Children of God s-2

by Mary Doria Russel

  Frans said, "Sandoz, I’ve got a fix on your transmission site near what looks—"

  "You needn’t mention the coordinates, Frans. We may be overheard," Emilio cautioned. "I need an answer, gentlemen. There’s not a lot of time to waste.’’’

  "An epic, you say?" Carlo asked, self-mockery plain. "Well, perhaps I can work out something more lucrative later. I’ll send the lander, Sandoz. You can pay me back when we get home."

  "Don’t tempt me," Emilio warned him with a small laugh, and they made arrangements for the landing.

  N’Jarr Valley

  October 2078, Earth-Relative

  HA’ANALA HAD TWO DREAMS THAT NIGHT. HER THIRD CHILD—THE unnamed stillbirth—appeared at the doorway, small and fetal but cheerful, his face full of mischief. "Where have you been?" Ha’anala cried when she saw him. "It’s nearly redlight! You shouldn’t stay out so long!" she scolded affectionately, and the baby answered, "You shouldn’t worry about me!"

  She roused briefly, with a sensation of tightness across her belly, but the visit from her dream son was reassuring and she drifted back to the heavy sleep that had characterized this pregnancy. The second dream was also of a dead child but, this time, she relived the last few minutes of Urkinal’s life and awoke with a start, the hiss and rattle of his tiny lungs in her ears.

  Suukmel, who had moved in with her while Shetri was gone, came awake in an instant. "Is it time?" she asked quietly in the thin light of dawn.

  "No," Ha’anala whispered. "I had a dream." She sat up with a graceless lurch but as carefully as she could, not wanting to wake Sofi’ala, sleeping in the nest beside her. Another gray day, she noted, peering out through cracks in the stonework. There was no sound yet from the other houses. "The children came to visit again last night."

  "Someone should tie ribbons on your arms," Suukmel said, smiling at the superstition.

  But Ha’anala shuddered, as much from the chill of the sunless morning as from the memory of a small rattling chest. "I wish Shetri hadn’t gone. Was Ma with you when your daughters were bom?"

  "Oh, no," Suukmel said, getting to her feet and beginning the morning chores. "Ma would never have come near a birth—very unseemly. The women of my caste were always alone—well, not alone. We had Runa. Men generally had nothing to do with women and birth, apart from providing the impetus for the event. And I can’t say that I’d have welcomed an audience."

  "I don’t want an audience, I want company!" Ha’anala shifted her position and rested her back against her husband’s rolled-up sleeping nest. She felt vaguely uneasy, despite the fact that they’d received good news directly from Shetri, via the Bruno. He and the others were well and would be arriving today, with the foreigners, in an extraordinary craft that could bring them home quickly and without detection. "Even if Shetri can’t stand to be here when the baby’s born, I’ll be glad—"

  She stopped, face still. At last! she thought, welcoming the wave of cramp, rolling from top to bottom. When she raised her eyes, Suukmel was watching knowingly. "Don’t tell anyone else yet," Ha’anala said, glancing significantly at Sofi’ala, who was beginning to stir. "I want company, not a fierno."

  "I’m hungry!" Sofi’ala whined, eyes still closed. It was the inevitable morning greeting, this time of year.

  "Your father’s bringing wonderful things to eat," Suukmel told the child gaily, and smiled a little sadly when the child’s glorious lavender eyes snapped open at that news. They could hear other households awakening nearby, and the first wisps of smoke from Runa dung fires were beginning to reach them. "He’ll be here soon, but why don’t you go to Biao-Tol’s hearth and see what’s cooking there?"

  "Wait—" Ha’anala called as Sofi’ala ran out to join the other children, who spent their mornings dashing around the village, peering into pots, hunting for the most abundant or tastiest meal available. "Sipaj, Sofi’ala! Don’t be a nuisance!" Suukmel chuckled at that, but Ha’anala insisted, "She is! She is a nuisance! And I hate the way she orders the other children around."

  "You see yourself in her," Suukmel told her. "Don’t be hard on the girl. It’s natural for her to try to dominate them."

  "It’s also natural to defecate whenever and wherever the urge arises," said Ha’anala in riposte. "That doesn’t make it acceptable behavior."

  "But even the Runa children resist her! It’s good training," Suukmel parried. "They all gain strength."

  They spent the morning jousting like this, enjoying the mental combat, but the tempo and strength of the contractions were constantly on their minds. "They should be quicker now, and stronger," Ha’anala said, when all three suns were up, the brightest a flat, white disk burning through the cloud cover overhead.

  "Soon enough," Suukmel said, but she, too, was concerned, watching with some dismay as Ha’anala curled up in her nest and fell silent.

  By that time, Ha’anala’s daughter had worked out what was going on, and Suukmel turned her attention to reassuring the child and greeting the guests who began to gather, alerted by Sofi’ala’s anxious wail. Though the Jana’ata considerately withdrew after conveying their good wishes, the house was soon crowded with Runa, who brought enthusiasm and encouragement and food for the assemblage, along with the warmth of their bodies and of their affection. Like the Runa, Ha’anala believed a birth was an occasion for festivity and seemed happy for the distraction, so Suukmel did not drive the visitors off.

  If the contractions did not quicken, they did at least increase in intensity and Ha’anala welcomed that, despite the pain. In the midst of an endless discussion of what might hurry the labor along, a boy ran in with news of the lander and soon they all heard its horrifying noise, the room emptying abruptly as the crowd moved off to witness this astonishing arrival.

  "Go on—see what it’s like!" Ha’anala told Suukmel. "Tell me about it when you come back! I’ll be fine, but send Shetri!"

  "Orders, orders, orders," Suukmel teased as she left for the landing site at the edge of the valley. "You sound like Sofi’ala!

  Alone at last, Ha’anala rested as best she could, surprised by how tired she was so early in this labor. She listened as the roar of the engines abruptly ceased, heard the buzz of conversation indistinct in the distance. Days seemed to pass before Shetri came to her; despite all she wanted to ask him, the only words she spoke aloud were, "Someone is cold."

  Shetri went to the door and shouted for help. Soon Ha’anala was lifted to her feet and, though she stopped and squatted now and then, hit by another contraction, she was able to walk slowly to a place where game in miraculous quantity was spitted and roasting over smoky fires. Smiling at the spontaneous carnival that had erupted, her eyes sought out the foreigners in the crowd. One was close in size to Sofia, the others as tall as Isaac, but with none of his wandlike slenderness. Dark and light; bearded and hairless and maned. And the languages! High K’San and peasant Ruanja and H’inglish—as hilariously mixed in the confusion of the cooking and greetings and stories as Ha’anala’s own speech had been when she’d first met Shetri.

  "They are so different!" she cried, to no one in particular. "This is wonderful. Wonderful!"

  Cheered by warmth and the prospect of rapprochement with the south, Ha’anala knelt heavily, bearing down with a will, certain that this was the moment when the new child should be brought into light and laughter. She felt instead a tearing pain that made her scream and silenced the others, so that only the hiss of fire and the distant warbling of a p’rkra could be heard. When she could breathe again, she laughed a little and assured everyone wryly, "I won’t try that again!"

  Slowly the merriment and conversation resumed, but she could smell Shetri’s anxiety and this worried her. "Tell me about your journey!" she commanded affectionately, but he was frightened and made an excuse to help the foreigners distribute meat, sending Rukuei to sit behind her like a Runa husband. Suukmel came as well, and Tiyat, with her youngest riding her back. Content to have her cousin’s arms around her shoulders, Ha’anala l
eaned back against his belly, his legs drawn up around her own, his cheek resting near hers, and listened as Rukuei sang of his adventure in a spontaneous poem with the rocking rhythm of a steady walk. She was genuinely interested in the story, and drifted along, buoyed by the tale, laughing when Rukuei made comedy out of the fright he had been given by the little foreigner Sandoz.

  "Small individuals can be surprisingly powerful," Ha’anala observed breathlessly, leaning over to press her lively belly between her chest and legs, glad that she could summon up a little humor even now.

  Hearing his name, Sandoz had joined them, making an obeisance rather than offering his hands..When the introductions were over, he sat where he too could watch the party: silent, hunched and rocking slightly, his arms crossed over his chest. His posture very nearly mimicked her own during a contraction, and Ha’anala’s first words to him were, "Funny, you don’t look pregnant."

  He stared and then hooted, startled by the remark but apparently amused. "If I am, we’re definitely going to have to start a new religion," he replied, and if she didn’t understand all of his words, she liked his smile. He had eyes like Sola’s—brown and small—but warm, not stony. "My lady, what language best pleases you?" he asked.

  "Ruanja for affection. English for science—"

  "And jokes," he observed.

  "K’San for politics and poetry," Ha’anala continued, pausing as the wave crested and then receded. "Hebrew for prayer."

  For a time, the five of them watched Runa tending fires and roasting sticks of root vegetables now that the Jana’ata had been able to eat their fill. "We have dreamed of this," Suukmel said, smiling at Tiyat and then reaching out to grasp first Rukuei’s ankle and then Ha’anala’s.

  "Dreamed of what?" Sandoz asked. "Eating well?"

  Suukmel considered him for a time and decided he was being ironic. "Yes," she agreed easily, then swept an arm across the panorama. "But also of this: all of us together."

  "Someone’s eyes feel good to see it," said Tiyat. She looked down at her sleeping son, and then at the people surrounding Ha’anala. "Three kinds are better than one!"

  "Sandoz, tell me about each of your companions," Ha’anala said, in the language of politics.

  He motioned toward the one with the bare skull first and answered her in the language of affection. "Djon has clever hands, like a Runa, and a generous heart. Look now at his face, and you will learn how a human appears when he enjoys something. Someone thinks: to help others is Djon’s greatest pleasure. He has a talent for friendship." He paused, and switched to K’San. "I believe he is incapable of lying."

  "The one next to him?" Ha’anala asked, glancing at Suukmel, who was also listening carefully.

  The answer was in Hebrew. "He is called Shaan. He sees very clearly, without sentiment." Sandoz paused, looking at the others, and realized that only Ha’anala spoke Hebrew. In K’San he said, "Sometimes it is necessary to hear hard truths. Shaan is fierce, like a Jana’ata, and unsparing. But what he says is important." He gestured then toward Joseba, and simplified the name. "Hozei also sees clearly, but he is subtle. When Hozei speaks, I listen carefully."

  "And the black-haired one?" Suukmel asked, when Ha’anala was silenced by another contraction.

  Sandoz drew in a chestful of air and let it out slowly. "Dani," he said, and they waited to hear which language he selected. "He may be of use to you," he said in K’San. "He knows from his own people’s experience what the Jana’ata face, and he wants very much to be of aid to you. But he is a man of ideals, and has sometimes chosen them over ethics."

  "Which makes him dangerous," Suukmel remarked.

  "Yes," Sandoz agreed.

  "The one who is singing?" Ha’anala asked. "He, too, is like a Jana’ata, I think. Is he a poet?"

  Sandoz smiled and continued in Ruanja. "No, not a poet, but Nico appreciates the work of poets, and his voice graces it." He glanced at Tiyat and chose his words carefully. "Nico is more like a village Runao, who can be led easily by anyone who is forceful." He paused as the three Jana’ata exchanged looks. "Nico can be a danger, but I trust him now. In any case, he won’t stay with you," Sandoz told them. "He is a member of a trading party that will only be here long enough to do business in the south. The others wish to remain here, to be of use and to learn from you, if you will permit it."

  "And you, Sandoz?" Rukuei asked. "Will you stay or go?"

  He did not answer because Ha’anala closed her eyes, folding over her belly, and this time, gave a strangled cry that brought Shetri to her side. When her breath returned, she said, "It will be well. I am not afraid."

  AS THE LIGHT FADED, SO DID THE PAINS, WHICH SEEMED NOW TO BE AT some distance. Her attention flickered like the fire that warmed her and lit up the night, but she continued to listen to the quiet conversation around her, marveling at Sandoz’s voice, so unlike Isaac’s—not loud and halting but soft and musical, its pitch rising and falling, its cadences varied and flowing. Ha’anala had forgotten that humans could speak that way, and she was saddened by the years that had passed since she had last heard Sofia’s voice.

  Swept by mourning, she grieved for the past, and also for the future she would not know, for there came a private moment when she knew that she would die—not with the unfocused theoretical understanding that she was mortal but with the physical certainty that death would come for her sooner rather than later. To her surprise, she slept, waking briefly with each gripping muscular wave, aware that she drew on a diminishing reserve of strength each time she rejoined the living. Once she came fully alert in the darkness, and told the others, "When I am gone, take the children to my mother." Soothing murmurs succeeded shocked silence, but she said, "Do as I ask. Remind her of Abraham. For the sake of the ten…" This said, she sank back into oblivion.

  At dawn, her husband’s snarl brought her back to the world. She was in the house now but warm, covered with blankets the likes of which she’d never seen. Without moving, she could look out the door to a ghostly landscape softened by fog. "No! I won’t permit it!" Shetri was insisting. "How can you even think of such a thing?"

  "Are you giving up then?" she heard a foreigner demand, his harsh accusatory whisper carrying easily in the still dawn air. "You needn’t lose them both, man—"

  "Stop!" Shetri cried, turning away from Shaan, ears clamped shut. "I won’t hear of it!"

  Closing her eyes, Ha’anala listened to Rukuei explain why she had to die, his words coming to her in scraps and tatters. "There’s no help for it… necessary… prevent generations of suffering in the future… the greater good…"

  Ha’anala did not recognize the next voice, but it might have been Hozei who said, "This is not a thing of abnormality but weakness brought on by hunger!"

  "Shetri, I think you are right and that Ha’anala will die soon," Sandoz said steadily. "I think Shaan is wrong. The procedure he wishes to try will kill Ha’anala. None of us is an adept—we don’t know how to do this in a way that will preserve the mother’s life, and I think Ha’anala is too weak now to survive it. I am sorry. I am so very sorry. But—among us, when this happens, the child sometimes lives for a very short time after the mother dies. Please—please, if you will permit it, perhaps we can at least save the child."

  "How?" Ha’anala called, firm-voiced. "How do you save the child?"

  She saw the small foreigner’s outline in the doorway, black against gray, and then he was at her side, kneeling, his hands in their strange machines, resting on his thighs. "Sipaj, Ha’anala, someone thinks that after you are gone, for a few moments, the child will live on, It would be necessary to cut open your body and lift the child out."

  "Desecration," Shetri hissed again, standing above them both, tall and stiff backed. "No, no, no! If—. I don’t want the child! Not now, not this way! Ha’anala, please—"

  "Save what you can," she said. "Hear me, Shetri. Save what you can!"

  But he would not agree and Suukmel was arguing now, and Sofi’ala wailing, and the foreig
ners—

  Suddenly, Ha’anala knew what it was to be Isaac, to have the music within her drowned out by noise. "Get out, Shetri," she said wearily, too far gone to tolerate the fierno another moment, too used up to be kind or tactful. "All of you: leave me alone!"

  But she reached out and hooked her claws over Sandoz’s arm, and held him fast. "Not you," she said. "Stay." When the room was empty except for the two of them, she told him slowly, in the language of prayer, "Save what you can."

  FOR NINE HOURS MORE, HE DID WHATEVER SHE ASKED OF HIM, TRYING to ease her any way he could. Assured that there was hope for her child, Ha’anala rallied, and Emilio allowed himself to believe that she’d manage on her own. Ashamed of himself for panicking, his greatest concern for a time was how he would ever apologize adequately to Shetri for making this birth so much more frightening than it already was for a terrified father who’d lost two earlier children.

  But the labor went on and on. Toward the end, thirst was her main complaint, and he tried to help her drink, but she couldn’t hold anything down. He ducked outside the crude stone hut to ask about ice, but the small glacier that had formed between two peaks near the valley was too far away to be of use. John ran to the lander and got the oldest, softest shirt out of his pack; soaking a section of it in water, twisting it like a nipple, he handed this to Emilio, who offered it to Ha’anala. She sipped at the liquid this way and did not vomit, so for a time, Emilio simply dipped the cloth into water, over and over, until her need abated.

  "Someone likes the sound of your voice," Ha’anala told him, eyes closed. "Talk to me."

  "About what?"

  "Anything. Take me somewhere. Tell me about your home. About the people you left behind."