"Last week."
"Let me see if I understand the process by which we received this transmission," Sandoz said dryly as Nico trudged off for the computer. "When these songs were first broadcast on Rakhat, they were automatically collected by the Magellan, encoded, compressed and packeted, yes? Held in memory, and not sent out until the stars were right. Picked up at home by radio telescopes over four years after the Magellan sent them. Sold by the Contact Consortium to the Jesuits, no doubt after a period of negotiation over price. Studied, packeted again. Shot off to us, after what? Two years, perhaps? And we’re now moving at maximum velocity?" he asked, looking at Fat Frans for confirmation. "So more years have gone by since the packet caught up with us last week, because of the relativity effects. I have no idea what that adds up to, but it’s old news, Danny—. Ah, grazie, Nico."
For a time, they simply watched the process they were all familiar with, as Sandoz checked through his files, looking for similar roots, to confirm or disprove whatever hypothesis was forming in his mind.
"The word is related, I think, to a stem word for change: sohraa," he said at last. "The first syllable is an intensifier, of course. The term is, I think, a poetic neologism, but I am not familiar with this construction. It could be archaic rather than new, yes? It combines sohraa with a stem that implies a breaking out or breaking free: hramaut. The only time I heard that was when Supaari took me to his courtyard to show me a small animal that was emerging from a kind of chrysalis." His eyes rose to meet Danny’s. "If I must guess, I would say the force of the word is emancipation, perhaps. The theme of the entire piece is perhaps joy at the breaking of bonds."
Daniel Iron Horse closed his eyes briefly, perhaps in prayer. There was a burst of talk, but Danny spoke above it. "You agree that this is Kitheri’s composition? His style, both in lyric and musical form?" Sandoz nodded: unquestionably. "The voices?" Danny pressed. "Who is singing? Not who. I mean, what species?"
"The basses, of course, are male Jana’ata. The others are of a much higher register," Sandoz observed calmly.
"Scuzi," Nico said politely. "What does emanci—. What is that word?"
" ’Emancipation.’ It means, to set free," Emilio told him. "When slaves are legally freed, it is called emancipation."
"Runa have much higher voices, don’t they?" Nico suggested. "Maybe they’re singing because they’re happy they’re free."
Iron Horse’s eyes were steady on Emilio’s. "Sandoz, what if Kitheri’s emancipated the Runa?"
It was the first time he’d dared to say this aloud. Around the room, the men sat straighter, blinking, and reconsidered what they’d just heard.
"My God, Emilio," John cried, "if the Runa are singing—. If emancipation is the theme of that song…"
"That would change everything," Sean whispered, as Carlo sighed theatrically, "I’m too late!" and Frans Vanderhelst cried, "Congratulations, Johnny! There is your hidden meaning!"
"Sandoz," Danny said carefully, "maybe this is why you were meant to go back—"
Sandoz cut the rising noise of speculation off, staring at Danny. "Even if you are correct, and I doubt that for a number of reasons—linguistic, political and theological—it would hardly have required my presence on Rakhat to learn of this." He glanced at the Earth-relative time-date readout. "I could have heard this music when the transmission reached Earth. Years ago, yes? About the time Gina and I celebrated our eighth anniversary, perhaps?" he said, glancing cold-eyed at Carlo.
There was an uneasy quiet.
"I am sorry to disappoint Nico and the more romantic among you," Sandoz continued, "but the voices don’t sound to me like those of Runa. Also, the song is in High K’San, which does not disprove Danny’s hypothesis, but hardly supports it. The altos consistently use personal pronoun forms I’ve never heard. I was never spoken to by any Jana’ata woman, not even when I was a member of Kitheri’s harem, so my guess is that the pronoun is feminine and that these voices are adult females. Perhaps the highest voices are those of children, but it seems likely to me that these are Jana’ata children, not Runa."
"But even if it’s Jana’ata women he’s liberated—" Danny started.
"Father Iron Horse, I detect a certain indulgence in wishful thinking," Sandoz said with the acid courtesy they all had come to dread. "Why do you credit Kitheri with precipitating such an event, instead of merely observing it, for example? Is it possible that you are imposing your own desire for self-justification on a situation and a man you can know nothing about?" Danny absorbed that like the slap in the face it was meant to be. "If," Sandoz continued, "Hlavin Kitheri were somehow responsible for a change in the status of such members of his own species—and I can’t imagine how he could be-I would be happy for them. I forgive him nothing."
"But a small change can perturb a system," Joseba remarked, still taken by the idea. "What if something you said or did influenced Kitheri or one of the other Jana’ata? That would make what happened—" He stopped when Sandoz rose abruptly and walked to the other side of the room.
"What, Joseba? Forgivable?" Sandoz asked. "Tolerable? Okay? All better?"
"It would redeem what happened to you," Sean Fein suggested quietly. He nearly recanted under the sear of the black-eyed stare, but forced himself to go on. "Look, y’never know, Sandoz!" he cried. "What if that bloody Austrian admissions committee had accepted young Mr. Hitler for art school? He was pretty decent with landscapes and architecture. Maybe if he’d gotten his wretched arts degree, everything would have been different!"
"A few words, Emilio!" said John with urgency. "An act of kindness, or love, or courage—"
Sandoz stood still, his head turned down and away from them. "All right," he said reasonably, looking up. "For the sake of argument, let’s assume that unintended consequences can be for good as well as ill. The trouble with your proposition, as applied to my case, is that there was never any opportunity for me to give Hlavin Kitheri or his associates a stirring sermon on liberty or the value of souls—Jana’ata, Runa or human." He stopped, waited, eyes closed. He was tired, naturally. That was part of it. "I don’t recall being allowed to say a single word, actually. I did scream quite a bit—fairly incoherently, I’m afraid." He stopped again and took in an uneven breath, letting it out slowly before lifting his eyes to their faces. "And I fought like a sonofabitch to keep those fuckers off me, but I doubt even the most charitable of observers would have called that a display of courage. ’An amusing exercise in futility’ may have come to mind."
He paused again, breathing carefully. "So you see," he resumed calmly, "I don’t think there is a shred of hope that anyone abstracted any edifying lessons about the sanctity of life or the political virtues of freedom during my… ministry to the Jana’ata. And I suggest, gentlemen, we drop this subject for the duration of our journey together."
THE OTHERS WATCHED, BLINKING IN THE AFTERMATH, AS SANDOZ LEFT the room under his own power. No one noticed when Nico, standing unobserved in the corner, left the commons as well and went to his cabin.
Opening the storage cabinet on the wall over his desk, Nico rummaged through his small collection of personal treasures and located two hard cylinders of unequal length: one and a half Genoa salamis he had hoarded away. Laying them on his desk, he sat down and breathed in the fragrance of garlic while giving serious thought to the issue of salami. He considered how much he had left, and how long it would be before he could buy more, and how Don Emilio felt when he had a bad headache. It would be a waste to give salami to a person who was only going to throw it up. Still, Nico thought, a present could make a person feel better, and Don Emilio could save it for later when the headache was gone.