Children of God s-2

by Mary Doria Russel

  EVENTUALLY THE TIME CAME FOR THE OLDEST OF THE TRUCHA SAI girls to leave. Sofia asked that the brightest of them be allowed to stay in the forest, to become teachers in other villages like Trucha Sai—mling with young Runa as the front lines expanded and fathers fell back to raise their children far from the fierno of war. The answer was almost always, "No. Boys can teach. It is the women’s way to die for children."

  Sofia understood this, and did not weep when girls were judged ready to join the struggle, and left the forest to be devoured not by djanada but by revolution. It was, she realized, just as well that she could love the Runa as a people, but rarely mourned them as individuals.

  Her mistake, if that was what it was, lay in loving Ha’anala.

  HA’ANALA: HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER-QUICK AND DECENT AND FULL of energy, who repaid with intellectual interest all that Sofia Mendes could offer a child, who wanted more of an answer to "Why should I be good?" than "Making a fierno brings thunderstorms." Ha’anala, who could hold in her mind both science and song, fact and fable; who could, as young as nine, move easily from the Big Bang to "Let there be light."

  I am making a Jew of her, Sofia thought one day, alarmed. But then she asked herself, Why not? Ha’anala loved the stories that Sofia told to satisfy the child’s hunger for authoritative answers. So Sofia freely drew upon ancient parables to teach enduring morals, with slight emendations to allow for local conditions. The story of the Garden was a favorite because it seemed so like the forest in which they lived. Following Isaac on his solitary wanderings through the trees, it was easy to believe that they were all alone, with no one but God and each other for companions.

  But Ha’anala was her own person and drew her own conclusions and one day, she stopped in her tracks and said, "Sipaj, Fia: God lied."

  Startled, Sofia stopped as well and looked back at her, her eye moving nervously between Isaac, who continued on his way, and Ha’anala, who stood her ground.

  "The wife and husband didn’t die, and they knew good and evil," Ha’anala said in English, looking up at Sofia with her head cocked back, the image of her father about to issue a declaration. "God lied. The longneck told the truth."

  "I never thought of that," Sofia said after a moment. "Well, they did die eventually, but not that day. So, both God and the longneck told part of the truth, I suppose. They had different reasons for what they did." Which led, as they began to walk again, to a long, delicious discussion of complete honesty, partial truth, tact, and deliberate deception for personal gain.

  Sofia would report all this to Supaari in their daily radio contacts, sharing stories of his daughter’s insights, of her cleverness and creativity, her mischief and essential goodness. His reaction told Sofia a great deal. If he had been behind Runa lines for a time, he would soften and laugh and ask questions. But if he had been in a city, among the Jana’ata, steeped in Runa scent, dressed as a Runao, silently accepting humiliation and unthinking slights as he spied on fortifications and the strength of a garrison, then stories of his daughter’s squandered splendor would fuel his anger.

  "They wanted her dead," he would say, with a cold fury that Sofia understood and shared. "They wanted such a child dead!"

  And yet, he hardly ever visited Ha’anala. Sofia understood this, too. He could not let himself be weakened. He needed to focus on war’s clean and uncomplicated emotions. It was necessary that his daily companion be not a child of bright promise with no future but a Runao whose reputation for ferocity of devotion to the making of a new world matched his own— Djalao VaKashan.

  It seemed quite likely that they were lovers. Sofia knew that this was both possible and accepted, among VaRakhati of both species. Djalao had taken no husband. "The people are my children," she said. Sofia understood as well what Djalao represented to Supaari: respect earned and acceptance given, recognition that this one djanada was worthy to be called one of the People. Supaari shared danger with Djalao, Sofia told herself, and dreams and work. Why not share respite as well? She did not begrudge them that small comfort.

  Another woman might have been jealous, but not Sofia Mendes. She had, after all, survived a great deal by blocking out emotion—her own and others’. And love was a debt, best left unincurred.

  25

  City of Gayjur

  2082, Earth-Relative

  "WHEN DID ISAAC FIRST BECOME INTERESTED IN GENETICS?" DANIEL IRON Horse would ask Sofia, near the end of her life.

  She was all but blind by then, one eye clouded by a cataract, the other gone; bent nearly in half by a lifetime without the calcium her bones had needed. A crone, she thought. A ruin. But she said aloud, "It was when we were all still living in Trucha Sai, Isaac and Ha’anala and I. Isaac was twenty, I think. Perhaps twenty-five, by your count—the years are longer here. It was just before he left." She sat for a time remembering. "He became, I think, increasingly unsuited to life among the Runa. The constant talk—. Well, you get used to it. You learn to tune it out. But Isaac couldn’t do that, and the noise seemed almost painful to him. When he was younger, he would press his fingers into his ears and moan—just make his own noise to drown the talk out. But he simply couldn’t stand it as he got older. He spent more and more time by himself, and one day he disappeared."

  "And Ha’anala followed him?"

  "Yes."

  The priests were always so patient with her when she stopped speaking. Sometimes she simply forgot what they had asked and got lost in her own thoughts, but not this time. This was simply difficult to face, and she found it necessary to approach it from a distance. "You see, the Runa children had questions about the weather and the suns and moons, and about plants," she told Danny. "Where does rain come from? they wanted to know. Why do the moons change shape? Where do the suns go at night? How do little seeds make giant w’ralia trees? Good questions. I had to work hard to answer them, to keep up with those children. They kept my mind alive. But they never asked about human differences, about differences among the species." She paused, still struck by this. "It was Ha’anala who asked those questions. Why don’t you and Isaac have tails? What happened to your fur? She wanted to know, Why do I have only three fingers, not five like everyone else?"

  "What did you tell her?" Danny asked gently.

  Such a quiet man, Sofia thought. So careful with her, so loath to judge. When she was very young, Sofia had thought of priests as condemning and punitive. Whatever made me believe that? she wondered. Not knowing any priests, perhaps. That was the root of so much fear and hatred, she realized. Not knowing any…

  You’re drifting, Mendes, she told herself, and came back to his question. "Well, at first, I told her what Marc Robichaux always used to say about things like that: Because that’s the way God likes it." She reached out, to feel Danny’s face, to see if he was smiling. The beardless skin was so smooth…. Keep to the point, Mendes, she scolded. "Ha’anala understood the difference between God and science, that there were different ways— parallel ways—to think about the world. So. There were very good AI genetics tutorials in the Magellan library, of course. We downloaded those. There were graphics of the DNA helices for humans, and my own tablet’s memory had the work on VaRakhati genetics that Anne Edwards and Marc Robichaux did. So I showed her those data as well."

  "And Isaac? Did you show him? DNA sequences for all three species?"

  "Not directly. Isaac was often nearby when I taught Ha’anala. I had the impression he was listening sometimes. He must have been, I guess. I didn’t realize how closely he was paying attention. Or perhaps he went back to the tutorials on his own. Autistics of normal or superior intelligence sometimes read very deeply on one subject at a time." It must have seemed to him to be the perfect reduction of life’s chaos and noise to its constituent elements, she thought. Simple, neat, explanatory. Adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine—that was all you needed.

  There was a long silence. Maybe Danny’s mind wandered as well, Sofia thought. "Mrs. Quinn," he said after a time, and she smiled sightlessl
y. How quaint, to be called that now, here, after so many years… "Did you ever suspect, about Isaac? Was there anything that made you think that he might be…?"

  No one could say the word. It was too frightening. "No," she said. "Not until I heard the music. I had no idea. But I knew from the beginning that Ha’anala was something special. Once, when I was trying to explain to her about the war, I told her the story of the Exodus. I meant for her to learn about the liberation of the Hebrew slaves, so that she could understand why the Runa were fighting, but she couldn’t get over the VR displays of Egypt, and the hundreds of gods of Egypt. A few days later, Ha’anala said, ’The Egyptians could see their gods. If you wanted to talk to the god of the river, you dressed well, made yourself ready and went to him. He saw you only at your best. The God of Israel can’t be seen, but he sees us—when we are ready, when we are not ready, when we are at our best or at our worst or paying no attention. Nothing can be hidden from such a God. That’s why people fear Him.’»

  "A remarkable insight," Danny Iron Horse observed.

  "Yes. She was an extraordinary child—" Sofia stopped, struck by a thought. Perhaps Ha’anala wasn’t extraordinary. Perhaps she was just what others of her kind could have been, but Sofia hadn’t known any others. Except Supaari. And now…. So many dead, she thought, her small, arthritic hands curled on her thighs. So many dead…

  That was when the other priest spoke up. Sean Fein. "And what did y’tell her about the God of Israel?" he asked.

  How long has he been listening? Sofia wondered irritably. John Candotti always tells me when he’s here. Why don’t people speak up? Then she thought, Maybe Sean did, and I forgot. "I told her, That is why my people fear God, but also why we love Him, because He sees all we do, knows all we are, and still loves us."

  As was so often the case these days, she drifted away then, to spend her time with people who were long gone, who were more real to her than these new ones. "Even if it’s only poetry, it’s poetry to live by, Sofia—poetry to die for," D. W. Yarbrough had told her—when? Fifty years ago? Sixty? And she herself was so old, so old. She didn’t know if there was an afterlife, but she had begun to hope so, not because she feared oblivion, but simply because she wanted to know if she had done the right thing.

  It might have been a minute, or an hour, or a day later when she spoke again. "Once I told Ha’anala about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah," she said, and waited for some response.

  "I’m right here, Sofia," John told her.

  "I told her how Abraham bargained with God for the lives of ten righteous men who might have lived there. She said to me, ’Abraham should have taken the babies from the cities. The babies were innocent.’ " Sofia turned her face toward John’s voice. "I wasn’t wrong to tell her the stories," she said. "I don’t believe that I was wrong."

  "You did the right thing," John Candotti told her. "I’m sure of it."

  She slept then. John’s faith was enough.

  26

  Giordano Bruno

  2065, Earth-Relative

  "WHAT? WHAT IS IT?" SANDOZ ASKED, SHIELDING HIS EYES AGAINST THE sudden light with an arm thrown across his face.

  "You were screaming again," John told him.

  Emilio sat up in his bunk, puzzled, but not distressed. He squinted at John, who was standing half-naked in the cabin doorway. "Sorry," Emilio said blandly. "Didn’t mean to wake you up."

  "Emilio, this can’t go on," John said tightly. "You’ve got to make Carlo take you off this drug."

  "I don’t see why, John. It helps with my hands, and I’ve been overamped so long, it’s kind of nice not to give a damn about anything."

  John gaped at him. "You’re screaming damned near every night!"

  "Yeah, well, the nightmares have been bad for years. At least now I don’t remember them when I wake up." Moving back to lean against the bulkhead, he studied John with an infuriatingly tolerant amusement. "If the noise bothers you, I could move back into the sick bay—that room’s soundproofed

  "Jesus, Emitio—it’s not my sleep I’m worried about!" John cried. "I looked this Quell shit up, okay? You are going into debt, man. You don’t feel anything directly, but the bill is coming due! Look at how you’re-breathing! Pay attention! Your heart is racing, right?" Sandoz frowned, and then nodded, but shrugged. "Quell’s only supposed to be used for a couple of days at a time. You’ve been on it for almost two months! You’ve got to come back to reality some time, and the sooner the better—"

  "Jeez, John, relax, will you? Maybe you should try this stuff—"

  John stared at him, openmouthed. "You’re not thinking straight," he said flatly, and with that, he touched off the light and left, closing the cabin door behind him.

  EMILIO SANDOZ SAT FOR A TIME PROPPED AGAINST THE BULKHEAD, ruined hands limp and nerveless in his lap, as his body cooled. He tried to reconstruct the nightmare that had jarred John awake, but was content when it stayed just beyond his mind’s reach.

  Nocturnal amnesia was quite possibly the best part about being doped, he decided.

  He had always paid attention to dreams. Early in formation, he’d made a habit of thinking about the last one of the night, probing for anxieties and hidden concerns that hadn’t yet surfaced in his waking life. But for the past three years, his dreams had rarely required interpretation. Terrifying in their unadorned verisimilitude, his ordinary nightmares were plain and simple reenactments of incidents during his last year on Rakhat. Even now, drugged and placid, he could see it all: the slaughter, the poets. Not needing to dream, he could hear the sounds of massacre and of violation. Taste the meat of infants. Feel the unbreakable grip, the hot breath on the back of his neck. Watch from a distance as he shouted God’s name and heard nothing but his own sobbing and a rapist’s labored groan of satisfaction…

  Night after night, he’d awakened from such dreams nauseated to the point of vomiting. The screaming was new. Had the nightmares themselves changed? he wondered, and answered himself: Who cares? Screaming beats the hell out of throwing up.

  John was probably right—he’d have to return to reality sometime, he supposed. But reality didn’t have a great deal to recommend it these days, and Emilio was quite willing to exchange whatever message was embedded in these new dreams for the artificial tranquility of Quell.

  Chemical Zen, he thought, as he slid back down under the covers of his bunk, submerging again in the drug’s quietude. Cops’re probably handing this crap out on the street comers like candy.

  Just before he dozed off, he wondered idly, Christ—what kind of dream would it take, to make me scream? But, like Pius IX after the Mortara boy’s kidnapping, ipse vero dormiebat: he slept well after that.

  NO ONE ELSE DID.

  John Candotti went directly from Sandoz’s cabin to his own, where he activated the intercom codes needed to speak to everyone but Emilio. "Commons. Five minutes," he said, in a voice that left no doubt that he would personally drag each of them out of bed if they didn’t come voluntarily.

  There was a certain amount of grumbling, but no one could pretend they hadn’t been startled awake again by the screams, so, one by one, they appeared as summoned. John waited silently, arms over his chest, until Carlo finally strolled in, fresh-looking and beautifully dressed, as always, with Nico in his wake.

  "Okay," John said with tight and quiet courtesy, looking at each of them in turn, "you’ve all got your reasons. But he’s no good to anybody if he’s psychotic, and that’s where this is heading!"

  Sean nodded, rubbing his prematurely drooping jowls with both hands. "Candotti’s right. Y’ can’t fack with the man’s neurochemistry forever," he told Carlo. "This’ll get worse."

  "I have to agree," Joseba said, raking fingers through the snarled mess of his hair and studying Iron Horse. He stretched and yawned. "Whatever the motive for drugging him in the beginning, it’s time to deal with the consequences."

  "I imagine he’s over his sulk by now," said Carlo, shrugging ersatz indifference, for
his own dreams lately had been of falling alone through black places that appeared under his feet and had no bottom. It was difficult not to be unnerved by Sandoz’s nightmares. "Your call, Iron Horse," he said lightly, quite willing to let Danny take the rap.

  "It’s not just the Quell," John warned, glaring at Danny. "It’s having his life wrecked—again. It’s being screwed over—again, and this time by people he should have been able to trust. There’s a lot to answer for."

  "Lock up the knives," Frans Vanderhelst advised cheerfully, his pale belly lunar in the dim light of a shipboard night, "or the Chief is going to get it in the back."

  Nico shook his head. "There will be no fighting on the Bruno," he said firmly, pleased when Don Carlo nodded his approval.

  "I’ll speak to him, then, Danny, shall I?" Sean Fein asked.

  Iron Horse nodded and left the commons, without having said a word.

  "FOR YOU, CHEMISTRY IS HOLY ORDER AND SACRED BEAUTY," VINCENZO Giuliani had remarked on the day he’d assigned Sean to the Rakhat mission. "Humans simply fuck things up, don’t they, Father Fein."

  And there was no point in denying the observation.

  Sean Fein was only nine when he received his first imperishable lesson in human folly. The movement that made an orphan of him had gotten its start in the Philippines in 2024, the year he was born, but by the time it reached its peak in 2033, he was old enough to be concerned. It had seemed that Belfast, for once, would not get caught up in the craziness; having concentrated venomous attention on the hairsbreadth of difference between its Catholic and Protestant citizens, the town seemed not to notice the odd Jew here and there in its brick mazes. And yet there had been great expectation that the second millennium since the Crucifixion would end with the Second Coming of Christ. When Jesus failed to materialize on the millennialists’ timetable, the rumor began that it was the Jews’ fault because they didn’t believe.