Children of God s-2

by Mary Doria Russel

  THERE WERE, OF COURSE, MANY WAYS TO OBTAIN COOPERATION. CARLO had, at one time, considered having Gina and Celestina killed, to loosen Sandoz’s ties to Earth, but had rejected the idea. Sandoz was more likely to commit suicide under those circumstances than to work out his grief in space. Studying his quarry, Carlo settled on a judicious combination of direct force, modern chemistry and traditional threat.

  "I will come straight to the point," Carlo said briskly, entering the medical bay one morning, after Nico had reported that Sandoz was dressed and calm, and prepared now to discuss the situation rationally. "I would like you to consider working for me."

  "You have interpreters."

  "Yes," Carlo conceded readily, "but without your breadth of experience. It will take the others years to develop the knowledge of Rakhat that you carry—consciously and unconsciously. I have waited a long while to come into my own, Sandoz. Decades will pass on Earth while we make this journey. I have no intention of wasting additional time."

  Sandoz looked faintly amused. "So. What deal am I offered?"

  His speech was a little slurred. Carlo made a mental note to reduce the dosage. "I am a reasonable man, Sandoz. For a mere cessation of hostility to the mission, you will be allowed to send a message back to Gina and my daughter. If, however, you attempt to undermine my plans or harm me in any way, now or in the future," Carlo Giuliani warned regretfully, "I’m afraid John Candotti will die."

  "Iron Horse, I presume, suggested that particular carrot and stick."

  "Only indirectly," Carlo confided. "Interesting man, Iron Horse. I don’t envy him. He was placed in a difficult position. Isn’t that what they used to say about the Jesuits? They stood between the world and the Church, and got shot at by both sides. Speaking of difficult positions, by the way, Candotti is in the lander hangar now. If I don’t countermand my instructions within ten minutes, my people will vent it to vacuum."

  There was no reaction but, after a time, Sandoz asked, "And for active cooperation?"

  Carlo leaned toward a mirrored medicine cabinet for a moment of contemplation, his long-nosed, high-boned face serious under a cap of golden hair, cropped but curling: Apollo come to life. "There will be money, of course, but—" He shrugged an acknowledgment of the paltriness of such a motive; in any case, Sandoz had money. "And a place in history! But you have that as well. So," he continued, turning back to Sandoz, "for active cooperation, I am prepared to offer you an opportunity for revenge. Or justice, depending on how you look at it."

  Sandoz sat for a time, staring at his hands. Carlo watched with unconcealed interest as the man straightened the fingers and then let them drop, their fall from his wrist bones almost beautiful, the ribboning scars faded to ivory. "The nerves to the flexors were destroyed, for the most part. As you see, the extensor muscles are still fairly well innervated," Sandoz pointed out with clinical accuracy: he had cross-trained as a medic for the first mission, and was quite knowledgeable about hand anatomy now. Over and over, the fingers straightened and dropped. "Perhaps it’s a sign," he said. "I can’t grasp anything. All I can do is let things go."

  How very Zen, Carlo thought, but he didn’t say it. Not that Sandoz would have been angered—nothing could anger him now, although Carlo had taken the precaution of stationing Nico just outside the door.

  "Cooperation in what?" Sandoz asked, coming back to the point.

  "Simply stated, my goal is to establish trade with the VaRakhati," Carlo said. "The cargo Supaari VaGayjur sent back with you on the Stella Maris was remarkable in many ways, not least of which was the price that even the most insignificant item of Runa manufacture brought from museums and private collectors. Imagine what could be accomplished if the cargo were chosen with its intended market in mind, rather than according to the tastes of a Jana’ata merchant. I expect this enterprise to make me immensely wealthy, and completely independent of the opinions of others."

  "And what do you bring in trade, Don Carlo?"

  Carlo shrugged. "Most of it is quite innocuous, I assure you. Pearls, perfumes. Coffee, of course. Botanicals with distinctive scents—cinnamon, oregano. Belgian ribbon- and lace-manufacturing equipment that can produce multiple colors, patterns, varying weaves. Given the Runa taste for novelty, I should do quite well." Carlo smiled disarmingly and waited for the obvious question, Then why do you need me?

  The maimed hands quieted and basilisk eyes lifted to meet Carlo’s own. "You mentioned revenge."

  "You prefer that term to justice? Perhaps we can do business after all," Carlo cried good-humoredly. Sitting in the sickbay chair, he rested an ankle on his knee, watching his man carefully. "I have studied the relationship between predators and prey, Sandoz. It interests me. I would argue that the human species came into its own when it stopped being prey, when it turned on its predators and made itself master of its own fate. There are no wolves in the streets of Moscow or Rome," he pointed out. "There are no pumas in Madrid or Los Angeles. No tigers in Delhi, no lions in Jerusalem. Why should there be Jana’ata in Gayjur?" He stopped, his gray eyes unreadable. "I know what it is to be prey, Sandoz. As do you. Be honest: when you watched the Jana’ata slaughter and eat Runa infants, it wasn’t like watching bear eat salmon, was it?"

  "No. It wasn’t."

  "Even before you left Rakhat, some Runa had already begun to fight back. The Contact Consortium reported that there were minor rebellions all over southern Inbrokar after your party demonstrated that tyranny could be resisted." He paused, genuinely puzzled. "The Jesuits seem ashamed of this! I cannot imagine why. Your own Pedro Arrupe said that injustice is atheism in action! No human society has ever wrested liberty from its oppressors without violence. Those in power rarely give up privilege voluntarily. What was it you said at the hearings? ’If the Runa were to rise against their Jana’ata masters, their only weapon would be their numbers.’ We can change that, Sandoz."

  "Command-and-control communications equipment?" Sandoz suggested. "Weaponry adapted to Runa requirements, and manufactured on site."

  "I am certainly prepared to provide such technical support," said Carlo. "What is more important, I would not hesitate to suggest the ideology necessary to wrest liberty, equality and justice from their Jana’ata overlords."

  "You wish to rule."

  "As a transitional figure only. ’For all things fade and quickly become legend, soon to be lost in utter forgetting,’ " Carlo recited, quoting Aurelius grandly. "There is, nevertheless, a certain appeal to the notion of being immortalized in Runa mythology—as their Moses, perhaps! With you as my Aaron, speaking to Pharaoh."

  "So. Not just southern Italy," Sandoz observed. "Not just Europe, an old whore, corrupted long ago, but a whole virgin planet. Your father will never know, Carlo. He’ll be dead before you return."

  "Now there’s a cheerful thought," Carlo remarked comfortably. "Almost makes one glad for hell. I’ll tell him all about it when I arrive. Do you believe in hell, Sandoz, or are ex-Jesuits too sophisticated for that kind of melodrama?"

  " ’Why this is hell, nor am I out of it: Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God am not tormented with ten thousand hells?’»

  "Mephistopheles!" Carlo cried, amused. "My role in the drama, surely, although you look the part. You know, I’ve always thought it was a tactical mistake for God to love us in the aggregate, when Satan is willing to make a special effort to seduce each of us separately." Carlo smiled, Apollonian beauty transformed by what he knew to be a devastating little-boy grin. "An inspiration!" he announced joyfully. "Shall we amuse ourselves? Shall we plumb our depths? Surely, even on a journey such as this, the greatest adventure is the exploration of the human soul. I offer you a bargain: you may decide whether or not we liberate the Runa! We shall pit my thirst for operatic grandeur against your moral strength. An interesting contest, do you agree?"

  Sandoz lifted his head away from the bulkhead and gazed at Carlo from a drug-mediated distance. "John must be anxious," he said. "I should like a little time to consider
your proposal in full. For now, I give my word not to interfere with your business arrangements. I agree to nothing further, but perhaps that will do as earnest money on what’s left of my soul?"

  "Nicely," Carlo said, smiling benignly. "Very nicely indeed."

  THEY LEFT THE SICK BAY, AND EMILIO FOLLOWED CARLO ALONG A CURVING hallway and up the spiral of a ship’s ladder. He had the impression of a hexagonal plan, the chambers fitting together like the space-efficient cells of a remarkably luxurious beehive: carpeted, quiet, beautifully appointed. There were at least three levels, stacked up, and undoubtedly storage bays he couldn’t see.

  Making a turn around a final bulkhead before coming to the central commons room, he glanced into a bridge, off to one side, and saw a bank of photonics glowing with graphics and text. He could hear the thrumming of fans and filter motors and the musical splash of fish-tank aeration and the faint grinding sound of mining robots shunting slag to the mass drivers, which provided acceleration and gravity simultaneously. Like the Stella Maris, this ship was based on a partially mined asteroid and much of its fundamental equipment was recognizable. The air-and-waste system included a Wolverton plant tube in the central cell. Full marks to God, Emilio thought. Plants still do a better job of making air than anything humans have invented.

  It was only after taking in the general layout of the room that he looked at the six men who now stood or sat staring back at him.

  "You knew," Sandoz said to Danny Iron Horse. Joseba Urizarbarrena turned, open-mouthed, toward Danny. Sean Fein’s expression was already beginning to harden into censure. "A sin of omission," Sandoz commented, but Danny said nothing.

  "Your braces are in storage, Sandoz," Carlo said. "Would you like them now?"

  "After I get John, thank you. Where is the hangar hatch, please?"

  "Nico!" said Carlo, "show Don Emilio the way."

  Nico stepped forward and led Sandoz through a corridor. "Two landers, Sandoz!" Carlo called out while the air pressures between the crew quarters and the cavernous hangar were being equalized. "Both with fuel efficiency and range vastly improved over the lander that failed you in the first mission. And one of mine is a drone that can be operated remotely. I have learned from my predecessors’ mistakes! The crew of the Giordano Bruno shall not be marooned on the surface of Rakhat!"

  There was a sighing hush as Nico unlocked the hatch. "Per favore," Sandoz asked, "un momento solo, si?"

  Nico looked back down the passageway to Carlo for permission. This was granted with a regal nod. Stepping out of the way, Nico held the hatch open for Sandoz.

  He stepped through, the heavy steel door closing behind him with a metallic clang that would have been terrifying if he weren’t doped to the gills. Working his way around the landers, he stopped to check the tie-downs and the cargo doors. Everything was secure. Even the engines’ bell housings were clean. Then he spotted John. Candotti was sitting on the uneven surface of the floor, his back against the roughly sealed bulkhead, just behind the drone.

  Gray as the stone guts of the asteroid that formed the Bruno’s hull, John looked up as Emilio ducked under the lander fuselage and stood above him. "Oh, my God," John moaned miserably. "Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse."

  "Take it from a man who knows," Emilio said, voice slightly blurred. "Things can always get worse."

  "Emilio, I swear, I didn’t know!" John said, starting to cry again. "I knew Carlo had somebody in the sick bay, but I didn’t know who or why—. I should have tried—. Oh, Jesus…"

  "It’s okay, John. There was nothing you could have done." Even drugged, Emilio knew how to go through the motions: what to do and what to say. "That’s better," he said, kneeling next to Candotti, using his wrists to pull the larger man’s head to his chest. "It’s better to cry," he said, but he didn’t feel anything, not really. Odd, he thought numbly, as John sobbed. This is what I wished for, all those months before Gina…

  "I couldn’t pray," John said in a small voice.

  "It’s okay, John."

  "I sat here by the door so I wouldn’t make a mess and foul up the landing gear," John said, sucking in snot and trying to get a grip on himself. "Carlo told Nico that if he didn’t come back in ten minutes, vent the bay! I couldn’t pray. All I could think about was raspberry jam." He made a sound like an explosion and grinned wetly, eyes raw. "Too many space vids."

  "I know. It’s okay." His hands were bad, but he let John cling to him in spite of that, and realized with detached interest that the pain was easier to tolerate because he couldn’t seem to worry that it would be permanent this time. A useful lesson, he thought, looking over John’s head at the exterior hangar doors. They were free of dust and had been cycled recently. "Come on," he said. "Let’s go inside. Can you stand?"

  "Yeah. Sure." John got to his feet on his own and wiped his face, but flopped against the sealed rock wall, looking even more loosely strung together than usual. "Okay," he said after a time.

  When they got to the hatch that led back into the living quarters of the ship, Emilio motioned for John to bang on it, not wanting to jar his own hands. "Don’t give ’em anything, John," he said as they waited for the door to be reopened. John looked blank at first, but then nodded and stood straighter.

  "Words to live by," Emilio Sandoz said quietly, not seeing John anymore. "Don’t give the bastards a goddamned thing."

  IT WAS NOT NICO BUT SEAN FEIN, LOOKING LIKE THE WRATH OF GOD, WHO reopened the door for them and silently took charge of John, shepherding him around a bulkhead toward the upper-deck cabins. Carlo was nowhere to be seen and Iron Horse was gone as well, but Joseba’s voice, demanding and insistent, could be heard indistinctly from somewhere below the commons.

  The braces were waiting on the table, where Nico was eating lunch with a square and fleshy person whose gross bulk made a remarkable contrast to his flowery Impressionist coloring: jonquil-yellow hair falling lankly over skin of rosebud pink and eyes of hyacinth blue.

  Sandoz sat down and dragged the braces closer, drawing his hands into them, one by one.

  "Frans Vanderhelst," the fat man said, by way of introduction. "Pilot."

  "Emilio Sandoz," his table companion replied. "Conscript." Hands in his lap, he regarded the huge young man who sat next to Frans. "And you are Nico," Sandoz acknowledged, "but we have not been formally introduced."

  "Emilio Sandoz: Niccolo d’Angeli," said Frans obligingly, around a mouthful of food. "He doesn’t say much, but—chizz è un brav’ scugnizz’— you’re a good boy, aren’t you, Nico? Si un brav’ scugnizz’, eh, Nico?"

  Nico dabbed at his mouth with a napkin before speaking, careful of his nose, which was faintly discolored. "Brav scugnizz," he affirmed obediently, liquid brown eyes serious in a skull that was a little small for a man of his size.

  "How’s your nose, Nico?" Sandoz asked without a hint of malice. "Still sore?" Nico seemed to be thinking hard about something else, so Sandoz turned to Frans. "Last time we met, you were helping Nico kick the shit out of me, as I recall."

  "You were fucking with the navigation programs," Frans pointed out reasonably, taking another bite. "Nico and I were only doing our jobs. No hard feelings?"

  "No feelings at all, as far as I can tell," Sandoz reported amiably. "I presume from your accent that you are from… Johannesburg, yes?" Frans inclined his head: very good! "And from your name, that you are not a Catholic."

  Vanderhelst swallowed and made an offended face. "Dutch Reformed agnostic—very different from a Catholic agnostic, mind you."

  Sandoz nodded, accepting the observation without comment. He leaned back in his chair and looked around.

  "The best of everything," Frans pointed out, following Sandoz’s gaze. Every fixture, every piece of equipment was shining, dustless and neatly stowed or properly in use, Frans noted with pride. The Giordano Bruno was a well-run ship. And a hospitable one—Frans raised his nearly invisible yellow eyebrows, along with a bottle of pinot grigio. Sandoz shrugged: Why not? "Glass
es’re stowed on the second shelf above the sink," Frans told him, going back to his meal. "You can get yourself something to eat if you’re hungry. Plenty to choose from. The boss sets a nice table."

  Sandoz stood and moved to the galley. Frans listened to him unlocking spot lids and opening food storage compartments to look over the possibilities, which were dazzling. A few minutes later, Sandoz returned with a glass in one robot hand and a plate of chicken cacciatore in the other. "You do pretty well with those things," Frans said, motioning at the braces with his fork.

  "Yes. Takes practice," Sandoz said without emotion. He poured himself some wine and took a sip before starting on the stew. "This is excellent," he said after a time.

  "Nico made it," Frans told him. "Nico is a man of many talents."

  Nico beamed. "I like to cook," he said. "Bucatini al dente, grilled scamorza, pizza Margherita, eggplant fritatas…"

  "I thought you didn’t eat meat," said Frans, as Sandoz chewed chicken.

  Sandoz looked down at his plate. "I’ll be damned," he remarked mildly. "And my hands are killing me, but I don’t seem to care about that either. What am I on?"

  "It’s a variant of Quell," said Danny Iron Horse, just behind him. He moved noiselessly around the table and stood behind Nico, across from Sandoz. Frans, feeling very happy, looked from one face to the other like a spectator at Wimbledon. "It’s generally used to control prison riots," Iron Horse said. "Leaves cognition intact. Emotion is flattened."

  "Your idea?" Sandoz asked.

  "Carlo’s, but I didn’t try to talk him out of it." Danny might have been doped on Quell himself for all the emotion he showed; Frans began to be disappointed.

  "Interesting drug," Sandoz commented. He picked up a knife, examining its edge idly, and then glanced at his plate. "The smell of meat has nauseated me ever since the massacres, but now…" He shrugged, raising his eyes from the blade to Iron Horse. "I believe I could cut out your heart and eat it," he said, sounding vaguely surprised, "if I thought it would buy me ten minutes with my family."