She didn’t answer right away. "I’m not sure," she said honestly. "I need some time to think."
HOURS LATER, IN THE FIRST MOMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, LYING IN A bed of unaccustomed comfort, Emilio Sandoz believed himself to be back in Naples. "It’s all right, Ed," he was about to say. "You don’t have to wait up." Then he came fully awake and saw that it was not Brother Edward Behr but Sofia Mendes who’d spent the night watching his face as he slept.
"I have spoken with your colleagues in the N’Jarr valley," she told him without emotion, "and to a woman named Suukmel." She paused, face neutral. "I don’t rule here, Emilio, no matter what your djanada friends told you. But I have some influence. I will do my best to arrange safe conduct for a delegation of VaN’Jarri to speak with the Parliament of Elders. It will take time and it won’t be easy, even to get you a hearing. The elders remember what it was like, before. There is a woman named Djalao VaKashan who will be difficult to convince. But I will tell them that you and the priests are good men with good hearts. I can’t promise more than that."
He sat up, and groaned at the stiffness, but said, "Thank you." The rain was gone, and sunlight was pouring through the awning. "And you, Sofia? What will you do?"
"Do?" she asked, and looked away, to think, before she answered, of well-run cities, of lively politics and burgeoning trade; of festivals and celebrations; of a joyous appreciation of the novel and the untried. She thought of the florescence of theater and explosion of technology, the vigor of the art that had sprung up when the dead hand of the djanada was lifted from Runa lives. She thought of the Runa Elders, who now lived long enough to add real wisdom to raw experience, and of imperfect children, permitted to live, who brought unexpected gifts to their people.
Certainly, there had been a price to pay. There were those who thrived in the new world—liberated in every sense—and those who had been cast adrift, unable to adapt. Illness, debilities, failure, dispute; poverty, displacement, bewilderment—all these were a part of Runa life now. But what they had already accomplished was admirable, and who knew what else they were capable of? Only time would tell.
All that, balanced against tiny crescent claws, and amethyst eyes blinking in the sunlight…
She had read Yeats in Jimmy’s memory, and thought now of the Pensioner: I spit into the face of time / that has transfigured me…
"Do?" she asked again. "I am old, Sandoz. I have spent my life among the Runa, and among them I shall stay." She was profiled against the light, her blind side toward him, and she was silent for a long time. "I regret nothing," she said finally, "but I have done my part."
39
N’Jarr Valley
December 2078, Earth-Relative
AFTER MONTHS OF CONFINEMENT ABOARD THE GIORDANO BRUNO, Daniel Iron Horse found the mountains surrounding the N’Jarr as seductive as certainty, and set his sights on a high ledge east of the settlement, hoping for perspective of one kind or another. He had no equipment and his shoes were all wrong, and it crossed his mind that a fall in this terrain could easily result in a very fancy death. But Danny needed to be alone, craved the sense that only God would know where he was, and so he left at dawn, telling no one of his plans.
From the moment Emilio Sandoz left the valley to meet Mendes on the road, Danny had felt the man’s absence like a shedding of weight. Now, as he began to climb the main rockface, he was happier than he’d been in a year. Calm claimed him, his attention absorbed by the delicate, tactile search for purchase. Hooking his fingers into cracks in the stone, he saw the sturdy bone of Grampa Lundberg’s wrists, thick as fenceposts; felt in his chest the heart of Gramma Beauvais, strong and steady in her nineties. Funny, he thought, how his grandparents had always tried to parse him out. He’d resented their urge to divide his DNA, particularly when his father’s family warned him, with tragic justification, about having "that Lakota liver." Now, finally, he was in a place where none of that made any difference, where he was simply an Earthman. Only here had he come to understand that he was not a battleground—to be divided and conquered by his grandparents—but a garden, where each person who’d contributed to his existence longed to see that something of themselves had taken root and grown.
For a time, he abandoned himself to a pure enjoyment of strength and agility, but altitude was a factor. Winded, he gave up a few hundred meters shy of the target ledge, and found instead a rubble-filled indentation that had collected enough debris to provide a humus cushion. Swinging into it, he sat quietly awhile, studying the layout of the evacuated village—alert to clues about social structure—and prayed for the well-being of the refugees who’d left it two weeks earlier. It had been a long time, he realized, since he’d felt like either a political scientist or a priest.
Chagrined by the time it took for his breathing to come back to normal, he admitted to himself that altitude was not the only thing slowing him down. The words of Vincenzo Giuliani came to him: "You are young, Father Iron Horse." Not all that young, Danny thought, filling his lungs with thin mountain air and remembering that night in the Naples garden. "You are young, and you have the vices of the young. Short-sightedness. Contempt for pragmatism…"
High above the valley, the only sound was the roar of water falling from a cataract so near he could feel its mist when the breeze shifted. Alone now and able to think, Danny forced himself to be still, to picture the chessboard, assess the pieces, see the long game. Unknowingly, he asked himself the very question that had formed the basis of much of Vincenzo Giuliani’s career: So, who have I got to work with here?
Nothing came clear. Judging by the outcome of the first mission, catastrophe lurked behind the smallest mistake; muddled impasse seemed the best that they could hope for. That’s Sandoz talking, Danny thought with sudden insight. But this is politics. We just have to find a way for all the players to get at least some of what they need.
Hardly aware of his movement, he stood and began again to climb toward the ledge he’d set out for, and by the time he reached it, the solution had come to him like the revelation at Cardoner, and seemed so obvious that he wondered if Vincenzo Giuliani could have foreseen this situation. That was impossible, and yet…
You win, you old fox, Danny thought, and he seemed to hear the sound of a soul’s laughter as he pulled himself onto the ledge and stood like a colossus overlooking the valley. Suukmel first, Danny thought. Then Sofia Mendes. If she agrees, then Carlo. And from there to the others.
The irony of what he was going to propose was palpable, and he knew that he would not live long enough to see the outcome. But at the very least, he thought, it might buy time. And time was all that mattered.
JOHN CANDOTTI WAS SITTING ON A TREE STUMP, SURROUNDED BY THE pieces of a broken pump he was trying to fix, when Danny strode buoyantly into the center of the village late that afternoon. "Where the hell have you been?" John cried. "Sean and Joseba are out looking for you—. What happened to your knees?"
"Nothing. I slipped," Danny said. "What time is it on the Bruno?"
John pulled his chin in, surprised by the question and by Danny’s air of enterprise. "I don’t know. I haven’t looked at a watch in days." He glanced up at the suns and worked it out. "Must be about eight in the evening, I guess."
"So it’s just after supper, ship’s time? Good. I’ve got a job for you," Danny said, jerking his head in the direction of the lander. "I want you to get Frans on the radio. Tell him to try the yasapa brandy." John didn’t move, reluctance plain on his open face. "I could ask you to trust me," Danny offered, small eyes dancing, "or I could just tell you to do as you’re told."