"Patras Yalamber Tamang," the priest replied, and continued in excellent Spanish. "I’m from the Nepal province, but I taught at El Instituto San Pedro Arrupe in Colombia until recently. I have been the Rakhat mission liaison for the last five years, working with governments and international agencies and a number of sponsoring corporations to coordinate the reception for Mr. Kitheri. And, of course, the Society would like to offer you yourself any assistance you are willing to accept from us."
Still fuming, Sandoz nevertheless listened to Tamang’s summary of the steps that had been taken to make Rukuei comfortable, and to ease the return of Sandoz and the crew of the Giordano Bruno. The hotel staff consisted of carefully chosen, highly trained volunteers who’d studied the history of the Jesuit missions and who all spoke at least some K’San. A medical team was standing by; the travelers would be isolated for some months, but the entire hotel had been booked for them and the facilities were quite nice and very extensive. There was a customized suite set aside for Frans Vanderhelst in the center of the hotel, near the microgravity stadium, where he would be able to breathe without strain. Endocrine experts were waiting to examine him; they had some hope of reversing the genetic damage that had unbalanced his metabolism. Carlo Giuliani’s cargo had, of course, been impounded, pending customs decisions. Giuliani himself was being detained—there were complex legal issues to be settled, not the least of which was whether Sandoz wished to file charges regarding his abduction. Signor Giuliani’s elderly sister had been notified of his return, but seemed in no hurry to provide him with legal representation.
The accumulated news from Rakhat was mixed. Athaansi Laaks had been overthrown, but his faction still refused to agree to the reservation solution; Danny Iron Horse sympathized, but continued to press for negotiations. Some kind of illness swept through the N’Jarr in 2084 but, by that time, the Jana’ata were better fed and the toll wasn’t as high as everyone first feared it would be. John Candotti had written of Sofia’s death. Shetri Laaks was well, and had remarried. Two more sons had joined the one Emilio had delivered—now a young man with a child of his own. Shetri’s second wife was pregnant again; they hoped for a third daughter. Sean’s latest census of the Jana’ata reported a population of nearly twenty-six hundred souls. Joseba added an analysis indicating that if birth and death rates and other conditions held steady, this was enough for stability. Some forty Runa had joined the VaN’Jarri in the year of the census. These did not quite balance the number of old VaN’Jarri Runa who had died, but it was a slight increase over the inflow from prior years.
"And Suukmel still lives?" Emilio asked, knowing this would be Rukuei’s first question.
"Yes," said Patras, "as of four years ago, at least."
"And the music? On Rakhat?"
"There are disputes over adding lyrics to it," Patras told him. "I suppose that was inevitable."
"Has anyone asked Isaac what he thinks about that?"
"Yes. He said, ’That’s Rukuei’s problem.’ Isaac is studying library files on South American nematodes now," Patras reported dryly. "Nobody has the faintest idea why."
Sandoz asked more questions, received thorough answers, and agreed that it sounded as though everything was under control.
"Thank you," Patras said, gratified by the recognition. He had, in fact, worked himself to exhaustion trying to make things right. "Let me show you the rooms we’ve prepared for Mr. Kitheri," he suggested, and led the way down a toroidal accessway. "As soon as you’ve gotten some rest, the Mother General would like to speak with you—"
"Excuse me?" Sandoz said, coming to a halt. "The Mother General?" He snorted. "You’re joking!"
Patras, already a few steps down the hall, turned back, brows up curiously: Is there a problem? Sandoz stared at him, dumbfounded.
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am joking," Patras said then, delighted when Sandoz burst into laughter.
"You know, it’s not nice to tease old people," Emilio told him as they resumed their walk. "How long have you been waiting to use that line?"
"Fifteen years. I have a Ph.D. from Ganesh Man Singh University— mission history, with an emphasis on Rakhat. You were my thesis topic."
For the next few hours, they concentrated on the process of introducing Rukuei to new companions and new surroundings. In the press of duties, personal considerations were laid aside, but before the end of that long first day, Emilio Sandoz said to Patras Yalamber Tamang, "There was a woman—"
Inquiries followed; databases were searched. She had, evidently, remarried, changed her surname; had shunned publicity and lived as private a life as wealth could buy and guilt enforce. It was remarkably difficult to find even a minimal actuarial mention of her.
"I am so very sorry," Patras told him weeks later. "She passed away last year."
ARIANA FIOR HAD ALWAYS ENJOYED THE DAY OF THE DEAD. SHE LIKED the cemetery, tidy and rectilinear, with its stone paths freshly swept between rows and rows of high-walled burial niches—an island of grace amid the noise of Naples. The vaults themselves, stacked six high, were always brushed and dustless on November first, golden in autumnal sunlight or gleaming in silvery rain. She was an archaeologist, accustomed to the presence of the dead, and savored this orderliness, taking pleasure in the sharp scent of chrysanthemums mingling with the deeper musk of fallen leaves.
Some of the loculi were simple: a polished brass plaque with a name and dates, the tiny luminos kept burning for a time after the death. The proud and the prosperous often added a small screen that could be activated with a touch, and she’d have liked to go from vault to vault, meeting the inhabitants, hearing about their lives, but resisted the impulse.
All around her, there were low voices and the crunch of footsteps on gravel paths. "Poveretto," she heard now and then, as flowers were placed with a sigh in a loculo’s little vase. Old affections, grudges, attachments and debts were silently acknowledged and then put aside for another year. Adults gossiped, children fidgeted. There was a sense of occasion and a formality that appealed to Ariana, but the cemetery was not a scene of active grief.
Which is why she noticed the man sitting on the bench in front of Gina’s vault, gloved hands limp in his lap. Alone among the mourners on this cool and sunny day, he was crying, eyes open, silent tears slipping down a still face.
She had no wish to impose herself on this stranger, had not even been certain that he would come today. His first months out of isolation were a circus, a whirlwind of public interest and private receptions—every moment accounted for. Ariana had waited a long time, but she was patient by nature. And now: here he was.
"Padre?" she said, soft-voiced and certain.
Solitary in sorrow, he hardly glanced at her. "I am not a priest, madam," he said as dryly as a crying man could, "and I am no one’s father."
"Look again," she said.
He did, and saw a dark-haired woman standing behind a baby stroller, her son so young that he still slept curled, in memory of the womb. There was a long silence as Emilio studied her face—blurred and shifting in the dampness—a complex amalgam of the Old World and the New, the living and the dead. He laughed once, and sobbed once, and laughed again, astonished. "You have your mother’s smile," he said finally, and her grin widened. "And my nose, I’m afraid. Sorry about that."