Children of God

by Mary Doria Russell

  She considered him for a long time, to understand his face in such moments, to memorize the scent of shame, to learn the sound of scruple in his voice. Then she turned toward the N’Jarr valley, where low stone walls glowed like gold in morning’s slanting light. “Look,” she commanded, her arm describing a graceful arc, sweeping from west to east. “And listen,” she said, for all the children, Runa and Jana’ata, were singing. “How can you doubt?”

  He did not reply, but only looked at her with his small, black eyes held wide. That day they walked home in silence, and did not speak of this again.

  “WHAT YOU HAVE TOLD ME EXPLAINS POLITICAL POWER, MY LADY,” Danny said later that year, “but there was more to Kitheri than that, I think. Men followed him, but not for a single traja’anron blossom or a pennant or a rhyming triplet. And not, I think, for wealth or power or even breeding rights.”

  “They followed him out of love, and out of loyalty,” Suukmel said serenely. “Hlavin Kitheri began to seem the embodiment of their own greatness. They loved him for what he and they had become, and they would have done anything for him.”

  “So when the Paramount let it be known that he desired that such men should be bound closer to him, they forgot or forgave Kitheri’s reputation for—” He stopped, unwilling to offend her.

  “Sexual … sophistication, perhaps?” she suggested, amused at his delicacy. “Yes. These men willingly gave their third-born sisters or daughters to his harem.”

  “Even knowing that the children of those matings would have no appointed place in the hierarchy?”

  “Yes, knowing that the lives of those born to Kitheri’s house would not be decreed by birth or governed by death. So be it, such men said. Let the future carve out its course, like a river in flood. Neither did they falter at Hlavin’s lifting of the breeding bans on certain merchant thirds. Can you understand how ‘revolutionary’ this was?” she asked, using the H’inglish word. “We had always been careful stewards of our inheritance. Our honor was to pass down, undegraded, whatever legacy we ourselves had received. To bequeath more was dishonor: this implied theft. To bequeath less was dishonor: this implied profligacy. But Hlavin showed us all that there could be creation! Something, out of nothing! Poetry, wealth, music, ideas, dance: out of nothing! Stewardship could encompass increase! Everyone began to see this, and we all wondered—even I wondered—what had we been frightened of all these years?”

  LIKE AN ANCIENT HUNTER DROPPING MEAT AT HIS WIFE’S FEET, HLAVIN Kitheri had laid all he accomplished at the exquisite feet of the lady Suukmel Chirot u Vaadai. It was to please her that he took the final step, opening the last door, letting both Chaos and Wisdom free.

  From all over Inbrokar, his young consorts had come, veiled and guarded and ignorant. For Suukmel’s sake, and perhaps in guilty memory of his late sister Jholaa, Hlavin Kitheri brought the wonders of land and sea and air into his seraglio; filled his palace with Runa tutors, storytellers, talking books, with Jana’ata politicians and scientists, bards and engineers. At first, his girls were separated from the men with a pierced wooden screen; later, with heavy curtains only. Still later, it began to seem quite ordinary and acceptable that the ladies should hear the debates, now and then comment audibly on them, and finally participating fully in the colloquia from behind the merest suggestion of a gauzy wall: transparent, diaphanous, floating.

  These girls bore Kitheri children. The first was a son he called Rukuei, neutered as an infant and given to Suukmel to be fostered at the Mala Njeri embassy. But there were many other children as the years passed, and one of these was a daughter who did not know it was forbidden for females to sing. When Hlavin Kitheri heard that small, high, pure voice, his heart’s very rhythm paused, made motionless by beauty.

  Except for the evening chants, Hlavin himself had not sung in years. Now, with a relief more profound than the consummation of any physical yearning, he found his way back to poetry and music. He brought in musicians and choirmasters, and let the women and children sing, depending on the shimmering loveliness of their voices to drown his society’s lingering ability to find scandal in the new. Once again, he created a torrent of cantatas, chorales, anthems: for his consorts and his young.

  By the twelfth year of Hlavin Kitheri’s reign, the Principality of Inbrokar was the most powerful political entity in the history of Rakhat— wealthier than Mala Njer, as populous as Palkirn—and Hlavin Kitheri held undisputed sovereignty over the central kingdom of the Triple Alliance. Already, he had made close allies among his Chirot and Vaadai contacts in Mala Njer. In a year or two more, it would have been time at last to take the Palkirn girl as his wife and establish a legitimate succession, now that he had brought about the revolution he had no word for.

  “WHEN DID YOU FIRST REALIZE WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE SOUTH?” Daniel Iron Horse asked, many years after Kitheri’s death.

  “Almost from the beginning, there were signs,” Suukmel recalled. “Less than a season after Hlavin acceded to the paramountcy, the first of the refugees appeared at the gates of Inbrokar.” Stunned and terrified as refugees everywhere always are, with stories of fire, of betrayal and death in the night, their lives had been spared by Runa whose loyalty and love these few Jana’ata had earned, and whose warnings these few had heeded. “My lord Kitheri appreciated the irony, Dani. He himself once said, ‘I fathered the destruction of the new world at the moment of its conception.’ ”

  “There are limits, of course, to anyone’s breadth of view,” Danny pointed out. They sat silently for a time, listening to a midday chain chorus, the sound of which spread from compound to compound across the valley. “It seems to me, my lady, that if things had been only a little different—” Danny hesitated. “Perhaps Supaari VaGayjur might have become the first and most useful of Kitheri’s supporters.”

  “Perhaps,” Suukmel said after a long time. “What made him contemptible in the old regime were the very traits that would become most admirable in my lord Kitheri’s paramountcy.” She paused, thinking. “The merchant would have made an excellent chancellor, for example. Or he might have headed a Ministry of Runa Affairs …” Chest tight, she looked at Danny, who was her equal in height, and in many other things. “Perhaps,” she said steadily, “it all might have been avoided, but at the time? There seemed no other way …”

  Southern Province, Inbrokar

  2047, Earth-Relative

  “SOMEONE HAS ASSEMBLED THE TRADE GOODS YOU SPECIFIED, THEY’RE cached near the lander site,” Djalao VaKashan informed Sofia and Supaari when she finally showed up in Trucha Sai. She was days late. “There are djanada patrols everywhere out there.”

  “Cullers?” Supaari suggested warily. “Or inspection teams, perhaps, just taking census for the new paramountcy?”

  “Someone thinks neither,” Djalao said, ignoring the other Runa who crowded around them, and who were beginning to sway uneasily. “At Kirabai, the people say these are men from the north, from Inbrokar City. They have foreign Runa with them—from Mala Njer, someone thinks. The elders at Kirabai had to call on interpreters whose lineages are very old, to understand them.”

  Djalao was not visibly frightened, but she was concerned. All the village councils were talking about what this meant, what was changing. “The patrols ask always about Supaari,” she told them quietly. “They ask also about foreigners.”

  “Is it safe for us to travel?” Sofia asked, stomach tightening. “Perhaps we-but-not-you must wait until this trouble is over.”

  “Someone thinks, we-and-you-also can travel, but in redlight only. It might be best for you to go without delay.” Djalao looked at Supaari and switched to K’San. “Lord, will you permit one of us to lead you?”

  There was a noticeable silence and Sofia made a half turn to be able to look at Supaari. He was standing very straight, staring at Djalao. “Am I a lord,” he asked, “who can permit or forbid?” Then, ears dropping, he brought himself to acceptance. Eyes on the middle distance, somewhere to Djalao’s left, he lifte
d his chin. “Apologies,” he said finally. “Someone will be grateful for your guidance.”

  Everyone shuffled, embarrassed. Sofia could see that it cost Supaari something to say this and understood that Djalao intimidated him in a way no other Runao did; the subtleties were lost on her, as were the details of the interminable discussion that followed, encompassing as it did political and geographic considerations about their route to the Magellan lander. She had done all she could during the six months of preparation for the voyage home. Now there was no choice but to trust that Supaari and Djalao would make the right decisions.

  Drowsy with the heat, already halfway to Earth in spirit, Sofia leaned against a shelter pole, one knee up, the other leg dangling over the platform, and let her mind drift as she watched the Runa children play with Ha’anala who was just beginning to walk and pounce, unaware of her differences from her only companions. Isaac, at Sofia’s side constantly these days, more than made up for his mother’s quiet, ceaselessly producing a monotone stream of phrases in both Ruanja and English, his pronunciation perfect. Mostly it was mimicry but, on occasion, genuine speech would emerge—most often after he had sung the Sh’ma with her and the evening chant with Supaari. They always retreated into the quiet of the forest to sing, far from the hubbub of the Runa, for whom song was threatening—the instrument of djanada control. Perhaps, Sofia thought, it was that temporary silence that allowed Isaac to get beyond echoing. “Isaac hears you,” he told Sofia once. And another time, in observation, “Ha’anala fell.”

  But there was a price to pay. To speak, Isaac had broken through some inner wall, and that tiny breach in his fortress now allowed the awful chaos around him to invade his private world. Shadows, his delight since infancy, suddenly seemed alive: unpredictable and menacing. The color red, never significant before, now horrified him, evoking banshee shrieks that upset everyone. The normal noise of Runa children playing would sometimes drive him to a screaming, spinning frenzy.

  He’ll be better off on the ship, Sofia thought, barely listening to his monologue or the Runa debate going on around her. It will be difficult for him in the beginning, but we can keep to a routine and he’ll adapt. No surprises —everything the way he wants it. Nothing red. I can cover the readouts with something. And there can be music all day long, on board. That alone would improve Isaac’s life, she thought. That alone was worth the risks they were taking.

  At peace, she lay back against a cushion and let the sounds of the village lull her to sleep, and woke hours later to Supaari’s touch and to the quiet that signaled consensus, when all that needed to be considered had been said; with a decision reached, the council had dispersed.

  “Tomorrow, at second dawn,” Supaari told her, distilling hours of debate. “We’ll stay in the forest as long as possible—it’s a little farther to walk, but it will be safer than taking the shortest route across the savannah. When we have to cross open country, we’ll travel at night.”

  Sofia sat up, looking around the village. The last meal of the day was being prepared. Everyone was settling in for the evening.

  “Shall you be sad to leave, Fia?” Supaari asked, hunkering down next to her.

  She listened to the whispering of the fathers, the cooing and giggles of the children. “They have been so kind—so good to us,” she said, missing them already, all the irritation and impatience swept away by a flood of gratitude. “If only there were some way to repay them …”

  “Yes,” Supaari agreed. “But I think the best course is to leave. The patrols are looking for us, Sofia. We can only be a danger to the Runa now.”

  THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY WAS NO DIFFERENT FROM A HUNDRED other foraging expeditions Sofia had participated in, strange only in that the specially woven backbasket she wore was not empty at the start of the trip. Kanchay and Tinbar and Sichu-Lan had come along with Djalao, to help carry the children and the burdens of travel; the conversation was lighthearted, the Runa men looking forward to seeing friends and relatives in Kashan for the first time in years. For a time, there was only the metronome beat of their legs, and Sofia hardly heard the talk that went on around her, content to have Isaac march along at her side, his taut, little body wiry and beautiful. He’s going to be tall, she realized, like his father.

  The highlands began to flatten on the third day and they came at last to a place where the light brightened noticeably and the woodland grew drier, rains balked by mountains to the west. The canopy was still intact overhead, but here the trees were more widely spaced, and at the edge of the woods, Sofia could just make out a subsidence smoothing onto a savannah that stretched all the way to Kashan.

  “We’ll wait here,” Djalao said, so they put their baskets down, fed Isaac and Ha’anala, and had a meal themselves.

  As the light began to change, and second sundown approached, Isaac insisted as always that the songs be sung. The three male Runa went off some distance and clamped their ears shut and swayed. Djalao remained nearby, listening to Supaari impassively, ears high, as though she were putting herself to a sort of test of strength, Sofia thought. When the chants were done, Djalao’s immobility broke and she dug into one of the packs, handing around a jar of strong-smelling ointment that the Runa began to smear into their groins and armpits and along their legs and arms.

  “Stinks like a pack of benhunjaran,” Supaari growled, his face twisted with distaste as Djalao rubbed the grease into his fur. Watching Sofia dip a tiny hand into the jar, he explained, “Even if a Jana’ata patrol catches the scent during redlight, they’ll move upwind and as far away as possible the next morning.” He studied the four Runa with ears cocked forward. “Someone wonders, how long have the people been getting away with this trick?”

  Kanchay laughed his soft, huffing chuckle, and looked at Sofia. She smiled back, wishing she had a tail to drop as she said, “The djanada are like ghosts. They can be fooled.” Supaari grunted, refusing to be baited.

  They waited, the adults’ silence underscored by Ha’anala’s purring and Isaac’s monotone mutter, until Supaari declared himself blind as dirt, which meant that any other Jana’ata would be equally sightless. Then they moved out, the Jana’ata stumbling and self-conscious, but gamely allowing himself to be guided toward the forest edge, his nose and ears working constantly to pull in as much information as he could from scent and sound.

  They had planned for stealth: they would move unseen in redlight, their true scents undetectable beneath the stench of Djalao’s ointment. They had forgotten about the vast incendiary sky of Rakhat’s smallest sun. But as the little party stepped away from the familiar blue-green canopy of the forest, Isaac Mendes Quinn saw not the heavens but the vault of a red hell.

  BRILLIANT STREAMERS OF VIOLENT, CRIMSON CLOUD, ABOUT TO fall on him—a whole huge landscape, bloody red and purple, about to crush him—the plain’s panorama just beyond his hands—small, inadequate shields thrown up to parry the impact. He screamed once and then screamed again, and then screamed and screamed, as the woods exploded with wings and raucous calls and the crash of vegetation giving way to fleeing wildlife. Arms tried to eat him alive! Noise everywhere—Ha’anala howling, the Runa keening, Supaari, frantic, shouting over and over, “What has happened? What is it?” Red—the ground, the air, behind his hands, behind his eyes, squeezed shut—

  It was his mother’s voice that found him under the monstrous sky. Somehow in the chaos, he heard the low, grainy notes of the Sh’ma: soft, soft in his ear, soft, over and over, not insistent but consistent. Not the meaningless babble of words but the ordered, predictable, sacred haven of music: safety to move toward, a way out of the wilderness.

  He could not get there for a long time but, as he exhausted himself, the screaming slowed and quieted to long, sucking sobs. At last, kneeling on the damp ground with his arms wrapped around his head, his narrow little hips thrust in the air, Isaac rocked in rhythm to his mother’s voice, and found his way to the music: to salvation.

  He slept then, limp, and did not k
now that the adults would not sleep for hours, their plans in ruins.

  “ALL RIGHT,” SOFIA SAID WEARILY, WHEN SUPAARI WOKE AT DAWN. “WE’RE going to leave the children here for now. You and Sichu-Lan and Tinbar can stay with them. Kanchay, Djalao and I will go on alone to the lander. I’ve checked the fuel levels and I can make a flight back here to collect you and the children and the trade goods without risking the return to the mother ship. We can carry Isaac into the plane while he’s asleep. By the time he wakes up, we’ll be on board the Magellan. Do you understand?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Oh, God, Supaari, we argued all night. It’s been decided—”

  “I’m coming with you,” he insisted.

  Already the male Runa were swaying. Sofia glanced at Djalao, who was visibly tired but as determined as Sofia to keep the men from falling apart. “Sipaj, Supaari. You are a hazard,” Sofia told him firmly. “You will slow us down—”

  “We will travel in full daylight. We can make the journey in half the time that way, and we won’t have to do it reeking of benhunjaran—”

  “Sipaj, Supaari, are you mad?” She turned to Djalao, silently pleading for help. “If a patrol sees us—”

  “There is a bounty for me and for any foreigner,” Supaari reminded her in English. He turned to Djalao. “Someone thinks these Runa are delivering outlaws to the authorities.”

  “And when such a patrol finds us-and-you-also? They will take custody,” Djalao said, her bloodshot eyes calm.

  “Then we-and-you-also will kill them in their sleep.”

  “Supaari!” Sofia gasped, but Djalao said, “So be it,” without waiting for the others to express an opinion. “We’ll rest until second sunrise. Then we’ll go.”

  THE PLAINS WERE EMPTY, AND FOR A TIME IT APPEARED THAT THE worry and precautions were unjustified. For two days, they seemed to be the highest things on the horizon. No one challenged or greeted them, and Supaari should have been reassured, but he wasn’t. There’s something wrong with the sky, he thought, lowering his backbasket and sitting on the ground while the Runa foraged. The light was subtly dimmed in a way he couldn’t define. A volcano? he wondered. “Supaari?”