Children of God

He could not get there for a long time but, as he exhausted himself, the screaming slowed and quieted to long, sucking sobs. At last, kneeling on the damp ground with his arms wrapped around his head, his narrow little hips thrust in the air, Isaac rocked in rhythm to his mother’s voice, and found his way to the music: to salvation.

He slept then, limp, and did not know that the adults would not sleep for hours, their plans in ruins.

"ALL RIGHT," SOFIA SAID WEARILY, WHEN SUPAARI WOKE AT DAWN. "WE are going to leave the children here for now. You and Sichu-Lan and Tinbar can stay with them. Kanchay, Djalao and I will go on alone to the lander. I’ve checked the fuel levels and I can make a flight back here to collect you and the children and the trade goods without risking the return to the mother ship. We can carry Isaac into the plane while he’s asleep. By the time he wakes up, we’ll be on board the Magellan. Do you understand?"

"I’m coming with you."

"Oh, God, Supaari, we argued all night. It’s been decided—"

"I’m coming with you," he insisted.

Already the male Runa were swaying. Sofia glanced at Djalao, who was visibly tired but as determined as Sofia to keep the men from falling apart. "Sipaj, Supaari. You are a hazard," Sofia told him firmly. "You will slow us down—"

"We will travel in full daylight. We can make the journey in half the time that way, and we won’t have to do it reeking of benhunjaran—"

"Sipaj, Supaari, are you mad?" She turned to Djalao, silently pleading for help. "If a patrol sees us—"

"There is a bounty for me and for any foreigner," Supaari reminded her in English. He turned to Djalao. "Someone thinks these Runa are delivering outlaws to the authorities."

"And when such a patrol finds us-and-you-also? They will take custody," Djalao said, her bloodshot eyes calm.

"Then we-and-you-also will kill them in their sleep."

"Supaari!" Sofia gasped, but Djalao said, "So be it," without waiting for the others to express an opinion. "We’ll rest until second sunrise. Then we’ll go."

THE PLAINS WERE EMPTY, AND FOR A TIME IT APPEARED THAT THE worry and precautions were unjustified. For two days, they seemed to be the highest things on the horizon. No one challenged or greeted them, and Supaari should have been reassured, but he wasn’t. There’s something wrong with the sky, he thought, lowering his backbasket and sitting on the ground while the Runa foraged. The light was subtly dimmed in a way he couldn’t define. A volcano? he wondered.

"Supaari?"

He turned and saw Sofia, who was gnawing on a betrin root. She looked so brown! Was there something wrong with his eyes or had she changed color? Unsure of his own perceptions, Supaari gestured toward the sky. "Does that look right to you?" he asked.

She frowned. "It does look… odd somehow. The suns are out, but it seems a little dark," she said. Almost five years in a forest, she thought, remembering sunlight shattered by shifting leaves. "I’m not sure I remember what the sky is supposed to look like!"

"Sipaj, Djalao," Supaari called softly. She straightened from the melfruit bush she was stripping. "There’s something wrong with the sky."

Sofia snorted. "You sound like Isaac," she told Supaari as Djalao walked over, but sobered when she saw the Runao’s face.

"The color is wrong," Djalao agreed uneasily.

Supaari stood and faced into the wind, clearing his lungs through his mouth, then inhaled a long breath through his nostrils; the breeze was too stiff for a coherent plume, but he hoped at least to snatch a hint from the air. Djalao watched him intently. "No sulfur," he told her. "Not a volcano."

"This is trouble," Djalao whispered, not wanting to alarm Kanchay, who was ambling over with an armload of trijat leaf.

Sofia asked, "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing," said Djalao, glancing significantly at Kanchay, who’d had enough to cope with the past few days.

But Supaari told Sofia quietly, "We’ll know in the morning."

IN THE STILL AIR, LIT BY THE LOW LIGHT OF FIRST DAWN, THE PALL OF smoke became visible, its multiple columns rising and coalescing in the sky like the stems of a hampiy tree rising to meet in its crown. That day, as they moved downwind of the closest villages, even Sofia could detect the smell of char, which penetrated the stench of benhunjaran ointment lingering in their hair.

"Kashan will be all right," Kanchay said over and over, as they walked. "The djanada burned our garden a long time ago." And the VaKashani had been compliant and virtuous by Jana’ata standards ever since.

But he was alone in his hope, and as they approached the wreckage of the Magellan’s lander, the bodies became visible in the distance: some butchered, some scavenged, most twisted and blackened by fire.

Sofia left the VaRakhati staring across the plain toward the corpses, and climbed into the remains of the Magellan lander emptied by vandals. Someone’s crying, she thought, and wondered Who, as the sound of sobbing reverberated hollowly against the hull. She paid no attention— hardly heard it, really. Things could be worse, she thought, wiping her face and picking through the wreckage. She found odds and ends of useful technology, the best of which was a spare computer tablet stowed in a locker that had been overlooked in the pillaging. Careful not to cut herself on the jagged metal where the cargo-bay door had been forced open, she reemerged into the smoky sunlight and joined the others. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, she flipped the new tablet open and accessed the Magellan’s system, concentrating on finding the past week’s meteorological imaging logs.

"They must have hit every village that ever had a garden," she told Supaari without emotion, recognizing the diffusion pathways that A

"But there are no more gardens," Kanchay said plaintively, looking back toward his vanished village. "We never planted food again."

"Every place we foreigners and you touched," Sofia said, looking up at Supaari. "Gone."

"All my villages," he whispered. "Kashan, Lanjeri, Rialner. All those people…"

"Who can wear so many ribbons?" Kanchay asked, dazed. "Why would they do this? What gives them the right?"

"The new Paramount’s legitimacy is in question," Djalao explained, her voice as empty as Sofia’s. "The lords say he is not suitable for his office. He must be seen to restore balance, to remove all foreign and criminal influence from his territories."

"But he said the south was restored to order!" Kanchay cried. "The radio reports all said—" Kanchay turned and looked at Sofia and Djalao. "What gives them the right?" he asked, and when no one responded, Kanchay took three long steps toward Supaari, and shoved the Jana’ata hard. "What gives you the right?" he demanded.

"Kanchay!" Sofia cried, startled out of her own numbness.

"What gives you the right?" Kanchay shouted, but before the Jana’ata could stammer an answer, the Runao’s anger erupted like molten rock and he was roaring now—"What gives you the right?" — over and over, each word punctuated with a blow and a burst of blood from the face of a man who staggered back but did nothing to counter the attack.

Her face white with terror, Sofia scrambled up and threw her arms around Kanchay. He flung her off like a rag doll, not even pausing in his assault. "Kanchay!" Sofia screamed, astonished, and tried again to push between the two men, only to be knocked away once more. "Djalao!" she shouted from the ground, her own face spattered with gore. "Do something! He’s going to kill Supaari!"

For an eternity, Djalao stood gaping, too stu

Shocked senseless, all of them stood or knelt or lay where they were, until the sound of Kanchay’s gasping grief subsided. It was only then that Supaari got to his feet, and spat blood, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He wheeled slowly, looking all around him, as though searching for something he would never find again; leaned back against his tail, winded and lost.