Children of God

Isaac’s wail fell off to a moaning that was joined by the keening of a bereft Jana’ata man-child. Sitting at his side, Ha’anala rested her head against Rukuei’s, putting a thin arm around his shoulders and holding him near. "Our fathers are dead," she whispered as the boy wept. "We are not. Live with me, cousin. Live…"

Mesmerized by the drama, the villagers stood swaying or staring until Shetri shepherded them away. Finally, there was no one left but the two cousins, and Isaac, whose spi

Older now and steadier, less vulnerable to turmoil if it was quickly brought under control, Isaac did not understand or even notice the emotions at work on his sister and her cousin. But he did what he could to bring clarity.

"I have something to say," he a

The quiet persisted, so Isaac was able to finish. "I’ll teach you one someday," he told the boy. "It’s not ready yet. You can leave for a while, but come back."

34

Giordano Bruno

2084, Earth-Relative

"I STAYED WITH HA’ANALA AND MY FOSTER MOTHER, SUUKMEL, UNTIL I was fourteen," Rukuei Kitheri would tell Emilio Sandoz years later. "I learned to sing with Isaac, and sometimes he would say the most extraordinary things. I came to trust his… judgment. He was very strange, but he was right: I was born to learn songs and to teach them. I spent nearly five years wandering through the Garnu mountains—I needed to hear and remember the story of each Jana’ata who had lived through those last days. I hungered for the lullabies and the literature. I wanted to understand the laws and the politics, and the poetry, to preserve some small portion of the intellect and art of a world that had died before my eyes."

"But eventually you went back to the valley," Sandoz said. "To Ha’anala and Isaac?"

"Yes."

"And by then, Isaac was ready to let you hear the music he found."

"Yes."

Isaac had met Rukuei at the mouth of the pass. Naked as ever, the ragged parasol high over his head, he did not look at Rukuei or greet him, or ask about his travels. He simply stood in the way.

"I know why you’re here," Isaac told him finally. "You came back to learn the song." A pause. "I found the music." Another pause. "It doesn’t have words yet."

There was no emotion in his voice, but driven by some i

"What’s wrong, Isaac?" Rukuei asked, schooled by then in others’ pain.

The spi

Rukuei, who had learned to care for his cousin’s bizarre brother before he’d left on his own journey, felt moved to comfort him. "I’ll find the words, Isaac," he promised.

It was a vow made in youth and ignorance, to be lived out in maturity and full understanding. Rukuei Kitheri would never regret it.

35

Giordano Bruno

October 2078, Earth-Relative

LOOK AT WHAT THEY’VE DONE," JOSEBA URIZARBARRENA BREATHED, first with awe and then in mourning, as the images began to pour in. "Look at what they’ve done!"

"My God," John Candotti whispered, "it’s so beautiful…"

"Beautiful!" Joseba cried. "How much has died to make this happen?" he demanded, gesturing angrily at the display. He stopped, stricken, afraid that Sandoz had heard and would take this accusation personally, but the linguist was absorbed in his own work at the far end of the bridge, monitoring the radio transmissions they could now listen to directly.

"Joseba, what are you talking about!" John sputtered. "It’s gorgeous! It’s—it’s—"

"It’s a catastrophe!" Joseba whispered fiercely, shaking with helpless outrage. "Don’t you see? They’ve totally disrupted the ecology. Everything has been changed!" He stood and turned away from the displays, despairing. "Agriculture!" he moaned, face in his hands. "Another planet, gone to hell—"

"I think it’s pretty," Nico remarked politely to Sean Fein, who was also leaning against the bridge bulkhead, watching as the system updated and repainted multiple displays, scan by scan.

"So it is, Nico," said Sean. "So it is."

First blurred, then emerging from the mist of atmosphere and the fitful concealment of cloud, becoming clean-edged and brilliant with color, composite images of Rakhat had revealed upon the arrival of the Giordano Bruno in lowering orbit a world transformed: raw Paradise made formal garden. The change was most extensive in the midlatitudes of the northern hemisphere, where the largest continent’s southern cities—first identified by Jimmy Qui

"Look keenly at it," Sean Fein recited quietly, remembering a twelfth-century scholar’s description of the Book of Kells, "and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art. You will make out intricacies, so delicate and subtle, so full of knots and links, with colors so fresh and vivid, that you might say all this was the work of angels and not of men."

"They must be using satellite images to plan the layouts," Frans Vanderhelst said prosaically. "I don’t think you could do that without seeing it all from above."

"Perhaps," said Carlo. "But you can do a lot with ropes and stakes. Simple surveying tools…" He leaned forward over Frans’s vast shoulder and traced a curving line of mountain that formed a template for exuberant terracing. "Some of the design is coming directly from the geology." He turned to Sandoz, tucked into a corner of the bridge, oblivious to the visuals, concentrating on the radio chatter. Carlo waved to draw his attention. "Take a look at this new survey, Sandoz. What do you think?" Carlo asked him when he’d pulled the earphones off.

Sandoz stood with a groaning stretch before joining Da

Joseba went to a false color display. "Even worse! Look at the heat signature in these cities." He brought up an overlay with comparison data from the Stella Maris library. "My God. This has got to be, what? Thirty-five percent population growth, in two generations!"

"Don’t exaggerate," said Da

"But look here," Carlo said. "There are new settlements along the rivers. More roads than before." Following the terrain, he noticed. Not like the Romans’ roads—ramming straight through from point A to point B—but roads nonetheless. Good for business, he thought. "Anything new from the radio data?" he asked Sandoz.

Emilio shook his head. "Trade quotes, market analysis. Weather reports, crop yields, shipping schedules. Endless a