Children of God

Coda Earth: 2096

ONCE AGAIN RADIO WAVES CARRIED MUSIC FROM RAKHAT TO EARTH, and once again Emilio Sandoz was preceded by news that would change his life.

Long before he arrived home, reaction to the DNA music had rigidified. Believers found it a miraculous confirmation of God’s existence and evidence of Divine Providence. Skeptics declared it a fraud—a clever trick by the Jesuits to distract attention from their earlier failures. Atheists did not dispute the music’s authenticity, but they considered it just another fluke that proved nothing—like the universe itself. Agnostics admitted the music was magnificent, but suspended judgment, waiting for who knew what?

The pattern was established at Sinai and under the Buddha’s tree; on Calvary and at Mecca; in sacred caves, at wells of life, amid circles of stone. Signs and wonders are always doubted, and perhaps they are meant to be. In the absence of certainty, faith is more than mere opinion; it is hope.

Emilio himself had read once of a savant in Lesotho who had memorized every street in every city in Africa. If such a person made names into notes, would he have found harmony in addresses? Perhaps—given enough material and enough time and nothing better to do. And if that happened, Emilio asked himself on the long voyage home, would the music be any less beautiful?

He was a linguist, after all, and it seemed entirely possible to him that religion and literature and art and music were all merely side effects of a brain structure that comes into the world ready to make language out of noise, sense out of chaos. Our capacity for imposing meaning, he thought, is programmed to unfold the way a butterfly’s wings unfold when it escapes the chrysalis, ready to fly. We are biologically driven to create meaning. And if that’s so, he asked himself, is the miracle diminished?

It was then that he came very close to prayer. Whatever the truth is, he thought, blessed be the truth.

The Giordano Bruno was nearly halfway home when Nico noticed that Don Emilio’s nightmares had ended.

WITH ONLY SIX MONTHS OF SUBJECTIVE TIME BEFORE THEIR ARRIVAL ON Earth, Emilio Sandoz concentrated on the task at hand: teaching Rukuei English, trying to prepare the poet for what might await him. It helped to worry about someone else, to put his own experience to work in Rukuei’s behalf. Suspended in time, Emilio refused to listen to the transmissions from Rakhat that Frans intercepted, ignored the responses from Earth. It will be well, he told himself, and let the universe take care of itself while he took care of one apt and eager student. So when Frans Vanderhelst finally docked the Bruno at the Shimatsu Orbital Hotel high above the Pacific, Emilio Sandoz was, in many ways, a man at peace. He was, therefore, completely unprepared for his reaction to a letter that had been waiting for him nearly four decades.

Handwritten on a fine rag paper, selected because it would not crumble during his anticipated absence from Earth, the note read: "I am so very sorry, Emilio. I will not stoop to the scoundrel’s defense—that I had no other choice. I was simply acting on the principle that it is easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. Because I trust in God, I trust also that you will have learned something of value on your journey. Pax Christi. Vince Giuliani."

The middle-aged Jesuit who handed Sandoz the note did not know its contents, but he knew its author and the circumstances under which it was written, so he could take a pretty good guess at what that long-dead Father General must have said.

"One last jerk on the chain, you goddamned sonofabitch!" Sandoz cried, confirming the priest’s hypothesis. The rest of the commentary was heartfelt and in a splendid assortment of languages. When Sandoz was done, and he did not finish quickly, he stood in the curving air lock, the letter in one braced hand, arms at his sides, limp with exasperation. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded in English.

"Patras Yalamber Tamang," the priest replied, and continued in excellent Spanish. "I’m from the Nepal province, but I taught at El Instituto San Pedro Arrupe in Colombia until recently. I have been the Rakhat mission liaison for the last five years, working with governments and international agencies and a number of sponsoring corporations to coordinate the reception for Mr. Kitheri. And, of course, the Society would like to offer you yourself any assistance you are willing to accept from us."

Still fuming, Sandoz nevertheless listened to Tamang’s summary of the steps that had been taken to make Rukuei comfortable, and to ease the return of Sandoz and the crew of the Giordano Bruno. The hotel staff consisted of carefully chosen, highly trained volunteers who’d studied the history of the Jesuit missions and who all spoke at least some K’San. A medical team was standing by; the travelers would be isolated for some months, but the entire hotel had been booked for them and the facilities were quite nice and very extensive. There was a customized suite set aside for Frans Vanderhelst in the center of the hotel, near the microgravity stadium, where he would be able to breathe without strain. Endocrine experts were waiting to examine him; they had some hope of reversing the genetic damage that had unbalanced his metabolism. Carlo Giuliani’s cargo had, of course, been impounded, pending customs decisions. Giuliani himself was being detained—there were complex legal issues to be settled, not the least of which was whether Sandoz wished to file charges regarding his abduction. Signor Giuliani’s elderly sister had been notified of his return, but seemed in no hurry to provide him with legal representation.

The accumulated news from Rakhat was mixed. Athaansi Laaks had been overthrown, but his faction still refused to agree to the reservation solution; Danny Iron Horse sympathized, but continued to press for negotiations. Some kind of illness swept through the N’Jarr in 2084 but, by that time, the Jana’ata were better fed and the toll wasn’t as high as everyone first feared it would be. John Candotti had written of Sofia’s death. Shetri Laaks was well, and had remarried. Two more sons had joined the one Emilio had delivered—now a young man with a child of his own. Shetri’s second wife was pregnant again; they hoped for a third daughter. Sean’s latest census of the Jana’ata reported a population of nearly twenty-six hundred souls. Joseba added an analysis indicating that if birth and death rates and other conditions held steady, this was enough for stability. Some forty Runa had joined the VaN’Jarri in the year of the census. These did not quite balance the number of old VaN’Jarri Runa who had died, but it was a slight increase over the inflow from prior years.

"And Suukmel still lives?" Emilio asked, knowing this would be Rukuei’s first question.

"Yes," said Patras, "as of four years ago, at least."

"And the music? On Rakhat?"

"There are disputes over adding lyrics to it," Patras told him. "I suppose that was inevitable."

"Has anyone asked Isaac what he thinks about that?"

"Yes. He said, ’That’s Rukuei’s problem.’ Isaac is studying library files on South American nematodes now," Patras reported dryly. "Nobody has the faintest idea why."

Sandoz asked more questions, received thorough answers, and agreed that it sounded as though everything was under control.

"Thank you," Patras said, gratified by the recognition. He had, in fact, worked himself to exhaustion trying to make things right. "Let me show you the rooms we’ve prepared for Mr. Kitheri," he suggested, and led the way down a toroidal accessway. "As soon as you’ve gotten some rest, the Mother General would like to speak with you—"

"Excuse me?" Sandoz said, coming to a halt. "The Mother General?" He snorted. "You’re joking!"

Patras, already a few steps down the hall, turned back, brows up curiously: Is there a problem? Sandoz stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am joking," Patras said then, delighted when Sandoz burst into laughter.

"You know, it’s not nice to tease old people," Emilio told him as they resumed their walk. "How long have you been waiting to use that line?"

"Fifteen years. I have a Ph.D. from Ganesh Man Singh University— mission history, with an emphasis on Rakhat. You were my thesis topic."

For the next few hours, they concentrated on the process of introducing Rukuei to new companions and new surroundings. In the press of duties, personal considerations were laid aside, but before the end of that long first day, Emilio Sandoz said to Patras Yalamber Tamang, "There was a woman—"

Inquiries followed; databases were searched. She had, evidently, remarried, changed her surname; had shunned publicity and lived as private a life as wealth could buy and guilt enforce. It was remarkably difficult to find even a minimal actuarial mention of her.

"I am so very sorry," Patras told him weeks later. "She passed away last year."

ARIANA FIOR HAD ALWAYS ENJOYED THE DAY OF THE DEAD. SHE LIKED the cemetery, tidy and rectilinear, with its stone paths freshly swept between rows and rows of high-walled burial niches—an island of grace amid the noise of Naples. The vaults themselves, stacked six high, were always brushed and dustless on November first, golden in autumnal sunlight or gleaming in silvery rain. She was an archaeologist, accustomed to the presence of the dead, and savored this orderliness, taking pleasure in the sharp scent of chrysanthemums mingling with the deeper musk of fallen leaves.

Some of the loculi were simple: a polished brass plaque with a name and dates, the tiny luminos kept burning for a time after the death. The proud and the prosperous often added a small screen that could be activated with a touch, and she’d have liked to go from vault to vault, meeting the inhabitants, hearing about their lives, but resisted the impulse.

All around her, there were low voices and the crunch of footsteps on gravel paths. "Poveretto," she heard now and then, as flowers were placed with a sigh in a loculo’s little vase. Old affections, grudges, attachments and debts were silently acknowledged and then put aside for another year. Adults gossiped, children fidgeted. There was a sense of occasion and a formality that appealed to Ariana, but the cemetery was not a scene of active grief.

Which is why she noticed the man sitting on the bench in front of Gina’s vault, gloved hands limp in his lap. Alone among the mourners on this cool and sunny day, he was crying, eyes open, silent tears slipping down a still face.

She had no wish to impose herself on this stranger, had not even been certain that he would come today. His first months out of isolation were a circus, a whirlwind of public interest and private receptions—every moment accounted for. Ariana had waited a long time, but she was patient by nature. And now: here he was.

"Padre?" she said, soft-voiced and certain.

Solitary in sorrow, he hardly glanced at her. "I am not a priest, madam," he said as dryly as a crying man could, "and I am no one’s father."

"Look again," she said.

He did, and saw a dark-haired woman standing behind a baby stroller, her son so young that he still slept curled, in memory of the womb. There was a long silence as Emilio studied her face—blurred and shifting in the dampness—a complex amalgam of the Old World and the New, the living and the dead. He laughed once, and sobbed once, and laughed again, astonished. "You have your mother’s smile," he said finally, and her grin widened. "And my nose, I’m afraid. Sorry about that."

"I like my nose!" she cried indignantly. "I have your eyes, too. Mamma always told me that when I got angry: You have your father’s eyes!"

He laughed again, not quite sure how to feel about that, "Were you angry a lot?"

"No. I don’t think so. Well, I have my moods, I suppose." She drew herself up formally and said, "I am Ariana Fiore. You are Emilio Sandoz, I presume?"

He was really laughing now, the tears forgotten. "I can’t believe it," he said, shaking his head. "I can’t believe it!" He looked around, dazed, and then moved over on the bench and said, "Please, sit down. Do you come here often? Listen to me! I sound like I’m trying to pick you up in a bar! Do they still have bars?"

They talked and talked, as the afternoon light washed their faces with gold, Ariana filling him in on the barest outlines of the years of his absence. "Celestina’s the chief set designer at the Teatro San Carlo," she told him. "She’s been married four times so far—"

"Four? My God!" he said, eyes wide. "Has it ever occurred to her that she should rent, not buy?"

"That is exactly what I told her!" Ariana cried, feeling as though she had known this man all her life. "To be honest," she said, "I think perhaps—"

"She leaves them before they can leave her," he suggested.

Ariana grimaced, but then confided, "Honestly—she is such a drama queen! I swear she gets married because she likes the weddings. You should see the parties she throws! You probably will, before long— she’s on tour with the opera company right now, and that’s usually bad news for her current husband. Now, when Giampaolo and I got married, we had five friends and the magistrate—but we really earned the party we had for our tenth anniversary last year!"

Roused by the talk and the laughter, the baby stretched and whimpered. They both watched, quiet and in suspense. When it seemed likely that the child would not awaken, Ariana spoke again, very softly now. "I finally got pregnant just after Mamma died. You know what we say at New Year’s?"

"Buon fine, buon principio," he said. "A good end, a good beginning."

"Yes. I was hoping for a girl. I thought it would be as though Mamma had come back, somehow." She smiled and shrugged, and reached out to touch the baby’s plump and downy cheek. "His name is Tommaso."

"How did your mother die?" he asked at last.

"Well, you know she was a nurse. After I started school, she went back to work. You left us very well provided for, but she wanted to be of use." Emilio nodded, face still. "Anyway, there was an epidemic—they still haven’t isolated the pathogen—it’s all over the world now. For some reason, older women were hit hardest. They called it the Nonna Disease here in Naples because it killed so many grandmothers. The last coherent thing Mamma said was, ’God’s got a lot of explaining to do.’»

Emilio wiped his eyes on his coat sleeve and laughed. "That sounds like Gina."

For a long while, they did not speak but only listened to the birdsong and the conversations around them. "Of course," Ariana said as though no time had passed, "God never explains. When life breaks your heart, you’re just supposed to pick up the pieces and start over, I guess."

She glanced down at Tommaso, sleeping in his stroller. Needing the comfort of his warm, little body, she leaned over and lifted him carefully, one hand behind his peach-fuzz head, the other under his little bottom. After a time, she smiled at her father and asked, "Would you like to hold your grandson?"

Kids and babies, he thought. Don’t do this to me again.

But there was no way to resist. He looked at this undreamt-of daughter and at her tiny child—frowning and milky in dreamless sleep—and found room in the crowded necropolis of his heart.

"Yes," he said finally, amazed and resigned and somehow content. "Yes. I would like that very much."