Children of God

"Buon giorno, Nico," he said patiently. "I am afraid I would rather not have any company right now."

"Buon giorno, Don Emilio," Nico responded pleasantly. "I am afraid this is very important."

Emilio took a deep breath, and almost gagged on the smell of garlic, but he stepped away from the door, inviting Nico in. As was his habit, he moved to the farthest corner of his small room and sat on his bed, back against the bulkhead. Nico perched on the edge of the desk chair and then leaned forward to place half a salami on the foot of the bunk. "I wish to make you a gift of this, Don Emilio," he said without further explanation.

Gravely, and breathing shallowly, Emilio said, "Thank you, Nico. This is very thoughtful, but I don’t eat meat anymore—"

"I know, Don Emilio. Don Gia

Smiling in spite of everything, Emilio said, "You’re right, Nico. This was just a pig. Thank you."

"Is your headache better now?" Nico asked anxiously. "You can save this for later, if you’re going to throw up."

"Thank you, Nico. I took some medicine, and my headache is gone, so I won’t throw up." He sounded more certain than he was: the garlic was staggering. But this was clearly a present of significance from Nico, so he slid down the bed and picked up the salami with both hands, to signify his wholehearted acceptance of it. "It would please me to share this with you," he said. "Do you have a knife?"

Nico nodded and pulled out a pocketknife and then smiled at him shyly: a rare occurrence and one that was remarkably cheering. Dutifully, Emilio unwrapped the salami, a process that went fairly easily because his hands were okay today. Nico took it from him. Drawing his blade toward his thumb with great care, he cut two round, slender wafers from the end. Emilio found himself accepting one of these with the kind of dignity he’d once reserved for a consecrated Host. It’s only a pig, he reminded himself, and managed to swallow after a while.

Nico, chewing, beamed greasily around his slice, but then remembered something he’d been meaning to say for some time now. "Don Emilio," he began, "I wish you to absolve me—"

Sandoz shook his head. "Nico, you must go to one of the priests to confess. I ca

"No," Nico said, "not a priest. You yourself must absolve me. Don Emilio, I am sorry that I beat you up."

Relieved, Emilio said, "You were only doing your job."

"It was a bad job," Nico insisted. "I’m sorry I did it."

No excuses about following Carlo’s orders. No hedges. No self-serving justifications. "Nico," Emilio said with the quiet formality the occasion required, "I accept your apology. I forgive you for beating me up."

Cautious, Nico pressed, "Both times?"

"Both times," Emilio confirmed.

Nico looked solemnly glad to hear this. "I took your guinea pig to the sisters. The children promised to take good care of her."

"That’s good, Nico," Emilio said after a time, astonished by how much it helped to know this. "Thank you for doing that, and for telling me."

Heartened, Nico asked, "Don Emilio, do you think we are going to do a bad job on that planet?"

"I’m not certain, Nico," Emilio admitted. "The first time I was there, we wanted very much to be good people and to do the right things, but it all went wrong. This time, our motives for going to Rakhat are not… pure. But who knows? Maybe things will turn out well in spite of us."

"That would be irony," Nico observed.

Emilio’s face softened and he gazed at the big man with real affection. "Yes, indeed. That would be irony." He was glad Nico had stopped by, he realized. "And you, Nico. What do you think? Will it be a bad job down there?"

"I’m not certain, Don Emilio," Nico said seriously, mimicking Sandoz’s own tone and words as he often did now. "I think we should wait until we get there and see what’s going on. That’s my advice."

Emilio nodded. "You’re very sensible, Nico."

But Nico went on, "I think that the man who did bad things to you— that Kitheri? He might be sorry, like I am. I think his music is wonderful— better than Verdi, even. Someone who makes such good music can’t be all bad. That’s what I think."

Which was a great deal harder to accept, but might have some germ of truth…. Emilio stood then, to signal the end of the visit, and Nico rose as well, but did not move to the door. Instead he reached down and gently lifted Sandoz’s right hand and bent low over it, to kiss it. Embarrassed, Emilio tried to draw back, to refuse this homage, but Nico’s gentle grip seemed unbreakable.

"Don Emilio," Nico said, "I would kill or die for you."

Emilio, who understood this code, looked away and tried to imagine how he could respond to such a display of undeserved devotion. There seemed only one reply possible and, eyes closed, he examined himself to see if he could say this with the honesty such a man deserved. "Thank you, Nico," he said finally. "I love you, too."

He hardly noticed when Nico left.

31

City of Gayjur

2080, Earth-Relative

MANY YEARS LATER, JOSEBA URIZARBARRENA WOULD REMEMBER THE children’s chorale—and the K’San word for emancipation—during a conversation with the daughter of Kanchay VaKashan. Puska VaTrucha-Sai was a respected parliamentary elder in Gayjur when Joseba first met her, and he often found her viewpoint illuminating as he and the other priests pieced together the history of the Runa revolution.

"There had been sporadic fighting for years," Puska told him, "but in the begi

"How did the government respond?" Joseba Urizarbarrena asked.

"By wiping out villages that gave shelter to the city Runa. Before long, they were burning out natural rakar fields in the midlands—to starve us into submission." She stopped, remembering, reassessing. "What tipped the balance was when Fia believed they had begun to use biologicals against us. When she was a child, Fia had seen diseases used against a people called the Kurds. When the plagues began, we thought that Runa behind djanada lines were made ill and then smuggled south and left to infect all who came in contact with them."

"But that sickness might also be explained by the sudden mixing of Runa populations during the rebellion," Joseba suggested. "The sharing of disease reservoirs, the exposure to unfamiliar environments? Swamp harvesters working with city specialists—people exposed to local illnesses they had no immunity to, and spreading them?"

"Yes," Puska said after a time. "Some of our scientists said so. It was not a consensus view at the time…" She sat as straight as possible, her ears high. "The djanada appeared to leave us no alternative but to strike back with overwhelming force. The people were dying. Thousands and thousands died of plague. We were fighting for our lives." She looked to the north, and forced herself to be just. "So were they, I suppose."

"Sipaj, Puska, someone wonders if the Jana’ata themselves changed or if the Runa idea of the Jana’ata changed."

Puska considered this for a while, and then began to use English pronouns, as many Runa did now, to signify a strictly personal comment. "My idea of the djanada changed when I left Trucha Sai." She paused for a time, eyes on the middle distance. "When we first went to Mo’arl—. Sipaj, Hozei: the things we saw! I keened every night for a season. There were roads paved with our bones, crushed and mixed with limestone, levees along the rivers—three times the height of a woman—all bone. Boots from the skins of our dead—even Runa wore them in the cities! There were shops—" She looked now directly at Joseba. "Platters of tongues, platters of hearts. Legs, shoulders, feet, fillets and chops! Rump and tail and elbows and knees—all beautifully displayed. Runa domestics would come and pick out the cut of meat to serve to their masters. How could they stand it?" she demanded. "How could the djanada have asked it of them?"