Children of God

by Mary Doria Russell

  He turned and saw Sofia, who was gnawing on a betrin root. She looked so brown! Was there something wrong with his eyes or had she changed color? Unsure of his own perceptions, Supaari gestured toward the sky. “Does that look right to you?” he asked.

  She frowned. “It does look … odd somehow. The suns are out, but it seems a little dark,” she said. Almost five years in a forest, she thought, remembering sunlight shattered by shifting leaves. “I’m not sure I remember what the sky is supposed to look like!”

  “Sipaj, Djalao,” Supaari called softly. She straightened from the melfruit bush she was stripping. “There’s something wrong with the sky.”

  Sofia snorted. “You sound like Isaac,” she told Supaari as Djalao walked over, but sobered when she saw the Runao’s face.

  “The color is wrong,” Djalao agreed uneasily.

  Supaari stood and faced into the wind, clearing his lungs through his mouth, then inhaled a long breath through his nostrils; the breeze was too stiff for a coherent plume, but he hoped at least to snatch a hint from the air. Djalao watched him intently. “No sulfur,” he told her. “Not a volcano.”

  “This is trouble,” Djalao whispered, not wanting to alarm Kanchay, who was ambling over with an armload of trijat leaf.

  Sofia asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” said Djalao, glancing significantly at Kanchay, who’d had enough to cope with the past few days.

  But Supaari told Sofia quietly, “We’ll know in the morning.”

  IN THE STILL AIR, LIT BY THE LOW LIGHT OF FIRST DAWN, THE PALL OF moke became visible, its multiple columns rising and coalescing in the sky like the stems of a hampiy tree rising to meet in its crown. That day, as they moved downwind of the closest villages, even Sofia could detect the smell of char, which penetrated the stench of benhunjaran ointment lingering in their hair.

  “Kashan will be all right,” Kanchay said over and over, as they walked. “The djanada burned our garden a long time ago.” And the VaKashani had been compliant and virtuous by Jana’ata standards ever since.

  But he was alone in his hope, and as they approached the wreckage of the Magellan’s lander, the bodies became visible in the distance: some butchered, some scavenged, most twisted and blackened by fire.

  Sofia left the VaRakhati staring across the plain toward the corpses, and climbed into the remains of the Magellan lander emptied by vandals. Someone’s crying, she thought, and wondered Who, as the sound of sobbing reverberated hollowly against the hull. She paid no attention—hardly heard it, really. Things could be worse, she thought, wiping her face and picking through the wreckage. She found odds and ends of useful technology, the best of which was a spare computer tablet stowed in a locker that had been overlooked in the pillaging. Careful not to cut herself on the jagged metal where the cargo-bay door had been forced open, she reemerged into the smoky sunlight and joined the others. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, she flipped the new tablet open and accessed the Magellan’s system, concentrating on finding the past week’s meteorological imaging logs.

  “They must have hit every village that ever had a garden,” she told Supaari without emotion, recognizing the diffusion pathways that Anne Edwards had identified years earlier.

  “But there are no more gardens,” Kanchay said plaintively, looking back toward his vanished village. “We never planted food again.”

  “Every place we foreigners and you touched,” Sofia said, looking up at Supaari. “Gone.”

  “All my villages,” he whispered. “Kashan, Lanjeri, Rialner. All those people …”

  “Who can wear so many ribbons?” Kanchay asked, dazed. “Why would they do this? What gives them the right?”

  “The new Paramount’s legitimacy is in question,” Djalao explained, her voice as empty as Sofia’s. “The lords say he is not suitable for his office. He must be seen to restore balance, to remove all foreign and criminal influence from his territories.”

  “But he said the south was restored to order!” Kanchay cried. “The radio reports all said—” Kanchay turned and looked at Sofia and Djalao. “What gives them the right?” he asked, and when no one responded, Kanchay took three long steps toward Supaari, and shoved the Jana’ata hard. “What gives you the right?” he demanded.

  “Kanchay!” Sofia cried, startled out of her own numbness.

  “What gives you the right?” Kanchay shouted, but before the Jana’ata could stammer an answer, the Runao’s anger erupted like molten rock and he was roaring now—“What gives you the right?”—over and over, each word punctuated with a blow and a burst of blood from the face of a man who staggered back but did nothing to counter the attack.

  Her face white with terror, Sofia scrambled up and threw her arms around Kanchay. He flung her off like a rag doll, not even pausing in his assault. “Kanchay!” Sofia screamed, astonished, and tried again to push between the two men, only to be knocked away once more. “Djalao!” she shouted from the ground, her own face spattered with gore. “Do something! He’s going to kill Supaari!”

  For an eternity, Djalao stood gaping, too stunned to move. Then finally, she dragged Kanchay off the bleeding Jana’ata.

  Shocked senseless, all of them stood or knelt or lay where they were, until the sound of Kanchay’s gasping grief subsided. It was only then that Supaari got to his feet, and spat blood, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He wheeled slowly, looking all around him, as though searching for something he would never find again; leaned back against his tail, winded and lost.

  Then, without a word, he walked away from the ruins of Kashan, empty-handed and empty-souled.

  THE OTHERS FOLLOWED. HE DIDN’T CARE. HE DID NOT EAT; COULD NOT, in truth. Regret sickened him as much as the cloying smoke of burnt meat that remained in his fur despite two drenching rains on the journey back to the forest. Not even the scent of his infant daughter could drive off the stink of death; when they were reunited at the woodland’s edge, he refused to hold Ha’anala. He did not want to contaminate his child with what her people—what his people—

  What he had done.

  When at last they arrived at Trucha Sai, he was too far gone in guilt to hear what anyone said. He sat at the edge of the clearing, allowing no one to touch him, not even to scrub the stink from his coat. What gives us the right? he asked himself when the sky’s darkness matched his heart’s. What gives us the right?

  He did not sleep that first night back among the Runa; when dawn lightened the sky enough for him to see, he left before they roused. No Runao could track him, and he believed that death would find him in the forest if he simply waited long enough. For uncounted days in a black absence of thought, he wandered aimlessly while it was light, lay down wherever he was when fatigue and hunger overcame him. On that last night, with his gut cramped against its hollowness, he sank blindly to the ground near a recently abandoned tinper nest. It was crawling with vicious little khimali and, while he slept, they burrowed through his fur and fastened onto his skin, making a meal of his blood. He awoke once in the middle of the night to physical misery, bleeding from thousands of small wounds, but did not move or try to pick the parasites from his body.

  Close now, he thought with vague relief. He did not so much fall asleep as lose consciousness. It rained that night. He didn’t hear the thunder.

  It was full morning when the bright golden glare of the middle sun found his face through a small space in the shifting leaves. Sodden, curled on the forest floor, he opened his eyes without lifting his head and dully watched the khimali at close range as they trundled through the miniature forest of fine fur that covered his wrist.

  They don’t take enough to kill their host, Supaari thought, sorry to have lived through the night, and disgusted by the jointed carapaces, the scuttling gait of the bloated little beasts. They suck blood and give back nothing. That is the way of parasites. They …

  He sat up, and blinked—

  He was dizzy and near starvation, but his mind felt at th
at moment perfectly translucent. The sensation, he would tell Sofia later, was not serenity—although he knew even then that serenity would be his reward, when his part in the plan was fulfilled. What he felt was joy. It seemed to him that perfection was revealed all around him, that he and the forest and the khimali were all one thing, all part of a strange brilliance. Sunlight shafted the small clearing, and this too seemed a revelation. His own confusion and wretchedness had parted, like clouds, and allowed this … illumination to penetrate. He could envision everything before him: the steps he would take, the path he would travel, the end. He had only to see it through.

  Everything was clear to him now.

  This joy lasted only a little while, but he knew he would never be the same. When it passed, he staggered to his feet, unaware of his own lightheadedness. A strong odor caught his attention; something had died that morning somewhere in the understory. Without thinking, he crouched and spun slowly, tail sweeping low through the vegetation, arms flung outward for balance, sampling the air until he located the source of the scent: a good-sized bush wa’ile, wasted with age. Supaari ate it raw, ripping its belly open with his teeth and claws. Better a scavenger, he thought, than a parasite.

  He knew, even then, that he would eat Runa again. The difference was that he meant now to transform their sacrifice. He would return it to them: life for life.

  “SIPAJ, SUPAARI!” THE RUNA CRIED WHEN THEY FIRST SAW HIM STANDING at the edge of the settlement. “We thought you were gone!”

  “Keep distance—someone must stay apart,” he said, and he held out his arms to display the sores in his armpits, the blotched red stains that spoiled his coat.

  Sofia approached despite his warning and said, “Someone will groom you. Someone is so—”

  “Stay back,” he said. Her offer touched him to his heart, but he could not permit this, not yet. Looking past Sofia toward the Runa, he gazed at the village, neat, well cared for and well run; gazed at the Runa themselves, who had lived in Trucha Sai for years without Jana’ata interference or exploitation. “What causes these sores?” he asked them loudly. There was a mutter of response and a tendril of their anxiety began to reach him. He was worrying them and he regretted that. But it was necessary—this confusion before clarity. “What causes them?” he asked again.

  “Khimali,” Djalao said shortly, coming forward, standing next to Sofia. She wanted to stop this odd behavior, he knew. Wanted to draw Supaari away to a place where she could pick through his coat, wanted to crush the revolting little creatures between her fingers and be done with this. “They are dangerous,” she snapped. “They’re making you sick. Please, allow this one—”

  But Supaari called, “And what are khimali?”

  “Parasites!” Djalao answered, exasperated, staring at him now. “Sipaj, Supaari, why do you—?”

  “And what are parasites,” he asked, still looking past her to the others, “but those who take their sustenance without benefit to the host? Those who draw their lives from the lives of others and give nothing back?” Most of the Runa looked around uncertainly, shifting from foot to foot. But Djalao straightened, and met his eyes. She knows, he thought. She understands.

  “And what,” he asked her softly, “must we do to rid ourselves of parasites?”

  “Kill them,” she said as softly and as certainly. “Kill them, one by one—until they trouble us no longer.”

  Giordano Bruno

  2064, Earth-Relative

  “JOHN, I’M SORRY, BUT I DON’T SEE A LOT OF ALTERNATIVES HERE,” Emilio Sandoz remarked mildly. “What are you suggesting? Mutiny on the Bruno?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Emilio! I’m serious—”

  “No, I’m not certain that you are serious,” Emilio said, pouring reconstituted scrambled eggs into a pan. Quell seemed to improve his appetite, and he’d awakened at five in the morning, ship’s time, ravenous. When he went to the galley to fix himself something to eat, John Candotti had been lying in wait, all cranked up with plans to take over the ship and go home. “You want some of this? I could make enough for two.”

  “No! Listen to me! The longer we wait, the farther we are from home—”

  “So what are you going to do? Cut Carlo’s throat while he’s asleep?”

  “No!” John whispered urgently. “But we could lock him in his cabin—”

  “Oh, please!” Emilio sighed, rolling his eyes as he stirred his eggs. “Get e some juice, will you?”

  “Emilio, he’s only one man! There are seven of us—”

  “Have you talked to any of the others about this, Mistah Christian?” he sked, relying on Charles Laughton to make his attitude clear.

  John flushed at the mockery. He opened a storage cabinet and got out a mug for the juice, but went on resolutely. “I came to you first, but I’m sure—”

  “Don’t be,” Emilio said flatly. Without the distracting noise of emotion, political realities were obvious, and he understood why rioting prisoners would give up a losing battle when Quell was fired like tear gas into a lockup. “The count is seven to one, but you’re the one, John.”

  Dumping the eggs onto a plate, Sandoz carried it to the table and sat with his back to the galley. John followed him, lips compressed, plunking the mug of orange juice down belligerently and sitting across the table from him. Emilio ate under his friend’s withering glare for a time before pushing his plate aside.

  “Look. John. Face facts,” he advised finally. “No matter what you think of him or his motives, Danny Iron Horse has already staked his soul on this mission, yes?” He stared, level-eyed, until John nodded reluctantly. “Joseba has his own reasons for wanting to go on to Rakhat, regardless of anyone else’s. Sean—I don’t understand Sean, but he seems to think that cynicism about human nature is an adequate response to sin. He won’t take a stand.”

  John’s eyes hadn’t dropped, but it was beginning to sink in. “As for Nico,” Emilio said, “don’t underestimate him. He is not as dim as he looks, and he has been thoroughly inculcated with the notion of loyalty to his padrone. Attack Carlo, and you will have Nico to deal with, and I warn you: he is very good at his job.” Emilio shrugged. “But let’s say Sean stood out of this, and you could co-opt Danny and Joseba, and overcome Carlo and Nico somehow. You’d still need Fat Frans to pilot the ship back to Earth—”

  “Right, and Frans is a shameless mercenary! So we buy him off! And anyway, he thinks Carlo is crazy—”

  “Frans has a wonderful gift for colorful exaggeration.” Emilio sat up and rested his arms on the table. “John, Carlo is cold and unscrupulous and completely selfish, but he is a long way from crazy. Even if he were barking mad, I wouldn’t count on Frans’s cooperation with your plan, such as it is.” John bristled, but Emilio continued, “The Camorra has a long reach and a longer memory. Frans would be running a great risk to buck Carlo—”

  “An excellent analysis, Sandoz!” cried Carlo as he walked into the room. “Positively Machiavellian. Really, Candotti,” Carlo said dryly when John jumped at the sound of his voice, “secrecy is the first principle of conspiracy!

  The commons room is hardly the place for this sort of thing.” He turned his merry gray eyes from John’s now roseate face to Sandoz’s, lined and still. “And you, Sandoz? Have you no wish to return to Gina and my daughter?”

  “What I wish is irrelevant. The fact is, I was a part of their lives for only a few months.” John gasped, and Emilio turned to him. “Years are passing at home, John. Even if we were to come about and return now, I could hardly expect to drop back in on them as though I’d been away on a business trip.”

  John looked stricken, but Carlo beamed. “I may assume then that you have reached a decision regarding my proposals—”

  They would remember later that the impact sounded like a rifle shot.

  There was a single unresonant bang, followed by an instant of utter silence in total darkness, and then the shouts and cries throughout the ship of men tumbling blindly when the engines cut
out and they lost the gravity provided by acceleration.

  The emergency lighting came on almost immediately, but with restored vision came the screaming of klaxons signaling a hull breach and then the high-pitched whine of compartment doors rolling shut and locking themselves down, endeavoring with mechanical efficiency to isolate regions of atmospheric pressure loss. A moment later, the spin imparted by the collision took over and every loose object in the ship was now flung away from the ship’s center of mass. John was thrown into the table’s edge, the breath driven from his lungs. Emilio, knocked sideways when the ship lurched, was now pinned against a bulkhead, the outline of an air intake square against his back. Ears ringing from the blow when his head hit the wall, he watched the Wolverton tube with wide-eyed fascination, as plants and soilmix ripped loose and whirled, propelled by a tornado within the transparent cylinder that had been a vertical garden moments before.

  “That’s the axis … in the tube!” Carlo yelled. He was spread-eagled, back against the bulkhead opposite Sandoz. The sensation was like that of an amusement park ride that had thrilled him when he was a child—a large padded cylinder that spun faster and faster until centrifugal force held people against the walls and the floor dropped out from under them. It was hard to breathe against a force that wanted to flatten him, so he kept his phrases short but calm. “Sandoz, there is a … red control button … to your left—. Yes. Be so kind … as to press that, please?”

  Carlo tensed in sympathy while Sandoz struggled to inch a leg toward its target, and tried to move his own leg, just to see what it was like: very difficult indeed, with these G forces. There wasn’t enough strength in Sandoz’s ankle alone; working with his whole body, he arched away from the wall to bring the edge of his foot down on the button. The klaxon was silenced. “Well done,” Carlo said, with an involuntary sigh of relief echoed by Candotti.