Children of God

Or perhaps it was the resignation of Jonah realizing that God would find him and use him no matter where he was, even in the belly of a whale.

There was no dawn to wake Da

He had not wanted to sleep. Da

"It must have been hard," Sandoz said after a time, his voice soft and unresonant in the echoing space of the bay.

Da

"If you stare into the abyss," Sandoz reported, "it stares back."

"Nietzsche," Da

"Two points." Waxen and exhausted, Sandoz got slowly to his feet and stood blankly for a while. "God uses us all, I suppose," he said, and walked to the hatch, banging on it with an elbow.

In an instant, the sounds of pressure equalizers and locking mechanisms echoed emptily against the stone walls of the hull. When the door opened, Da

"He did what he had to," Sandoz told them, and stepped through the hatch without another word.

For the first time since his mother died when he was sixteen years old, Daniel Iron Horse broke down and sobbed. The others stood and listened until John Candotti said, "Leave him alone," and the little crowd dispersed.

After a decent interval, John ducked into the bay. He looked around and then retrieved Sandoz’s discarded shirt, offering it to Da

"It’s pretty funky," John admitted. "If that’s the odor of sanctity, God help us all."

Da

"My mom always hated it when I did that," John said, sliding down the wall next to Da

Da

They both sat staring at the far end of the bay for a while. "Well, hell," John said finally, "if it’s okay with Emilio, it’s okay with me, I guess. Pax?"

Da

John got to his feet and offered the other man a hand up. Da

"Sure," John said, and left Da

27

Great Southern Forest

2061, Earth-Relative

"— WAS RIPE TWO NIGHTS AGO— " — PON RIVER. BUT SOMEONE thinks — " " — no market anymore for—" " — stern campaign is undersupplied and if —" ("Uu

"Sipaj, Isaac! Stop!" Ha’anala shouted.

Isaac sank to the ground, dizzy but satisfied, Spi

"Sipaj, Isaac," Ha’anala said slowly, her voice pitched low. "Let’s go to the shelter." She waited the right amount of time before adding, "We’ll listen to music."

Ha’anala had clarity.

Isaac stood, clutching the computer tablet to his bare, bony chest, feeling its cool, flat, unblemished perfection. All around him: inconstancy, unpredictability, irrationality. His own body could not be trusted. Feet became more distant, arms wrapped further around the torso. Hair appeared in places where none had been before. Stones, smooth and faultless one time, might be covered by a leaf or flawed by the presence of a bug the next time he looked. Ears and eyes and mouths and limbs moved endlessly. Bodies sat and slept in different places. How could they expect him to understand what they were saying while he was still trying to figure out who they were? Plants sprang up and changed size and disappeared. Buds, flowers and withered things came and went. He could sit and stare for hours— days! But he couldn’t see this happen. He fell asleep and, in the morning, the old thing was gone and a new one was there and sometimes it acted the same way as before and sometimes it didn’t. There was no clarity.

The computer held a world that was precisely the same every morning, except for his mother’s daily message—he knew now that she made small changes because she showed him how to do this. He complained, so she put all her messages in a separate file and that was all right because it didn’t change anything else in his other directories; Isaac was the only one who changed those. The computer was better than spi

"Sipaj, Isaac. Come with me," Ha’anala said, each word distinct. She picked up his cloth—a silken blue square that could cover him from head to waist. His prayer shawl, Sofia called it with dispirited irony. "We’ll listen to music," Ha’anala repeated, tugging at his ankle with her foot.

Isaac jerked away and muttered, "Now someone has to start over."

Ha’anala lifted her chin and sat down to wait. Isaac couldn’t bear to have a thought interrupted and he had to begin at the begi

When Isaac was finished, he stood up straighter: his signal that he could move again. Ha’anala rolled to her feet and walked off toward the edge of the village clearing. Isaac tracked her tangentially, head up and tilted crazily, relying on peripheral vision, so he wouldn’t have to see her legs move. The people were already talking again. " — adio control of the—" " — pay, Hatna! Don’t make—" " — over two hundred bahli now!" " — new windbreaks for th—" " — is nice combined with k’ta — " — torm coming in—"

The conversation receded, only to be replaced by the patternless noise of the forest: squawking, buzzing, dripping. Shrieks and whistled arpeggios; snuffling, rustling. Nearly as bad as the village. The forest, at least, had no baffling jumble of talk and intonation, no half-grasped meaning shrouded by the next words.

Impasto, Isaac thought. This is worse than red. The village is an impasto of words. The forest is an impasto of sounds. There is no clarity!