Children of God

38

Rakhat: Landfall

October 2078, Earth-Relative

EVEN IF F SFAN FEIN HAD HARBORED ANY ILLUSIONS ABOUT THINGS MAKING sense on Rakhat, he’d have lost them all to the near oblivion he achieved during the hours before the Giordano Bruno party made landfall.

As beautiful as he found the laws and workings of chemistry, the physics of flying defeated him, and Sean always expected his i

Weightlessness and chill dominated the first stage of the descent from the vacuum of space. There was a brief, blessed interval of low gravity and growing warmth, but that was followed by perceptible acceleration. As they entered the atmosphere, the lander began to vibrate, and then to buck like a small boat in a dirty sea.

Alcohol failed him. Nauseated and cotton-mouthed, Sean spent the balance of the flight alternately invoking the Virgin’s intercession and chanting, "Fack, fack, fack," like a litany, with his eyes closed and his palms stinking. Just when it seemed it couldn’t get any worse, they hit a wall of bad air left over from the last tropical storm to move through the region, and as the entry heat grew in ferocity, his body fought crazily with its own autonomic nervous system: ice-cold with terror and sweating to stave off fever.

Which is why the first man from the Giordano Bruno to set foot on Rakhat was not Daniel Iron Horse, who was the mission’s superior, or Joseba Urizarbarrena, an ecologist aching for his first glimpse of this new world; not Emilio Sandoz, who knew the place and would react most quickly to danger, or John Candotti, determined to be at his side, in case disaster struck again; nor was it the would-be conquistador Carlo Giuliani or his bodyguard Niccolo d’Angeli. It was Father Sean Fein, of the Society of Jesus, who pushed his way to the front of the queue and exited the lander the moment the hatch opened, stumbling forward a few steps and falling gracelessly to his knees, where he threw up for a good two minutes.

They might have hoped for a more auspicious begi

IT WAS ONLY WHEN SEAN SAT BACK ON HIS HEELS AND HAWKED AND SPAT and caught his breath that any of them looked beyond his distress to the high plateau south of Inbrokar City, which Sofia Mendes had recommended as their landing site.

"I had forgotten," Emilio Sandoz whispered, walking as they all did now away from the lander’s ticking-hot hull, away from the stench of burnt fuel and vomit, into the redolent wind. "I had forgotten."

They’d meant to come earlier, just after the first of Rakhat’s suns had risen, before the steaming heat of full day, but the weather was more than usually unstable this time of year and storms had delayed landfall twice. Finally, Frans had identified a break in the rains and Carlo had decided to go down, even though it would be close to second sunset when they landed.

So they had by accident arrived on Rakhat at the most beautiful time of day, when the late afternoon chorale of wildlife a

"What is that scent?" John asked Emilio, standing next to him.

"Which one?" Joseba cried, agriculture’s depredations forgotten in the languorous panorama of lavender sava

"It’s like a perfume shop!" said Nico.

"But there’s one scent, especially," said John, searching for words. "Like ci

"Yes, exquisite," Carlo agreed. "I recognize it—there were ribbons with that scent in the shipment the Contact Consortium stowed on board the Stella Maris when they sent Sandoz back."

Emilio looked around and then walked to a patch of low-growing bushes a few paces away. He picked a trumpet-shaped blossom, its petals the hallucinatory scarlet of a poppy, and held it out to John, who leaned forward to inhale. "Yeah, that’s what I’m smelling. What’s it called?" John asked, offering the blossom to Sean, who backed away, still feeling rocky.

"Yasapa," said Emilio. "And yasapa means?"

John pulled the pieces apart. Ya s ap a… "You can make tea with it!" he translated triumphantly.

Pleased with his pupil, the linguist nodded as Carlo reached for the flower, carrying it with both hands to his face and inhaling deeply. "The Runa fill a glass jar with the blossoms, cover them with water and set it in the sun—too sugary for my taste," Emilio said, "but they add sweetleaf to the tea as well. If you leave it long enough, it ferments. You can distill that for a kind of brandy."

"Just as I predicted!" Carlo crowed triumphantly. "We’ve been here less than half an hour and you have already paid for this entire expedition," he told Sandoz, looking at the blossom. "Beautiful color—" He paused, and then sneezed violently.

"Crisce sant’," Nico intoned.

Carlo nodded, and tried again, "Is the brandy th—" He stopped, mouth open, eyes closing, and this time there was a series of sneezes, with Nico blessing each small detonation. "Thank you, Nico, I think I’m sufficiently sanctified," Carlo said. "Is the brandy this color?" he finally managed to ask before sneezing again. "God," he cried, "I can’t be coming down with a cold!"

"It’s that damned flower," said Sean, lip curled at the cloying odor.

"Or the lander fumes," Da

Carlo shook his head in amazement, and managed to continue his thought. "Is the brandy this color as well? The demand would be huge—"

"Just don’t let the Jebs in on the deal," Da

Carlo was now staggering backward, as though jet-propelled. "Possa sa’ l’ultima! he gasped with his hands over his mouth, which felt bizarrely numb. His eyes were starting to itch and water. "Drop the flower," he heard Sean say. "Get it away from your face!" Sandoz ordered. And Carlo did so, but the sneezing continued unabated, and his eyes were swelling shut…

"This is the last time I go on a package tour with you guys," John was griping. "Sean throws up, Carlo’s allergic to flowers—"

"Padrone, is something wrong?" Nico asked. When there was no answer, Nico turned to Emilio and asked again, "Is there something wrong?"

Everything began happening at once: Emilio yelling, "Get the anaphylaxis kit! Run, for crissakes! He’s going down!" Carlo hitting the ground, each breath a separate struggle to suck air past a rapidly constricting pharynx. Da