The Sparrow

Because the VaKashani were hosts to the foreign delegation and thus entitled to a percentage of Supaari's profit, the village would move nearly a year ahead of schedule closer to breeding rights. Supaari was pleased for them, and slightly envious. If life were as simple and straightforward for a Jana'ata third as for a Runa corporation, his own problem would have been solved. He could simply buy breeding rights and get on with it, having proven his fiscal responsibility and obedience to the government. But Jana'ata life was never simple and rarely straightforward. Deep in the Jana'ata soul there was an almost unshakable conviction that things must be controlled, thought out, done correctly, that there was very little margin for error in life. Tradition was safety; change was danger. Even Supaari felt this, although he defied the instinct often and to his profit.

The storytellers claimed that the first five Jana'ata hunters and the first five Runa herds were created by Ingwy on an island, where balance could be easily lost and a

It didn't matter. Whether the legends grew from ancient seeds of truth or sprang fully formed from the self-interest of the rulers, Supaari thought, things are as they are. He was a third; how, then, to convince the Reshtar of Galatna that Supaari VaGayjur was worthy of being created Founder? It was a delicate business and required subtlety and cu

He let the problem go, for pursuit can drive the quarry away. Better to stroll along, alert for opportunity, wasting no effort on mad dashes and undignified chases. If one is patient, he knew, something always comes within reach.

After Supaari's first visit, the Jesuit party settled into a routine that made their second full year on Rakhat as productive and satisfying as they could have hoped for.

They were given their own apartments, two of them, thanks to Supaari, who had arranged it when A

Sofia lived with A

They now knew from Supaari that they were not just tolerated by the VaKashani but welcome. They had fit into the economic structure of the community by providing Supaari with goods that benefited the village and, in their own minds, this allowed them to be more assertive about requesting small accommodations, like limits to overnight visits and periods of privacy during the day. They still did a lot of visiting and often had guests who stayed overnight, especially Manuzhai and the ubiquitous Askama, but there was now some privacy on a regular basis. The relief was startling.

That year A

Emilio Sandoz, a contented spider in the center of an intellectual web, collected lexemes, semantic fields, prosody and idiom, semantics and deep structure. He answered questions, translated and aided research for all of them, while collaborating with Sofia on an instructional program for Ruanja and with Askama and Manuzhai on a Ruanja dictionary. Marc had begun sketching and painting the Runa and their lives within days of arriving, and this continued as the seasonal round was played out. To Emilio's delight, the Runa referred to Marc's images using the spatial declension. And now when the women left on trading expeditions, they commissioned a portrait from Marc or his apprentices, so they could be with their families even as they traveled, Chaypas explained. Absent mothers were gone but not invisible.

George and Jimmy installed improvised plumbing and a pulley system for hauling things up and down the cliffside. The Runa soon added similar arrangements to the other apartments. And then there was George's ever-elaborating waterslide complex down by the river's edge, which the kids adored and which they all, native and alien, worked on sporadically.

The Runa took everything in stride. Nothing ever seemed to surprise them, and it had begun to seem that they were incapable of astonishment. But toward the end of Supaari's first visit, Marc had asked if the merchant knew of any objection to the foreigners starting a garden. Ruanja, Emilio found, had no word for plants grown in an artificial ecosystem, so Supaari was shown images of gardens. Familiar with the notion, Supaari brought the subject up with the Kashan elders and obtained permission for Marc to plant.

And so, for no good reason that the VaKashani could conceive, Marc Robichaux and George Edwards and Jimmy Qui

That this mysterious activity was hard physical labor for the foreigners made the whole business fu

Soon, Runa from other villages came to watch the gardeners while their children played on the waterslide, and George began to feel a retroactive sympathy for the Amish farmers of Ohio, unwilling tourist attractions subjected to stares and pointing fingers. But the initial hilarity tapered off as the garden took shape and the Runa began to perceive the geometric plan underlying the foreigners' inexplicable work. The garden was a serious scientific experiment and careful records of germination and yield would be kept, but everything Marc Robichaux did was beautiful and he laid the garden out as a succession of interlocking diamond-shaped and circular beds, edged in herbs. George and Jimmy constructed trellises and adapted the Runa terrace parasols to shade the lettuces and peas and to control the downpours of rain. Manuzhai, intrigued now, joined them in this, and the resulting structures were lovely.