Children of God

"I prefer Wolfer’s translation of Job myself," Sandoz commented. "So. Why did terrorism lose its charm for you?"

"Ah. The subject is changed," Joseba observed equably. "It didn’t, not for a long time, anyway. Then Spain and France finally decided, To hell with the Basques—who needs them? So we fought among ourselves for a while. Gets to be a habit." He stopped and looked at Sandoz. "Did you know Hlavin Kitheri’s voice was heard for less than a year after you left Rakhat, and then never again?"

"Perhaps he died," Sandoz suggested blandly, "of something unpleasant and prolonged. What did you do after terrorism ceased to be a viable career option?"

"A lot of hunting, actually. We still hunt in the little corner of the world where I come from. I was outdoors all the time, surrounded by what’s left of nature in Europe. A hunter—a good one—often identifies very strongly with the prey. One thing led to another. I studied ecology at university."

"And how from there to the priesthood? You fell in love, perhaps, with God’s complex and beautiful creation?" The light, soft voice was curiously flat and uninflected in the gloom, all its music drained away, the empty face barely illuminated by the yellow and green readouts shining dimly from the bridge.

"No," Joseba said frankly. "It is difficult to see the complex beauty of creation these days, on Earth at least. Things got a lot worse while you were gone, my friend. Ecology has become a study of degradation. We mainly work backward now, trying to reconstruct systems thrown out of balance and wrecked. For each step forward, we are forced two steps back by the press of population. It’s not a cheerful discipline."

The Basque moved in the darkness across the commons and took a seat a little distance from Sandoz, the molded polymer chair creaking under his substantial weight. "When you see a system disturbed, it is a great joy to discover a single cause—the cure then seems simple. As an undergraduate, I would look at satellite images of the planet at night, and the co

Sandoz was staring at him. A good sign, Joseba thought. Even drugged, he is capable of moral judgment on some level.

"As I said," Joseba continued dryly, "terrorism did not lose its charm. I was living with a girl at the time. I broke it off. She wanted children, and I loathed children. Disease vectors, I called them. I used to look at people like Nico and think, There’s a botched abortion. One more useless human to consume the planet, capable only of eating and making more of himself."

Somewhere in the ship a compressor kicked in and its hum joined the soft splashing of the fish-tank aerators and the constant hush of filtered fans. Sandoz did not move.

"The last thing my girlfriend told me when we parted was that it was wicked to wish death on people whose only crime was to be born at a time when there are so many of us." He sat for a while, trying to remember her face, wondering what she might look like now—a woman in her late forties, given the relativity effects. "She opened my eyes, although we never spoke again. It took a while, but eventually I began to search for a reason to believe that humans are more than bacteria. One of my professors was a Jesuit."

"And now you are going to a world where the sentient species do not degrade their environment. To see what it costs them?"

"Penance for my sins, I suppose." Joseba stood and moved toward the bridge, where he could stare out the observation port toward hard stars and unplumbed blackness. "I think sometimes of the girl I did not marry." He looked back at Sandoz, but there was no reaction he could see. "I read somewhere an interesting suggestion. The nations of the world that most vigorously foul the planetary nest and those in possession of the most destructive arsenals ought to be governed only by young women with small kids. More than anyone else, such mothers must live in the future, and they also face each day the realities of raw human nature. This gives them a special insight."

Joseba stood up straight then, stretching and yawning, and disappeared around the bulkhead into the passageway to his cabin, calling, "Good night," as he went. Emilio Sandoz sat alone in the commons for a long time, and then went to bed as well.

"I’M NOT ARGUING. I’M JUST CONFUSED," JOHN CANDOTTI HAD SAID TO the Father General, a few months before the mission was launched. "I mean, everybody else is some kind of scientist. My forte is more along the lines of weddings and baptisms. Funerals. School plays? Bailing guys out?" The question in his voice invited the Father General to jump in any time, but Vincenzo Giuliani simply looked at him, and other people’s silence tended to make John talk more and faster. "Writing the church bulletin? Reffing fights between the choir director and the liturgist? None of that is likely to come up, right? Except maybe funerals." John cleared his throat. "Look, it’s not that I don’t want to go, it’s just that I know guys who would give a kidney to be on this mission and I don’t get why you’re sending me."

The Father General’s eyes left John’s face and rested on the olive trees and the stony hills that surrounded the retreat house. After a time, he seemed to forget Candotti was there and started to walk away. Then he hesitated and turned back to the younger priest. "They’re going to need someone who is good at forgiveness," was all he said.

So, John now supposed, it was his job to forgive Da

Back in Chicago, John Candotti had been a notoriously easy mark in a confessional, the kind of priest who didn’t make a penitent feel like a three-year-old who’d had a potty accident. "We all screw up," he would remind people. A lot of what people confessed to him had its origin in thoughtlessness, lack of empathy, indifference to others. Or idolatry— mistaking money or power or achievement or sex for God. John knew from experience how you could let yourself get swept up in something you’d regret, kidding yourself that you could handle some potentially harmful situation and weren’t about to step knee-deep into a pool of shit. He was skilled at helping people work through what they’d done and why, so they could make good—literally, make good out of bad.

But Daniel Iron Horse hadn’t just screwed up. This wasn’t a mistake— it wasn’t even self-deception. It was deliberate, knowing collusion in an act that was illegal, unethical and immoral. Realizing later that Vincenzo Giuliani and Gelasius III must have been complicit only deepened John’s outrage, but those two weren’t available to be vilified. Da

For the first time in his life, the Mass failed John. He had always counted on the celebration of the Eucharist to be a time of renewal and rededication, especially among men who had given their lives over to be entirely at the disposal of God. Now, on the Giordano Bruno, the Mass was a daily reminder of division and hostility; the very word «Communion» seemed to mock him.

John wanted desperately to talk to Emilio, but Sandoz treated him as he did all the crew members: with a distant, drugged courtesy. "I have given my word that I will not obstruct Carlo’s plans," was all he would say.