Leave, Supaari wanted to shout. Get out. Track a different scent.
But they could no more leave Kirabai than Runa could sing. It wasn’t in them — or maybe it was, but they were too crippled by custom to try. Inheritance was all that counted, even when all the ancestors bequeathed was a list of whom to hate and whom to blame for every stroke of ill fortune in the past twelve generations. No fault is ever found within, Supaari thought, listening to them. None among us is dull or inept or shiftless. We are all powerful and triumphant, but for the ones above us.
The chants began as the light of second sundown burned away, voices raised in ancient harmonies as the neighbors left for home and his brothers prepared to sleep. Supaari’s earliest memories were of hearing these songs at sunset, chest tight, his throat gripped by silence. The truest beauty he had known as the founder of a new lineage was joining the Inbrokar choirs at sunset; it was a joy surpassing even the announcement of Jholaa’s pregnancy.
He now held legal right to take the part of Eldest, but on this evening, Supaari was as silent as the Runa domestics cowering in the kitchen. I will sing again, he promised himself. Not here, not among these benighted, spiteful fools. But somewhere, I will sing again.
HE BOARDED THE BARGE THE NEXT MORNING LIKE A MAN SNEAKING OUT of a city on the rumor of plague: fortunate to escape, but full of contemptuous pity for those left behind. Paquarin, distressed by the hostility around her, had begged him not to make her go further, so he’d endorsed her travel permit and left her with enough money to stay in Kirabai until the next northbound barge went by. With his last three hundred bahli, he bought the VaKashani Runao’s labor from Enrai, promising the girl that he’d return her to Kashan if she’d take care of the baby for him until he found a permanent nursemaid.
"This one is called Kinsa, lord," she reminded Supaari after a few quiet hours on the barge, touching both hands to her forehead. "If it is pleasing to you, lord, may this useless one know the baby’s name?"
Why am I so different? he had been thinking, blunted hands resting on the rail as he watched the river. All the world thinks one way and I think another. Who am I to judge it wrong? At the girl’s words, he turned. "Kinsa—of course! Hartat’s daughter." Her scent had changed since he’d met her last. "Sipaj, Kinsa," he said, "you’ve grown."
She brightened at the sound of her own language, and her natural cheerfulness reasserted itself. After all, Supaari VaGayjur was known to her from birth, had traded with her village for years; she trusted him. Lucky child, he thought for one wistful moment. Your people will be happy to touch you again.
"Sipaj, Supaari, what shall we call this little one?" Kinsa pressed.
Not knowing what to answer, he held out his arms and, unslinging the baby from her back, Kinsa handed the child to him. He smiled. Kinsa had been among the Jana’ata for so short a time, it still seemed normal for a father to carry his own infant. Holding the baby to his chest as shamelessly as a male Runao, Supaari began to walk the perimeter of the barge.
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, he told his daughter with his heart. I don’t know what life I’m making for us. I don’t know where we will live or whom you can marry. I don’t even know what to call you.
Leaning back against a railing, he settled the child into the crook of his arm. For a time, his eyes left his daughter’s face and came to rest on the far south, where river mist met rain, where there was no certain difference between sky and water, and felt again the dream’s sensation of wandering. I am a foreigner in my own country, he thought, and so is my daughter.
Like Ha’an! he thought then, for of all the foreigners, Anne Edwards was most vivid to him. In K’San, the sound was good: Ha’anala. "Her name shall be Ha’anala," he said aloud. And he blessed his child: May you be like Ha’an, who was a foreigner here but who had no fear.
He was pleased with the name, happy to have the matter settled. The world seemed full of possibilities as he watched the riverbanks move past. He had contacts, knowledge. I won’t sell to the Reshtar again, he thought, wanting nothing more to do with Hlavin Kitheri—no matter how well he paid. He remembered that he’d once considered opening a new office in Agardi. Yes, he thought. I’ll try Agardi next. There are different cities. There can be new names.
And later on, quietly, so as not to alarm Kinsa or the others, he did what no Jana’ata father had ever done before: he sang the evening chant to his daughter. To Ha’anala.
11
Naples
October—December 2060
"I’M NOT ARGUING, FATHER GENERAL," DANIEL IRON HORSE ARGUED, "I’M just saying that I don’t see how you’re going to convince him to go back. We could bring laser cannon with us, and Sandoz’d still be scared spitless!"
"Sandoz is my problem," Vincenzo Giuliani told the father superior of the second mission to Rakhat. "You just take care of the rest of them."
The rest of the problems or the rest of the crew? Danny wondered as he left Giuliani’s office that afternoon. Walking down the echoing stone hallway toward the library, he snorted: same thing.
Laying aside the question of Sandoz’s participation for the time being, Danny was less than confident about any of the men he’d be risking his life with. They were all bright, and they were all big; that much was clear. For the past year, Daniel Beauvais Iron Horse, Sean Fein and Joseba Urizarbarrena had worked to develop proficiencies that might prove critical on Rakhat: communications procedures, first aid, survival skills, dead reckoning, even VR flight training so that any of them could, in an emergency, pilot the mission lender. Each of them was thoroughly familiar with the first mission’s daily reports and scientific papers. Having worked through Sofia Mendes’s introductory AI language-instruction system, they had all studied Ruanja on their own, and had now converged on Naples to work directly with Sandoz on advanced Ruanja and basic K’San. Joseba was solid, and Danny understood why an ecologist had been assigned to the team, but no matter how much money the Company might be able to make by bringing back Rakhati nanotechnology, Sean Fein was a chronic pain in the ass, and Danny could think of a hundred other men who’d be better suited for the mission. John Candotti, by contrast, was a hell of a nice guy and very good with his hands, but he had no scientific expertise at all, and he was months behind the others in training.
The Father General, no doubt, had his reasons—usually at least three for every move he made, Danny had observed. "I must consider myself and conduct myself as a staff in an old man’s hand," Danny would recite dutifully whenever he found himself thoroughly mystified, but he kept his eyes open, watching for clues as he and the others settled into an efficient working routine.
Mornings were devoted to language training, but afternoons and evenings were given over to further study of the first mission’s records under Sandoz’s direction, and it was during these sessions that Danny began to see why Giuliani remained adamant that Sandoz would be an asset. Danny himself had all but memorized the first mission’s reports, but he was constantly startled by his own misinterpretations of events, and found Sandoz’s memories and knowledge invaluable. Nevertheless, there were days at a time when the man was incapacitated for one reason or another, and Danny’s own questions about the Jana’ata triggered the strongest reactions.
"Flashbacks, depression, headaches, nightmares—the symptoms are classic," Danny reported in late November. "And I sympathize, Father! But that doesn’t change the fact that Sandoz is dangerously unfit for the mission, even if he could be convinced to go."