first. Hiring Mother Burke was meant to be part of that exploration. ESC, of course, has the interests of the charter governments at heart.” She folded her hands as if she were finished, and then added hastily, “And the child’s, naturally.”

  Fujikawa shook his head. “Please pardon my slowness. Where is the colony?”