Children of God

"Several weeks later, Askama had located Sandoz herself, and took the ranking members of the Magellan party to him. He was found in Hlavin Kitheri’s seraglio, naked except for a jeweled collar and perfumed ribbons, the bloody effects of sodomy visible. By his own admission, Sandoz had by that time reached a state of murderous desperation. Hoping to prove himself so dangerous that he would either be left alone or executed, he had that day made Jephthah’s vow: that he would kill the next person he saw. He could not have anticipated that it would be Askama, a Runa child whom he had all but raised, and whom he loved deeply.

"When Sandoz looked up from Askama’s corpse and saw the Consortium officials, he laughed. I think it was his laughter that convinced them of his depravity, and of course they had Supaari VaGayjur’s later assurances that Sandoz had prostituted himself at his own request. I now believe that his laughter was evidence of hysteria and despair, but they had just witnessed a murder, and under the circumstances, the Magellan party was inclined to believe the worst."

As was I, Vincenzo Giuliani thought, standing once more and walking away from his desk.

It was absurd in hindsight—the very idea that a handful of humans might have been able to do everything right the first time. Even the closest of friends can misunderstand one another, he reminded himself. First contact—by definition—takes place in a state of radical ignorance, where nothing is known about the ecology, biology, languages, culture and economy of the Other. On Rakhat, that ignorance proved catastrophic.

You couldn’t have known, Vincenzo Giuliani thought, hearing his own pacing, but remembering Emilio’s. It wasn’t your fault.

Tell that to the dead, Emilio would have answered.

2

Trucha Sai, Rakhat

2042, Earth-Relative

SOFIA MENDES HAD KNOWN FROM THE VERY START THAT THE MEMBERS of the Jesuit mission to Rakhat would be an endangered species on that planet.

The Stella Maris had begun with a crew of eight. Alan Pace died within weeks of landfall, and then they were seven. D. W. Yarbrough, the Jesuit superior, became ill a few months later and never recovered, although he survived an additional eighteen months, in declining health. Understandably, having no research facilities and no colleagues, the physician A

In the face of misfortune, the Jesuit party had rallied repeatedly. When a simple miscalculation in the aftermath of a serious accident resulted in the crew being marooned on Rakhat, they had adapted, establishing a garden to supply themselves with food, becoming part of the local economy by providing exotic trade goods. They were accepted by the villagers of Kashan, even to the point of being called by kinship terms by many families. And there were times of great joy, most notably Sofia’s own wedding to Jimmy Qui

Like so many Jewish children, Sofia Mendes had grown up with nightmare images of Egyptian slavemasters, of Babylonians and Assyrians and Romans, of Cossacks and inquisitors, and the SS coming to kill; she had vanquished a child’s intense, impotent fear by imagining herself fighting back, repulsing would-be conquerors. So when the Jana’ata patrol had arrived at Kashan and burned the foreign garden and demanded that the VaKashani Runa bring their babies forward and then, systematically, began to kill the children, Sofia Mendes had acted without hesitation. "We are many. They are few," she called out to the VaKashani and lifted a Runa infant to breasts swollen with her own pregnancy.

"We," she said, and cast her fate with the Runa—with the untermenschen of Rakhat.

Her gesture, briefly, turned the tide; her own fall, under the bludgeoning sweep of a Jana’ata arm, stiffened the resistance. Then, believing that they could not win, Runa fathers fell over children to shield them with their bodies; Runa mothers sacrificed themselves to Jana’ata fury, absorbing the violence to save the rest. When it was over, there were scores of carcasses, heaped and bloody, most of which were quickly butchered.

When the patrol left, terror and the unprecedented exhilaration of momentary triumph made consensus impossible. The village of Kashan had fissioned, in violation of the most basic Runa strategies for survival: stay together; circle to protect the greatest number; act in concert. Close to panic, individuals searched for anyone who shared some identifiable emotion, forming small, less vulnerable clusters as quickly as possible. Those whose families had been killed added sinuous scented ribbons to their arms and necks, too stu

"But Fia didn’t harm us! The djanada did this!" a girl named Djalao countered. Barely grown, she had no authority, but in the confusion, there were those so hungry for direction that they listened. "Warn as many other villages as possible. Tell them what happened in Kashan," Djalao told the ru

Kanchay VaKashan was as confused as anyone, but it was his daughter Puska whom Sofia had saved, and he was grateful. So when a handful of men with surviving infants decided to wait until redlight and flee to the safety of the southern forest, he took Sofia as well.

Of their journey to sanctuary, Sofia herself remembered only the occasional thin keening of Runa infants; the swaying, fluid stride of Kanchay, who carried her on his back for days; the sounds of sava

She slept heavily in the begi

When she was stronger, she asked where she was. "Trucha Sai," she was told. Forget Us. "The Runa come to Trucha Sai when the djanada smell too much blood," Kanchay explained, speaking simply as though to a child. "After a while, they forget. We-and-you-also will wait in the forest until then."

It was more than an explanation, she understood. Kanchay had chosen his words with intent. "There are two forms of first person plural," Emilio Sandoz had once told the other members of the Stella Maris party. "One is exclusive of the person addressed, yes? It means we-but-not-you. The other is we-and-you-also. If a Runao uses the inclusive we, you may be sure it is significant and you may rejoice in a friendship."