The Sparrow

by Mary Doria Russell

  "Are we there yet?" Anne asked brightly. There were boos and groans.

  "Well, I thought it was funny, Anne," Emilio told her earnestly, as he set the table, "but I have really low standards."

  From the moment the engines were fired, they had full gravity, and it very quickly seemed normal to be inside an asteroid traveling toward Alpha Centauri, no matter how crazy the idea was objectively. The only indication that they were doing anything extraordinary came from two clock-calendar readouts mounted in the common room, which George was watching with open-mouthed fascination. The ship’s clock, hand-labeled US, appeared normal. The Earth-relative clock, labeled THEM, was calibrated as a function of their computed velocity.

  "Look," George said. "You can see it already." The seconds were ticking by noticeably faster on the Earth clock.

  "I am still confused about this," Emilio said, glancing up at the clocks as he laid out napkins that Anne and D.W. had had a big argument about several months earlier. Anne’s logic was, "I refuse to spend half a year watching you guys wipe your mouths on your sleeves. There is no reason to make this trip into some kind of nasty macho endurance test. There’ll be plenty of time to wallow in hardship when we get where we’re going." "Table linens are a silly-ass waste of cargo capacity," had been D.W.’s counter. Finally, Sofia had pointed out that cloth napkins would weigh about eight hundred grams and weren’t worth shouting about. "Coffee," Sofia said, "is worth shouting about." And, thank God, Emilio thought, the women had won that argument, too.

  "The faster we go, the closer we approach the speed of light," George explained again patiently, "and the faster time will roll by on the Earth clock. At our peak velocity, halfway through the voyage, it will be our impression that one year is passing on Earth for every three days spent on the ship. Of course, on Earth, if anyone knew what we’re up to, it would seem that time on the ship slowed down so that each day takes four months to pass. That’s relativity for you. It depends on your point of view."

  "Okay, I’ve got that. But why? Why does it work that way?" Emilio persisted.

  "Deus vult, mes amis," Marc Robichaux called cheerfully from the galley. "God likes it that way."

  "As good an answer as any, I suppose," George said.

  "Praise! We require lavish praise!" Anne announced as she and Marc brought out the first meal they’d managed to cook normally in space: spaghetti with red sauce, a salad made with Wolverton veggies and reconstituted Chianti concentrate. "Oh, I am so glad we’re done with weightlessness!"

  "Really? I rather enjoyed zero G," Sofia said, taking a seat at the table. George leaned over to Anne and said something inaudible. Everyone smiled when she hit him.

  "Only because it didn’t make you sick!" Emilio retorted, ignoring the Edwardses, although Anne heard and seconded his sentiment.

  "Well, that may be part of it," Sofia admitted, "but I very much liked being any height I pleased."

  Walking in from the bridge right on cue, Jimmy Quinn plummeted into a chair with comic suddenness. Even sitting, he towered over her. "Sofia and I have a deal," Jimmy told them. "She doesn’t say anything about basketball and I never mention miniature golf."

  "Well, Miz Mendes, we may have quite a spell of zero G to look forward to," D.W. said. "You’ll get another shot at bein’ tall when we get where we’re goin’ and have to stop and look around."

  "And when we reverse the engines halfway there," George pointed out. "We’ll be in freefall while we come about."

  "You and Anne gonna try it again?" Jimmy asked. Anne slapped him in the back of the head as she passed behind him to get the pepper from the galley. "You know, George, if you aren’t going to share, it’s not fair to the rest of us."

  Alan Pace looked pained, but there was a chorus of hoots from the rest of them, as they settled around the table. They paused for grace and then passed the food around, laughing and ragging at one another. It was easy to feel they were all back at George and Anne’s place, having dinner. Pleased at how the group was gelling, generally, D.W. listened and let the conversation drift awhile, before holding up a hand. "Okay, listen up, rangers and rangerettes. Here’s the ordo regularis, startin’ tomorrow. "

  The days were divided hour by hour. There would be free time for the four civilians, as D.W. called them, while the four Jesuits convened for the Mass, although anyone was welcome to join them. Classes were scheduled for three hours per day, nominal Sundays excepted, to give further depth to their training and maintain mental discipline, and to make sure that each crew member gained at least a passing knowledge of every other’s specialty. In addition, they were each scheduled for a daily hour of physical training. "Gotta be ready for anything," said the old squadron commander. "Nobody slacks off."

  There were routine maintenance operations and a rotating duty roster. There were clothes and dishes to be cleaned even in space, filters to be changed, plants and fish to be tended, hair and crumbs and unidentifiable orts to be vacuumed, even when traveling at a substantial portion of the speed of light toward God only knew what. But there would also be time for them to pursue private projects. The ship’s computers contained pretty close to the sum of Western knowledge in memory and a fair bit of non-Western data as well, so there was plenty to work with. And each day after lunch, D.W. proposed, they would work together on a joint project. "I have consulted with Miz Mendes, here, on this one," he said, aiming an eye in her direction. "Father Pace is going to teach us to sing the whole of Handel’s Messiah."

  "It’s quite nice music," Sofia said, shrugging in response to the muted surprise around the table. "I have no objection to learning it in anticipation of the appearance of the Messiah. I simply argue that Handel was somewhat premature."

  Another chorus of hoots and whistles broke out, punctuated by George’s "Go get ’em, Sofia!" and Anne’s blissful cry, "We’ve got another duelist at the table!" And D. W. Yarbrough grinned, beaming at Sofia like she was his own personal triumph. Which in some ways she was, Anne thought.

  "Seriously, however, music is why we are here. The one thing we know for certain about the Singers is that they sing," Alan Pace pointed out, accurately if a trifle pedantically, trying to introduce some sort of serious discussion into the conversation. "Music may very well afford us our only means of communication."

  The clink of forks and dishes became audible in the quiet, and Anne was about to say something tart when Sofia Mendes spoke.

  "Oh, I shouldn’t think so. Dr. Sandoz has mastered thirteen languages, six of them in the space of a little over three years," she said coolly, passing the salad to Jimmy, whose own mouth had dropped open at Pace’s comment. "Would you be interested in a wager? If we make contact successfully, I am willing to bet that he’ll have the basic grammar worked out in under two months." She smiled pleasantly at Pace and watched him, brows raised expectantly, as she took another bite of spaghetti.

  "I’ll take a piece of that action, Alan," D.W. said comfortably, looking somewhere in the vicinity of Alan Pace but quite possibly at Sofia or Emilio instead. "You lose, we can call you Al for a month."

  "Ah. Stakes are too high for me," Pace said, backing down smoothly. "I stand corrected, Sandoz."

  "Forget it," said Emilio a little stiffly, and he left the table carrying a plate of half-eaten food to the galley, evidently finished with his meal.

  HE WAS GRATEFUL to hear Anne pick up the conversation after he left, and put himself to work cleaning the pots. Intent on mastering his reaction, he was startled when he heard Sofia Mendes’s voice behind him, and that infuriated him further.

  "Which is worse," she asked levelly, reaching past him to put her dishes on the counter, "to be insulted or to be defended?"

  Emilio stopped scrubbing, not used to having his mind read, and rested his hands on the sink but resumed resolutely a moment later. "Forget it," he said again, without looking at her.

  "It is said that the Sephardim taught pride to the Spaniards," she commented. "I apologize. That was inappropriate. It w
on’t happen again."

  When he turned, she was gone. He swore violently under his breath and wondered, not for the first time, what had ever made him believe he might have the temperament of a priest. Finally, he straightened his shoulders, ran wet hands through his hair and walked back into the common room.

  "I am not a complete jerk," he informed the table formally, and having caught their attention with that, he assured them, "but I could be if I made an honest effort." Through their surprised laughter, he begged pardon of Father Pace for taking offense and Alan reiterated his own regrets as well.

  Emilio took his place at the table again and waited until the others seemed engrossed in the after-dinner talk before he leaned slightly toward Sofia, sitting on his left. "Derech agav," he said quietly, "yeish arba-esrei achshav."

  "I stand corrected," she said, echoing Alan Pace. Her eyes were sparkling, although she didn’t look at him directly. "You’re rolling the r’s a little but otherwise the accent is quite good." By the way, he’d said casually in Sephardic Hebrew that would almost have passed for that of an Israeli native, it’s fourteen now.

  And if Jimmy Quinn and Anne Edwards and D. W. Yarbrough noticed Sofia’s face, because they were all alert to such things for different reasons, they also realized later that this was the last time Emilio Sandoz sat next to the young woman for nearly a year.

  16

  THE STELLA MARIS:

  2031, EARTH-RELATIVE

  IT WAS FIVE months into the voyage when Emilio heard a knock at his door after dinner one night. "Yes?" he called quietly.

  Jimmy Quinn stuck his head into the room. "Got a minute?"

  "Let me check my schedule." Emilio sat up cross-legged on his bed and consulted an appointment book made of air. "Tuesday? Eleven-fifteen?"

  Grinning, Jimmy came all the way in, closing the door behind him. He looked around the little room, never having been inside it before. "Same as mine," he commented. A narrow bunk, a desk and chair, a terminal networked to the ship’s backup computer system. One difference: a crucifix on the wall. "Jeez, you keep it bright in here! Hot, too. I feel like I’m at the beach."

  The priest narrowed his eyes sensuously and shrugged. "What can I say? Latinos like it sunny and warm." But he turned down the light panels to make Jimmy more comfortable and flicked off the display on the ROM tablet he’d been reading, setting it aside. "Have a seat."

  Jimmy swiveled the chair away from the desk and sat looking around for a while. "Emilio," he said, "can I ask you something? A personal question?"

  "Of course, you may ask," Sandoz said a little warily. "I don’t promise I will answer."

  "How do you stand it?" Jimmy suddenly burst out in a strangled whisper. "I mean, I’m going crazy! Look, I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, because I sure as hell am embarrassed, but even D.W. is starting to look good to me! Sofia made it real clear that she’s not interested and—"

  Emilio held up a hand, not wanting further details. "Jim, you knew what the crew complement was when you volunteered. And I’m sure you did not believe that Ms. Mendes was included for your convenience—"

  "Of course not!" Jimmy said, indignant because he had entertained a certain low-level expectation of life’s possibilities in that direction. "I just didn’t know how hard it would be."

  "So to speak," Sandoz murmured, eyes sliding away, a smile flickering on his lips.

  "So to speak. God, this is awful!" Jimmy laughed, wrapping his long arms around his head and contracting into a coil of mortification. Then his limbs uncurled and he looked back at the priest and asked frankly, "Look, seriously, what do you do? I mean, what am I supposed to do?"

  He expected something along the lines of Zenlike self-mastery and Rosaries, so he almost didn’t understand when Emilio looked him in the eye and said, "Take care of yourself, Jim." At first, from the way it was said, with the intonation used to say good-bye to someone, Jimmy thought he was being dismissed. It took a moment to sink in. "Oh. Well, yeah. I do, but …"

  "Then take care of yourself more often. Until it’s not right in the front of your mind all the time."

  "Is that what you do? I mean, maybe after a while, you don’t feel the need anymore, I guess, huh?"

  Emilio’s face closed. "Even priests have private lives, Jim."

  For the first time since meeting the man, Jimmy felt he’d crossed some line and he backpedaled as quickly as he could. "I’m sorry. Really. You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked that. Jesus."

  Sandoz sighed, clearly uncomfortable. "I suppose, under the circumstances … All right. In answer to your first question, I can tell you that in a survey of five hundred celibates, four hundred and ninety-eight of them said that they masturbated."

  "What about the other two?"

  "Elementary, Watson. From their response we may deduce that they had no arms." Before Jimmy had recovered, Emilio continued dryly, "As for your second question, I can only say that after twenty-five years, the need persists."

  "God! Twenty-five years."

  "The first part of your exclamation explains the second part." Emilio ran his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit he had never been able to break. He let his hands fall and rested them on his knees. "You are actually in a more difficult situation than a priest or a nun is. Celibacy is not the same as deprivation. It is an active choice, not simply the absence of opportunity." Jimmy said nothing, so Emilio went on, voice quiet, face and eyes serious. "Look, I’ll be honest with you. Priests differ in their ability to hold themselves to the vow. This is common knowledge, yes? If a priest goes secretly to a woman once a month, he may be stretching his self-control to its limit and he may also be having sex more often than some married men. And yet, the ideal of celibacy still exists for him. And as time goes on, such a priest may come closer and closer to consolidating his celibacy. It’s not that we don’t feel desire. It’s that we hope to reach a point, spiritually, that makes the struggle meaningful."

  Jimmy was quiet. He looked at the grave and unusual face of the man opposite him and when he spoke, he sounded older, somehow. "And you’ve gotten to that point?"

  Unexpectedly, Emilio’s face lit up and he seemed about to say something, but then the fingers combed through the dark hair again and his eyes slid away. "Even priests have private lives," was all he said.

  THAT NIGHT, AS Jimmy lay in his bunk, he remembered a conversation with Anne one evening, back in Puerto Rico. He’d been over at their place for dinner, and George, who always seemed to know when somebody needed to talk to Anne alone, went to bed early. It was three weeks after the first ET radio signal and Jimmy was depressed because everyone thought he’d screwed up, or that Elaine Stefansky was right and he had been the victim of a hoax after all or, worse yet, was responsible for the hoax himself. He still saw Sofia quite often at work and he found himself uncomfortable with Emilio, wondering if they were lovers. He felt jealous and judgmental. And he was troubled by the mixture.

  He beat around the bush for a while, but Anne knew what he was getting at. "No, I don’t think there’s anything going on," she told him plainly. "Not that I’d disapprove, you understand. I think it would do him good to love her and I think it would do her good to be loved, if you want my opinion."

  "But he’s a priest!" Jimmy protested, as though that settled something. "He’s taken vows!"

  "Oh, God, Jimmy! Why are we so damned hard on priests when they find someone to love? What exactly is the crime here?" she demanded. "What is so terrible about loving a woman! Or even just needing to get laid once in a while, for crying out loud."

  He’d been speechless at that. Anne had a directness that shocked him sometimes. She reached out for her glass of wine but only twirled the stem in her fingers, rotating it slowly, watching the burgundy glow in the low light. "We all make vows, Jimmy. And there is something very beautiful and touching and noble about wanting good impulses to be permanent and true forever," she said. "Most of us stand up and vow to love, honor and cherish someone. And we rea
lly truly mean it, at the time. But two or twelve or twenty years down the road, the lawyers are negotiating the property settlement."

  "You and George didn’t go back on your promises."

  She laughed. "Lemme tell ya something, sweetface. I have been married at least four times, to four different men." She watched him chew that over for a moment before continuing, "They’ve all been named George Edwards but, believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole different animal from the boy I married, back before there was dirt. Oh, there are continuities. He has always been fun and he has never been able to budget his time properly and—well, the rest is none of your business."

  "But people change," he said quietly.

  "Precisely. People change. Cultures change. Empires rise and fall. Shit. Geology changes! Every ten years or so, George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we’ve had to decide if it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people." She flopped back against her chair. "Which is why vows are such a tricky business. Because nothing stays the same forever. Okay. Okay! I’m figuring something out now." She sat up straight, eyes focused somewhere outside the room, and Jimmy realized that even Anne didn’t have all the answers and that was either the most comforting thing he’d learned in a long time or the most discouraging. "Maybe because so few of us would be able to give up something so fundamental for something so abstract, we protect ourselves from the nobility of a priest’s vows by jeering at him when he can’t live up to them, always and forever." She shivered and slumped suddenly. "But, Jimmy! What unnatural words. Always and forever! Those aren’t human words, Jim. Not even stones are always and forever."

  He had been taken aback by her vehemence. He thought that because she and George had been married so long, she’d have high standards for everyone. A promise is a promise, he wanted her to say, so he could be angry with Emilio and hate his father for leaving his mother and believe that it would be different for him, that he’d never lie or cheat or run out on his wife or have an affair. He wanted to believe that love, when it came to him, would be always and forever.