Children of God

39 N’Jarr Valley December 2078, Earth-Relative

AFTER MONTHS OF CONFINEMENT ABOARD THE GIORDANO BRUNO, Daniel Iron Horse found the mountains surrounding the N’Jarr as seductive as certainty, and set his sights on a high ledge east of the settlement, hoping for perspective of one kind or another. He had no equipment and his shoes were all wrong, and it crossed his mind that a fall in this terrain could easily result in a very fancy death. But Danny needed to be alone, craved the sense that only God would know where he was, and so he left at dawn, telling no one of his plans.

From the moment Emilio Sandoz left the valley to meet Mendes on the road, Danny had felt the man’s absence like a shedding of weight. Now, as he began to climb the main rockface, he was happier than he’d been in a year. Calm claimed him, his attention absorbed by the delicate, tactile search for purchase. Hooking his fingers into cracks in the stone, he saw the sturdy bone of Grampa Lundberg’s wrists, thick as fenceposts; felt in his chest the heart of Gramma Beauvais, strong and steady in her nineties. Funny, he thought, how his grandparents had always tried to parse him out. He’d resented their urge to divide his DNA, particularly when his father’s family warned him, with tragic justification, about having "that Lakota liver." Now, finally, he was in a place where none of that made any difference, where he was simply an Earthman. Only here had he come to understand that he was not a battleground—to be divided and conquered by his grandparents—but a garden, where each person who’d contributed to his existence longed to see that something of themselves had taken root and grown.

For a time, he abandoned himself to a pure enjoyment of strength and agility, but altitude was a factor. Winded, he gave up a few hundred meters shy of the target ledge, and found instead a rubble-filled indentation that had collected enough debris to provide a humus cushion. Swinging into it, he sat quietly awhile, studying the layout of the evacuated village—alert to clues about social structure—and prayed for the well-being of the refugees who’d left it two weeks earlier. It had been a long time, he realized, since he’d felt like either a political scientist or a priest.

Chagrined by the time it took for his breathing to come back to normal, he admitted to himself that altitude was not the only thing slowing him down. The words of Vincenzo Giuliani came to him: "You are young, Father Iron Horse." Not all that young, Danny thought, filling his lungs with thin mountain air and remembering that night in the Naples garden. "You are young, and you have the vices of the young. Short-sightedness. Contempt for pragmatism…"

High above the valley, the only sound was the roar of water falling from a cataract so near he could feel its mist when the breeze shifted. Alone now and able to think, Danny forced himself to be still, to picture the chessboard, assess the pieces, see the long game. Unknowingly, he asked himself the very question that had formed the basis of much of Vincenzo Giuliani’s career: So, who have I got to work with here?

Nothing came clear. Judging by the outcome of the first mission, catastrophe lurked behind the smallest mistake; muddled impasse seemed the best that they could hope for. That’s Sandoz talking, Danny thought with sudden insight. But this is politics. We just have to find a way for all the players to get at least some of what they need.

Hardly aware of his movement, he stood and began again to climb toward the ledge he’d set out for, and by the time he reached it, the solution had come to him like the revelation at Cardoner, and seemed so obvious that he wondered if Vincenzo Giuliani could have foreseen this situation. That was impossible, and yet…

You win, you old fox, Danny thought, and he seemed to hear the sound of a soul’s laughter as he pulled himself onto the ledge and stood like a colossus overlooking the valley. Suukmel first, Danny thought. Then Sofia Mendes. If she agrees, then Carlo. And from there to the others.

The irony of what he was going to propose was palpable, and he knew that he would not live long enough to see the outcome. But at the very least, he thought, it might buy time. And time was all that mattered.

JOHN CANDOTTI WAS SITTING ON A TREE STUMP, SURROUNDED BY THE pieces of a broken pump he was trying to fix, when Danny strode buoyantly into the center of the village late that afternoon. "Where the hell have you been?" John cried. "Sean and Joseba are out looking for you—. What happened to your knees?"

"Nothing. I slipped," Danny said. "What time is it on the Bruno?"

John pulled his chin in, surprised by the question and by Danny’s air of enterprise. "I don’t know. I haven’t looked at a watch in days." He glanced up at the suns and worked it out. "Must be about eight in the evening, I guess."

"So it’s just after supper, ship’s time? Good. I’ve got a job for you," Danny said, jerking his head in the direction of the lander. "I want you to get Frans on the radio. Tell him to try the yasapa brandy." John didn’t move, reluctance plain on his open face. "I could ask you to trust me," Danny offered, small eyes dancing, "or I could just tell you to do as you’re told."

John blew out a breath and put down the gasket he was making. "Ours is not to reason why," he muttered, and followed Iron Horse to the edge of the valley where the lander crouched. "I don’t suppose you’d like to explain?" he asked, as they climbed inside.

"Look," said Danny, "I could do this myself, but I promise you it’ll be more fun if you help. Just suggest to Frans that this would be a very good time to have a nice little postprandial drink, okay?"

Frowning, John said, "But then he’ll tell Carlo—"

Danny grinned.

Lips compressed, John shook his head, but sat down in front of the console and raised the Giordano Bruno.

"Johnny!" Frans cried moments later, a shade too heartily. "How are things?"

"We, um, got your message, Frans," John said, not sure if Carlo was monitoring the conversation. "Sandoz is taking care of it." He coughed and looked up. Danny was making "Go on" motions. "Listen, Frans, have you tried any of that yasapa brandy yet?"

"How’d you find out about that?" Frans asked warily.

"Lucky guess. Had a taste yet?"

"No."

"Well, Danny Iron Horse thinks this might be a very good time to give it a try, okay?" John suggested. "Feel free to tell the boss what you think."

"Beauty," Danny said, when John signed off. "Now: wait ten minutes."

It took five.

"Nice to hear from you, Gianni," Carlo began affably. "I should like to speak to Iron Horse, if you please." John stood up and waved Danny into the console chair with a look that said, You’re on your own.

"Evening, Carlo," Danny said sociably, and waited.

"Business is business," Carlo said, by way of truncated explanation. "No hard feelings?"

"Hell, no. This is all going to shake out fine," Danny said confidently. "The question is, Do you want to discuss terms with me now? Or would you like to try your luck with Sofia Mendes again? I should mention that I’ve had a little talk with her, and she seems to feel you’ve misrepresented a few facts when you made that last deal with her. She sounded kind of pissed off." Countable seconds went by, marked by the gradual dawn of understanding that had begun to light up John Candotti’s face. "Or you could come on back down to Rakhat and deal directly with the Runa," Danny suggested helpfully, when Carlo failed to respond. "Just keep that anaphylaxis kit handy. Course, you’ll have to hope you can explain to some Runao how to use it, because we won’t be around to help you. Your call, ace."

The silence from the Bruno didn’t last long. "And your terms are?" Carlo asked with admirable dignity, given that he could probably hear the small, blissful noises John was making.

"You off-load all your trade goods here in the N’Jarr valley," Danny began, "and don’t try to bullshit me, because I’ve read the manifests. We keep the manned lander and all its fuel—"

"The lander cost a fortune!" Carlo protested.

"Yeah, but by the time you get back to Earth, that plane’ll be older than most second wives," Danny pointed out as John began to do a little victory dance featuring Italian gestures aimed at a position in the sky somewhere above the 32nd parallel. "Now, then," Danny continued, "our cut will be one hundred percent of the coffee trade, but we’ll broker the rest for you—"

"What guarantee do I have that you won’t keep the drone after I send the last shipment down?" Carlo asked suspiciously. "You could leave me with a half-empty hold."

"Which is exactly what you deserve, you miserable SOB," John sang joyously, wiping tears from his eyes.

"I guess you’re just going to have to trust me, ace," said Danny, stretching his long legs out luxuriously and settling in for what promised to be a very satisfying day’s work. "But if you think you can get a better deal from somebody else…"

Carlo didn’t, and negotiations began in earnest.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?" EMILIO CRIED DAYS LATER, AS TIYAT AND KAJPIN shuffled off with Nico to find something to eat. "Danny, the reservations were a disaster for the Indians—"

"Sandoz, this is not the United States," the Canadian said firmly, "and we are not the BIA, and we have the benefit of hindsight—"

"And a reservation is better than extinction," Joseba pointed out with chilling accuracy. "I estimate that even an increase of ten additional deaths a year over present rates could kill the Jana’ata off in a couple of generations. If you have to choose between apartheid and genocide—"

"And Danny knows all the ways a reservation system can be awful," John started, "so he can—"

"Desperate measures for desperate times," Sean was saying. "And as much as I hate partition, it’s a way to stop the killin’. Gives people time to get over their grudges, or at least stop accumulating new ones—"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Emilio begged, his mind so fogged by fatigue that he found himself wishing they’d speak Spanish—a sure sign of exhaustion. Countless hours on a treadmill had prepared him to some extent for the month he had just spent on the road, but he was wrung out from seeing Sofia again, and hadn’t reckoned on being mobbed by men full of news and anxious for his approval the moment he came within sight. "All right," he said finally, deciding he could manage another few minutes of this. "Tell me again…?"

"I see this as politically independent territory," said Danny. "The Jana’ata are already isolated up here—it’s just a matter of getting the government in the south to formalize the situation! And Suukmel thinks this may be a workable solution. She’s convinced Shetri, and they’re off trying to get Athaansi’s faction on board."

Who the hell is Athaansi? Emilio wondered dully. He probably looked like shit, but then again, he always looked like shit, so nobody was attaching much significance to it. "Have you spoken to Sofia about this?"

"Of course!" said John, his happiness still barely containable. "We talked to her a few days ago. It’s not like we were sitting here sucking our thumbs while you were gone—"

"She said she’d float the idea," said Danny, "but it’ll be up to the Runa Parliament in Gayjur. It’s going to take time, but—"

"The problem right now," Joseba said, "is getting the word out so the VaN’Jarri know that the army’s turned back and it’s safe to come home. We should have set up some kind of signal for that, but nobody thought of it."

Nico arrived with two mess plates of food from the lander. "Don Emilio," he interjected quietly, "I think you should sit down. Are you hungry?" Sandoz shook his head at the question, but sat on a stool.

"— going to rebuild their numbers, they’ll need food," Joseba was saying, "and plenty of it, but that central plains region is a meat factory, and perhaps the Runa would be willing to provide game in exchange for coffee or something. Eventually we’ll find something new to domesticate." He didn’t even notice that he’d begun to think in terms of "we." "The Jana’ata think kha’ani could be bred to lay eggs all year round—"

"In the meantime," John said, "we go out and shoot something big every so often—"

"I can help with hunting," Nico offered, not fully understanding what was being discussed, but content to be of service to Don Emilio and the priests, now that Carlo was going to desert them.

"Ah, I’m sure y’could, Nico," Sean said, "but you and Sandoz’ll be goin’ home after all."

Nico’s mouth dropped open, and an expectant hush fell. Sandoz looked at Sean sharply, then stood and walked a few steps away. When he turned, his face was unreadable. "It’s a long walk back to Naples, Sean."

"Well, it would be, ace, but we already booked you passage home with Carlo," said Danny. "We got him to agree to wait a while before he goes back. You’ll be on the drone with the last shipment of trade goods from Rakhat."

John was grinning. "We arranged for Frans to sample a little of the yasapa shampoo. All of a sudden, Carlo decided to reconsider his business arrangements. It was amazing, Emilio. Danny cut the VaN’Jarri a beautiful deal—"

Resilience now utterly gone, Sandoz shook his head. "No," he said flatly. "Nico can go back, but I gave my word. I told Sofia that I’d stand surety for the Jana’ata—"

"Christ, she told us," Sean said. "Now there’s a woman who’d feel at home in Belfast! She’s a wee hard bitch, but y’can do a deal with her, if she gets what she wants. I’ll be the goat, Sandoz. You go home and see if y’can find that sweet Gina and her Celestina."

It was Danny who broke the silence. "You’re done here, ace," he said quietly. "We got this covered."

"But there’s more," John added excitedly. "Rukuei wants to go back to Earth with you—"

"I tried to talk him out of it," Joseba said. "They need all the breeding pairs they can get, but it turns out he was neutered, so—"

Sandoz frowned, now thoroughly confused. "But why does he want…?"

"Why not?" Sean shrugged, unsurprised by yet another example of wayward sentient willfulness. "He says he needs t’see Earth with his own eyes."

It was all too much. "No puedo pensar," Emilio muttered. Pulling his eyes wide open, he shook his head. "I’ve got to get some sleep."

WAITING FOR SANDOZ IN THE FOREIGNERS’ HUT, RUKUEI KITHERI PACED and paced, helpless against imagination, burdened with possibility, like a pregnant woman who cannot know what she carries within her.

"Go back with them," Isaac had told him. And Rukuei heard in those words an echo of his own yearning.

He feared that Sandoz would refuse him this. All of the foreigners had argued against it, and Sandoz more than anyone had reason to hate the Jana’ata. But everything was different now, and for days, Rukuei had planned the plea he would make to a man he hardly knew and barely hoped to understand.

He would tell the foreigner: I have learned that poetry requires a certain emptiness, as the sounding of a bell requires the space within it. The emptiness of my father’s early life provided the resonance for his songs. I have felt in my heart his restlessness and lurking ambition. I have felt in my own body the violent exuberance, the almost sexual exultation of creation.

He would tell the foreigner: I have learned that a soul’s emptiness can become a place where Truth will dwell—even if it is not made welcome, even when Truth is reviled and fought, doubted and misunderstood and resisted.

He would tell the foreigner: My own hollowed heart has made a space for others’ pain, but I believe there is more—some larger Truth we are all heir to, and I want to be filled with it!

He heard the footsteps then, saw Sandoz rounding the corner of the hut, followed by the others, talking among themselves. Blocking the foreigner’s way into the hut, turning swiftly, Rukuei swept out a circular swath of pebbly dirt. "Hear me, Sandoz," he began, throwing back his head in a gesture that offered battle. "I wish to go back with you to H’earth. I wish to learn your poetry and, perhaps, to teach you ours—"

He stopped, seeing the color leave Sandoz’s face.

"Don Emilio needs rest," Nico said firmly. "You can talk tomorrow."

"I’m fine," Sandoz said, not that anyone had inquired. "I’m fine," he said again. Then his knees buckled.

"Is that normal?" Kajpin asked, sauntering over with a bowl of twigs, just as Sandoz hit the ground. The foreigners just stood there gawking, so she sat down to eat. After a while, she told them, "We usually lie down before we fall asleep." Which seemed to wake everyone but Sandoz up.

THE FAINT SEGUED SEAMLESSLY INTO A SLEEP THAT WAS VERY NEARLY coma, as he began to pay the toll extracted by weeks on the road, months of strain, years of bewilderment and pain. He slept through the day and into the night, and when he opened his eyes, it was to starlit darkness.

His first thought was, How odd—I’ve never dreamed of music before. Then, listening, he knew that what he heard was real, not dreamt, and that he’d never heard its like—not on Rakhat, not on Earth.

He rose soundlessly, stepping over and around the sleeping forms of Nico and the priests. Emerging from the hut into still night air, he picked his way between stone walls glowing with moonlight and the shimmer of the Milky Way. As if drawn by a thread, he followed the uncanny sound to the very edge of the village, where he found a ragged tent.

Isaac was inside, bent almost double over an antique computer tablet, his face in profile rapt: transfigured by a wordless harmony, as delicate as snowflakes and as mathematically precise, but of astonishing power, at once shattering and sublime. It was, Emilio Sandoz thought, as though "the stars of morning rang out in unison," and when the music ended, he wanted nothing more in all the world than to hear it once again—

"Don’t interrupt. That’s the rule," Isaac said abruptly, his voice in the quiet night as loud and flat and unmodulated as the music had been softly nuanced and chastely melodious. "The Runa drive me crazy."

"Yes," Emilio offered when Isaac fell silent. "They drove me crazy sometimes, too."

Isaac did not care. "Every autistic is an experiment," he announced in his blank and blaring voice. "Nobody like me exists anywhere else." He watched his fingers’ patterning for a while but then glanced briefly at Sandoz.

Not knowing what else to say, Emilio asked, "Are you lonely, Isaac?"

"No. I am who I am." The answer was firm if unemotional. "I can’t be lonely any more than I can have a tail." Isaac began to tap his fingers on the smooth place above his beard. "I know why humans came here," he said. "You came because of the music."

The tapping slowed and then stopped. "Yes, we did," Emilio confirmed, falling into Isaac’s pattern: a burst of talk, perhaps three seconds long, then a silence of thirty seconds before the next burst. A longer pause meant, Your turn. "We came because of Hlavin Kitheri’s songs."

"Not those songs." The tapping started again. "I can remember an entire DNA sequence as music. Do you understand?"

No, Emilio thought, feeling stupid. "You are a savant, then," he suggested, trying to follow this.

Isaac reached up and began to pull a coil of hair straight, over and over, running the tangled rope through his fingers. "Music is how I think," he said finally.

"Then this music is one of your compositions? It is—" Emilio hesitated. "It is glorious, Isaac."

"I didn’t compose it. I discovered it." Isaac turned and, with evident difficulty, looked for a full second into Emilio’s eyes before breaking contact. "Adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine: four bases." A pause. "I gave the four bases three notes each, one for each species. Twelve tones."

There was a longer silence, and Emilio realized that he was supposed to draw a conclusion. Out of his depth, he guessed, "So this music is how you think about DNA?"

The words came in a rush. "It’s DNA for humans and for Jana’ata and Runa. Played together." Isaac stopped, gathering himself. "A lot of it is dissonant. " A pause. "I remembered the parts that harmonize." A pause. "Don’t you understand?" Isaac demanded, taking stunned silence for obtuseness. "It’s God’s music. You came here so I would find it." He said this without embarrassment or pride or wonder. It was, in Isaac’s view, a simple fact. "I thought God was just a story Ha’anala liked," he said. "But this music was waiting for me."

The lock of hair stretched and recoiled, over and over. "It’s no good unless you have all three sequences." Again: the glancing look. Blue eyes, so like Jimmy’s. "No one else could have found this. Only me," Isaac said, flat-voiced and insistent. "Do you understand now?"

Dazed, Emilio thought, God was in this place, and I–I did not know it. "Yes," he said after a time. "I think I understand now. Thank you."

There was a kind of numbness. Not the ecstasy, not the oceanic serenity he had once known, a lifetime ago. Just: numbness. When he could speak again, he asked, "May I share this music with others, Isaac?"

"Sure. That’s the point." Isaac yawned and handed Emilio the tablet. "Be careful with it," he said.

LEAVING ISAAC’S TENT, HE STOOD ALONE FOR A WHILE, EYES ON THE sky. The weather on Rakhat was notoriously changeable and the Milky Way was rapidly losing custody of the night to clouds, but he knew that when it was clear, he could look up and, without effort, recognize familiar patterns. Orion, Ursa major, Ursa minor, the Pleiades: arbitrary shapes imposed on random points of light.

"The stars look the same!" he’d exclaimed years earlier, standing with Isaac’s father, seeing Rakhat’s night sky for the first time. "How can all the constellations be the same?"

"It’s a big galaxy in a big universe," the young astronomer had told him, smiling at the linguist’s ignorance. "Four point three light-years aren’t enough to make any difference in how we see the stars back on Earth and here. You’d have to go a lot farther than this to change your perspective."

No, Jimmy, Emilio Sandoz now thought, gazing upward. This was far enough.

Like father, like son, he thought then, realizing that Jimmy Quinn had, like his extraordinary child, discovered an unearthly music that changed one’s perspective. He was pleased by that, and grateful.

EMILIO WOKE JOHN FIRST, AND LED HIM A LITTLE DISTANCE AWAY FROM the settlement to a place where they could listen to the music alone; where they could speak in privacy, where Emilio could study his friend’s face as he listened and see his own astonishment and awe mirrored.

"My God," John breathed, when the last notes faded. "Then this was why…"

"Maybe," Emilio said. "I don’t know. Yes. I think so." Ex corde volo, he thought. From my heart, I wish it…

They listened again to the music, and then for a time to the night noise of Rakhat, so like that of home: wind in the scrub, tiny chitterings and scratchings in nearby weeds, distant hoots, hushed wingbeats overhead.

"There was a poem I found—years ago, just after Jimmy Quinn intercepted that first fragment of music from Rakhat," said Emilio. " ’In all the shrouded heavens anywhere / Not a whisper in the air / Of any living voice but one so far / That I can hear it only as a bar / Of lost, imperial music.’»

"Yes," John said quietly. "Perfect. Who wrote that?"

"Edward Arlington Robinson," Emilio told him, and added, " ’Credo.’»

"Credo: I believe," John repeated, smiling. Clear-eyed and clear-souled, he leaned back, hands locked around a knee. "Tell me, Dr. Sandoz," he asked, "is that the name of the poem, or a statement of faith?"

Emilio looked down, silvered hair spilling over his eyes as he laughed a little and shook his head. "God help me," he said at last. "I’m afraid… I think… it might be both."

"Good," said John. "I’m glad to hear that."

They were quiet for a time, alone with their thoughts, but then John sat up straight, struck by a thought. "There’s a passage in Exodus—God tells Moses, ’No one can see My face, but I will protect you with My hand until I have passed by you, and then I will remove My hand and you will see My back.’ Remember that?"

Emilio nodded, listening.

"Well, I always thought that was a physical metaphor," John said, "but, you know—I wonder now if it isn’t really about time? Maybe that was God’s way of telling us that we can never know His intentions, but as time goes on… we’ll understand. We’ll see where He was: we’ll see His back."

Emilio gazed at him, face still. "The brother of my heart," he said at last. "Without you, where would I be now?"

John smiled, his affection plain. "Dead drunk in a bar someplace?" he suggested.

"Or just plain dead." Emilio looked away, blinking. When he could speak again, his voice was steady. "Your friendship should have been proof enough of God. Thank you, John. For everything."

John nodded once and then again, as though confirming something. "I’ll go wake the other guys up," he said.