The Child Goddess

by Louise Marley

  Dr. Fujikawa leaned forward. “Dr. Edwards, we thank you for your presentation. Please clarify to me that there is still no sign of an adult population on Virimund?”

  Beside Isabel, Oa drew a sharp breath. Isabel felt the fresh wave of fear that surged through her, but there was no time to wonder at it.

  Simon glanced at Boreson. She said coolly, “Offworld Port Forceon Virimund was instructed to cease any exploration, and they have of course complied. I spoke with the Port Administrator by r-wave yesterday, and he assured me this was the case.”

  Madame Mahmoud asked, “Do we know, yet, how old the girl actually is?”

  And Isabel said, “We think we do.”

  *

  OA COULDN’T LOOK at Doctor when she came into the big room behind Isabel and Doctor Simon. She saw him at the table next to Gretchen, but she averted her eyes. She clutched the fuzzy toy with one hand, and clung to Isabel with the other. She tried to keep her shoulders straight like Isabel’s, but she trembled.

  The room was cold. Oa was glad of her new clothes, the warm socks and shoes Jin-Li Chung had found for her. It was a strange place, with blank walls and no windows. The people sat around a long plain table, and their eyes burned her with their curiosity.

  Doctor Simon talked a long time, and pictures flashed on the little reader set before Isabel. Oa watched the pictures, knowing they were about her, and she listened to Doctor Simon. It was hard to follow, but Isabel had explained it slowly to her the night before. Doctor Simon knew she was an anchen, and he was telling these strangers about her. And she knew what was coming when Isabel turned to her.

  It wasn’t as if she had a choice. She was, after all, an anchen, despite Isabel’s kindness. She was still an anchen, even though Doctor Simon liked talking to her, and even though Jin-Li Chung brought her clothes that fit and shoes that were comfortable. She was still an anchen, though Matty Phipps didn’t mind eating meals with her and standing by while she worked with Isabel. She could straighten her shoulders, and hold her head up like Isabel, but it didn’t change anything. She was an anchen, but she would be a brave one. She had prayed to Raimu-ke, this morning, kneeling with Isabel before her crucifix, asking Raimu-ke to make her brave.

  Oa remembered her last tatwaj. She had tried to pretend she didn’t know what was coming. She felt like a person. She loved her papi and her mamah, she had fears and hopes and dreams. Surely, something would save her, she thought. She had prayed to the ancestors, along with everyone else, prayed for her menarche. But of course, if she had no soul, the ancestors would not hear her. Her prayers would mean nothing.

  The roar of the bonfire filled her ears. Its heat burned her cheeks. Above her the stars twinkled menacingly, colder than she had ever seen them. Her menarche had not come. It was the tatwaj, and it had not come. She closed her eyes as the elder picked out her tattoo with the needle, as the ink stung her skin. When she opened her eyes, she saw her mother staring at her.

  Why, Mamah, she wanted to cry. Why? You saw my tattoos, you counted them, one, two, three, you said them to yourself. Why are you shocked?

  She turned to Papi. He had turned his face away, and would not look at her. The fire blazed, and the people chanted the old song, and one by one, the children went forward to be counted. One, two, three, four, and then the rising ululation, the celebratory wail. One, two three, four, five, six, another joyous cry. One, two, three, all the way to twelve, but still the acclamation. And then it was Oa’s turn.

  Oa stood to roll up the long sleeves of her jumpsuit. The fabric was soft and stretchy, and it folded easily up to her shoulders. She heard the little intake of breath around the table, and her fingers shook. Isabel stood with her, helping her, pulling her braids out of the way, pulling down her collar. The air chilled her exposed skin. At her shiver, Isabel touched her cheek with her fingers, just a quick caress, but it was calming. Oa looked up into Isabel’s clear eyes, and then down at her own thin dark arms, covered with columns of tattoos.

  She could see, without a mirror, the last one made by the elder of the people. It was inked into her right forearm, just above the elbow, a distinct ♦, four points to show the four seasons of the year, the seasons that rolled relentlessly by, leading from tatwaj to tatwaj. She had learned no word in English for the tatwaj. These people had no tatwaj. The children of this cold world did not have to fear the counting.

  Isabel spoke in a clear voice, keeping a steady hand on Oa’s shoulder. “As you can see, Oa bears ritual markings on her arms and shoulders.” Gently, she turned Oa so that her neck, exposed by the braiding of her hair, would be visible to the observers. Just as gently, she turned her back to face them all. “There are two kinds of tattoos. These on Oa’s shoulders—” She touched Oa’s left shoulder with a finger. “These are neatly done, with a good deal of skill, even artistry.” She lifted Oa’s wrist. “You can see that the others are rougher, unevenly executed.”

  Isabel smiled down at her, as calm and assured as if they were alone. “Would you like to sit down, Oa?” she murmured. Isabel held out the chair for her, and waited until she was seated and had rolled down her sleeves again.

  “The difference between the markings is important,” Isabel said. “There are fourteen of the first type, the ones that seem to have been, shall we say, professionally done. Of the second type, there are eighty-eight.”

  Oa listened to Isabel saying the numbers. She had learned numbers on the ship, and could count in English all the way to a thousand. One number was missing. Surely all four seasons had passed since she left Virimund, and perhaps more. And before that? How long since the anchens had seen the white smoke, the sign of the tatwaj from the three islands? Oa squeezed the teddy bear anxiously.

  “It was clear to me that these meant something essential to Oa. Before her English improved, she couldn’t explain them to me, but in the past week, I think I have arrived at their meaning.” Isabel’s hand caressed Oa’s hair. “Oa uses a word, tatwaj, for which there is apparently no English equivalent. The pronunciation makes it difficult to understand, and of course, she has no way to spell it. It doesn’t mean the tattoos, I believe, but the ceremony when the markings are applied. The adults of her people are responsible for the first of Oa’s tattoos, the fourteen.”

  Oa watched the reactions of these strange people to the revelation that was coming. Doctor Simon, on Isabel’s left, had put his fingertips together and was gazing at them. Doctor, who Oa now understood was called Doctor Adetti, was glaring across the table. At first Oa thought he was glaring at her, and she wanted to look away, but then she realized his hard black gaze was fixed on Isabel.

  “The other eighty-eight markings,” Isabel went on, “were made by the other children. The anchens, Oa calls them, as she calls herself an anchen. Oa herself will try to explain the significance of these ritual markings to you.”

  A little stir rolled around the long table.

  Isabel pulled out her chair and sat down. The room was utterly silent except for the mechanical sounds in the background, air moving, power humming. Oa touched her lips with her tongue. It was frightening, looking around at these strange faces, these curious eyes, pale Gretchen’s hungry look. Doctor Adetti’s fury. But she would be strong, for Isabel.

  She had practiced the words, and Isabel had written them on her computer. It looked strange, seeing her own words spelled out like the words in books.

  “Oa?” Isabel prompted softly. “Can you tell the regents about the tatwaj?”

  “Yes,” Oa said. She decided she would just talk to Isabel, and the others, the “regents,” could listen. Doctor and Gretchen could listen, and Matty and Doctor Simon. But she would talk to Isabel. “Yes,” she said again. “Oa is telling about the tatwaj.”

  Isabel gave her a private smile.

  Oa anchored herself in Isabel’s crystal gaze, and began.

  “Tatwaj comes in dry time,” she said. Her voice sounded thin in the big room, a thread of sound, easily torn. As she spoke, she could hea
r the breathing of those around her, the faint gurgle of someone’s stomach. She swallowed, and tried to speak louder. “First comes singing time, when nuchi are ripe and fish are much coming. Then comes sleeping time, and comes much rain. The people stay in shahto. And forest spiders come in sleeping time.” She stumbled over “forest spiders,” remembering how hard she had searched for the words in English. Isabel had shown her many pictures before they found one that fit, but they had to put two different words together to make a word close enough.

  Someone coughed, and Oa looked in his direction. Isabel said softly, “Continue when you’re ready, Oa.”

  “After sleeping time comes time of—” She faltered, forgetting the word. Isabel’s gaze was steady, patient. “Birth time,” Oa remembered. “The people are fishing, are cleaning shahto and making mats. Babies are coming.”

  Across the table. Doctor Adetti shifted suddenly in his chair, making it squeak. Oa looked at him, and saw Gretchen lift a finger in his direction. Doctor’s jaw clenched. No one else moved. Oa turned back to Isabel, trying to remember where she had been in her recitation.

  “And after the birth time?” Isabel prompted.

  “After birth time comes dry time,” Oa said. “Dry time is last. Then is coming the tatwaj.”

  “And what is the tatwaj, Oa?” Isabel asked gently. She turned her face to sweep the room with her eyes.

  Oa followed her gaze. “The tatwaj,” she said, “is the counting.”

  The Iranian lady, Madame Mahmoud, was watching her with her lips parted, not a hungry look like Gretchen’s, but one of wonder, and of waiting.

  “And what is counted at the tatwaj?” Isabel pressed.

  Oa’s voice failed her the first time she tried to speak it. She swallowed, and tried again. “At the tatwaj, are counting the children. The . . . the marks. On the children.” She held up her wrist to show hers.

  “Can you explain why, Oa? Why do the people count the children’s marks?”

  Oa lowered her wrist to the table, and traced the ragged diamond shape with one finger. With her head down, she said miserably, “The people are counting the children. To know if they are anchens.”

  “What is an anchen, Oa?”

  Oa’s throat was dry, her voice growing smaller. “Not a person.”

  “And,” Isabel persisted. “What do the people do when they find anchens?”

  “They are sending them to the island,” Oa whispered.

  “The island of the anchens?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who else lives on the island, Oa?”

  “No one. Not people. Only anchens.”

  “Only children, then?”

  “No. Anchens,” Oa repeated. “Only anchens.”

  17

  “THERE IS A tattoo for every year of age,” Simon told the regents. “Virimund years. One hundred and two in all.”

  Though Isabel had braced herself, the gasps of the regents made her shudder. Oa, too, quivered. Isabel put an arm around her shoulders.

  “I know this is shocking,” Simon said. “But the bone histology, with a margin of error of plus or minus twelve years, supports this conclusion.”

  “I don’t suppose . . .” The regent from India lifted his fingers from the table, and then laid his hand down again. “No, surely not.”

  “A hoax?” Simon asked. “I can’t see how.”

  Madame Mahmoud leaned forward. “How is this possible? And are all the—” She hesitated over the word, and then, with a flicker of her eyelids, pressed on. “The children—are they all so—” She shook her head.

  “We don’t know if they’re all as old as Oa,” Simon said. “Some may be older.”

  “They should all be brought here,” Adetti put in swiftly. “Although we will be content if our request for two more subjects is granted.”

  Isabel glared at him. “After what happened on Virimund?”

  “What did happen?” asked Mahmoud.

  “They call it an incident,” Isabel said. “It was an outrage.”

  “And what does the girl say about it?”

  Isabel took a deep breath. “Oa either can’t remember it or can’t speak of it. The hydros had hand weapons, shock guns. They fired them at the children.”

  “If they are children,” Adetti said sourly.

  “World Health categorically opposes ESC’s request to force another Sikassa to emigrate,” Simon said coolly. “Until we understand the situation fully, there must be no further interference with the population on Virimund.”

  Gretchen Boreson leaned forward, her hands linked before her on the table. Her nails were long and silver, making Isabel think of shards of ice. “Dr. Edwards,” Boreson said smoothly. “This—child—” Her inflection was minimal, but pointed. “If she is unable or unwilling to answer our questions, what can we do but ask them of someone else?”

  “We have no reason to think one of the other children will be more capable of putting things in perspective,” Simon answered her. He looked around at the regents. Madame Mahmoud had a fire in her eye as she watched Boreson. Dr. Fujikawa frowned as he flicked screens on his reader. Simon went on, “There are a hundred unanswered questions. Even with the confidence Oa has developed in Mother Burke, there are cultural issues she cannot explain. It’s not only language, but the lack of context. Mother Burke feels, and I agree, that the only way to solve the puzzle of the Sikassa colony is to go to Virimund, to interview the other—children—” He let the word hang in the air for a moment. “And to try to discover the source of the virus that caused Oa’s tumor.”

  Adetti leaped to his feet. “Damn it!” he cried. Boreson lifted her hand, but she was too late to stop him. “This is my discovery!” he exclaimed. “You can parade your charts and scans all you want, Edwards, but that’s no child sitting there, and DSF is going to be a priceless commodity!”

  Simon let Adetti’s outburst hang in the air for a moment before he said, looking around the table at the stunned faces, “By DSF, Dr. Adetti means ‘delayed senescence factor.’ He and Administrator Boreson have filed for a patent for the virus.”

  “Pardon, please, but this was not in our briefing.” The furrows in Dr. Fujikawa’s forehead grew deeper. “Would that not be a biological patent? I believe biological patents to be illegal since the genome scandals.”

  “Not,” Adetti said triumphantly, “if the biological entity meets the criteria for function and application!”

  Boreson put in, “We believe this virus does, since it—”

  The regent from Oceania interrupted her, demanding of Adetti, “Delayed senescence? You’re talking anti-aging, then. Longevity.”

  Adetti cried, “Exactly!”

  Boreson gave the Oceania representative her chilly smile. “You can see that the benefit to humankind—”

  Someone else called out a question, and someone else tried to answer it, and was interrupted. Voices rose. Gretchen Boreson’s cheek began to twitch, and she pressed her fingers to it. Paolo Adetti, still standing, smiled across the table at Isabel and Oa. His eyes glittered in the cold light. Isabel dropped her eyes. Beside her, Simon sighed and closed his reader.

  Isabel murmured, through the clamor, “That’s all the progress we’ll make today, I think.”

  Simon turned to look at her. His eyes shone with determination. “You know, Isabel,” he said softly. “You’re going to need me on Virimund.”

  “If they let us go,” she said.

  “Yes. If they let us go. But look at this bunch.” He nodded to the regents, who were standing now in knots of two and three, arguing. “They’re going to want answers.”

  “It’s all about the virus, for them, isn’t it, Simon? About long life. Not about the children. They’re no better than . . .” Isabel let her sentence trail off. Paolo Adetti and Gretchen Boreson bent their heads together, talking.

  “It’s a great temptation, Isabel,” Simon said. “Long life. Eternal youth.”

  Isabel closed her eyes against a deep wave of sa
dness, and breathed a prayer to her patroness for wisdom. Oa trembled beside her, a poor, frightened, ancient child.

  *

  JIN-LI AND MATTY Phipps hitched a ride on one of the Port Force trucks making early-morning deliveries in the city, jumping out when they reached the Old Space Needle. It was dwarfed by the spires and domes around it. Its old-fashioned supports were still visible, reinforced now from within, tubes of titanium alloy gleaming past painted steel. There had once been a restaurant at the top, now transformed into an observation deck for the spaceport. A nautilus slidewalk with translucent walls curled around the base and up to the Offworld Exhibit Gallery, just beneath the observation deck. To the east the Cascade range glimmered with snow, and to the west the Olympics lay shrouded in gray cloud.

  The exhibit had only just opened for the day. They strolled past the yawning attendant, following a circular corridor to an arched portal leading to the first exhibit, Irustan. The holographic display shifted around them depending on where they stood.

  The display was a simulated room with a white tile floor, a skyroof above their heads showing the constellations of an Irustani night sky. A wall niche held a met-olive, its gray-green leaves shining in the light. A mock rose grew from a planter, its vermilion blooms so true to life Jin-Li could almost smell their fragrance.

  They moved to a new position, and found themselves looking out over a scene of an Irustani marketplace, where women in floating pastel veils were escorted by men in flat caps and soft shirts and trousers. In the distance they saw the rhodium mines, with the blazing star of Irustan turning everything to bronze. A recorded lecture on the uses of rhodium for r-wave communication began.

  “Looks hot,” Matty said.

  “The star’s very hot,” Jin-Li said. “Earthers have to wear protective glasses and clothes. Even the Irustani do, and they’ve been there three hundred years.”