Or perhaps it was the resignation of Jonah realizing that God would find him and use him no matter where he was, even in the belly of a whale.
There was no dawn to wake Danny in the morning, but the noise and movement inside the commons room came muffled through the lander-bay hatch. He sat up and then stood, stiff and miserable. Sandoz had not moved. Danny left again for a few minutes, but came back without eating, determined to take no food or drink while Sandoz went without. As the hours of the second full day crawled by, Sandoz remained motionless and silent, eyes fixed on distances no other man had seen. Vision quest, Danny thought, when the soul opened to whatever could be conveyed by the Great Mystery, Whose thoughts were not the thoughts of man, Whose ways were not the ways of man…
He had not wanted to sleep. Danny had resolved to witness it all from start to finish, and so he woke on the third morning with a start, only to find himself looking into the obsidian eyes of Emilio Sandoz, sitting cross-legged on the lander deck, where he had waited for Iron Horse to wake up.
"It must have been hard," Sandoz said after a time, his voice soft and unresonant in the echoing space of the bay.
Danny wasn’t sure what he meant but, lately, nothing had been easy, so he nodded.
"If you stare into the abyss," Sandoz reported, "it stares back."
"Nietzsche," Danny said almost inaudibly, identifying the quote.
"Two points." Waxen and exhausted, Sandoz got slowly to his feet and stood blankly for a while. "God uses us all, I suppose," he said, and walked to the hatch, banging on it with an elbow.
In an instant, the sounds of pressure equalizers and locking mechanisms echoed emptily against the stone walls of the hull. When the door opened, Danny realized that John Candotti, too, had stood vigil during these three days. But the rest of the crew was there now as well, waiting.
"He did what he had to," Sandoz told them, and stepped through the hatch without another word.
For the first time since his mother died when he was sixteen years old, Daniel Iron Horse broke down and sobbed. The others stood and listened until John Candotti said, "Leave him alone," and the little crowd dispersed.
After a decent interval, John ducked into the bay. He looked around and then retrieved Sandoz’s discarded shirt, offering it to Danny to blow his nose on. Danny accepted it, but reared away when he brought it closer to his face.
"It’s pretty funky," John admitted. "If that’s the odor of sanctity, God help us all."
Danny managed a small laugh and pulled up his own shirt, wiping his nose on the inside of the collar.
"My mom always hated it when I did that," John said, sliding down the wall next to Danny until his bony legs stuck straight out in front of him.
Danny wiped his eyes and cleared his throat. "Mine, too," he said almost soundlessly.
They both sat staring at the far end of the bay for a while. "Well, hell," John said finally, "if it’s okay with Emilio, it’s okay with me, I guess. Pax?"
Danny nodded. "I’m not sure it’s all that okay with him. But thanks," he said.
John got to his feet and offered the other man a hand up. Danny, red-eyed and wrung dry, shook it gratefully, but he said, "I think I’ll just sit here awhile, ace. I need some time."
"Sure," John said, and left Danny alone.
27
Great Southern Forest
2061, Earth-Relative
"— WAS RIPE TWO NIGHTS AGO— " — PON RIVER. BUT SOMEONE thinks — " " — no market anymore for—" " — stern campaign is undersupplied and if —" ("Uunnhh.") " — omeone is hungry! Who ha—" " — rakar fields are north of the—" "Spaj, Panar! Someone heard—" " — oo early. It ripens at—" " — focus instead on consolidating the—" ("Uuuunnhh.") " — nitarl pickers at Kran port—" "Sipaj, Djalao, surely you are hungr—" "We found more by the riv — " " — paari will be there soon—" " ("Uuuuuuuuunnhh.") " — weavers can’t use so—" " — ut if we go after the rakari are—" " — someone that bundle of ree—" " — nala, get Isaac to stop—" " "Scratch just there. No, lower! Ye—" ("Uuuuuuuuuuuuurmhh—")
"Sipaj, Isaac! Stop!" Ha’anala shouted.
Isaac sank to the ground, dizzy but satisfied, Spinning could transform the incomprehensible into a uniform blur, and if he made his own sound, he could sometimes drown the racket out, but best of all was when one voice cut through all the rest and made everyone quiet.
"Sipaj, Isaac," Ha’anala said slowly, her voice pitched low. "Let’s go to the shelter." She waited the right amount of time before adding, "We’ll listen to music."
Ha’anala had clarity.
Isaac stood, clutching the computer tablet to his bare, bony chest, feeling its cool, flat, unblemished perfection. All around him: inconstancy, unpredictability, irrationality. His own body could not be trusted. Feet became more distant, arms wrapped further around the torso. Hair appeared in places where none had been before. Stones, smooth and faultless one time, might be covered by a leaf or flawed by the presence of a bug the next time he looked. Ears and eyes and mouths and limbs moved endlessly. Bodies sat and slept in different places. How could they expect him to understand what they were saying while he was still trying to figure out who they were? Plants sprang up and changed size and disappeared. Buds, flowers and withered things came and went. He could sit and stare for hours— days! But he couldn’t see this happen. He fell asleep and, in the morning, the old thing was gone and a new one was there and sometimes it acted the same way as before and sometimes it didn’t. There was no clarity.
The computer held a world that was precisely the same every morning, except for his mother’s daily message—he knew now that she made small changes because she showed him how to do this. He complained, so she put all her messages in a separate file and that was all right because it didn’t change anything else in his other directories; Isaac was the only one who changed those. The computer was better than spinning—
"Sipaj, Isaac. Come with me," Ha’anala said, each word distinct. She picked up his cloth—a silken blue square that could cover him from head to waist. His prayer shawl, Sofia called it with dispirited irony. "We’ll listen to music," Ha’anala repeated, tugging at his ankle with her foot.
Isaac jerked away and muttered, "Now someone has to start over."
Ha’anala lifted her chin and sat down to wait. Isaac couldn’t bear to have a thought interrupted and he had to begin at the beginning. If anyone disturbed him as he spoke, he would repeat the entire speech word by word until the end of what he’d meant to say. That’s why he spoke so little, she supposed. It was nearly impossible to complete a thought or a statement to his satisfaction when there were Runa around. Even at the risk of a fierno, the people couldn’t seem to remain silent long enough to suit him.
When Isaac was finished, he stood up straighter: his signal that he could move again. Ha’anala rolled to her feet and walked off toward the edge of the village clearing. Isaac tracked her tangentially, head up and tilted crazily, relying on peripheral vision, so he wouldn’t have to see her legs move. The people were already talking again. " — adio control of the—" " — pay, Hatna! Don’t make—" " — over two hundred bahli now!" " — new windbreaks for th—" " — is nice combined with k’ta — " — torm coming in—"