The Sparrow

17 NAPLES: JUNE 2060

Seeing Sandoz enter the Father General's office on the first day of the inquiry into the Rakhat mission, Johannes Voelker winced and gave thanks that this was all taking place in seclusion, away from Rome, far from the prying of the media, which feed off beauty and vice. How many of the others did this evil man corrupt, Voelker wondered bitterly, before they died? Did he kill them, too, as he did the child?

Candotti and Behr had come in with Sandoz, Behr opening the door, Candotti pulling out a chair for him. Partisans certainly, under the spell. Even Giuliani seemed to make allowances, to coddle Sandoz, who had done incalculable damage to the reputation and material position of the Society of Jesus—Voelker looked up, and realized Giuliani was staring at him.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Vincenzo Giuliani said pleasantly, warning Voelker wordlessly to govern his attitude as the three newcomers entered the room. "Emilio, I'm pleased to see you looking so well."

"Thank you, sir," Sandoz murmured.

Slender and elegant in black, the dark hair longish now and outlined in silver, Emilio appeared less frail than he had been two months earlier. He was steadier on his feet, and his color was much better. What his mental state was, Giuliani had no idea. Sandoz had hardly spoken since Felipe Reyes's arrival, beyond courtesies and the shallowest of dinner-table conversations; not even John Candotti had been able to draw him out. A pity, Giuliani thought. It would have been helpful to know what was going on in the man's mind.

The Father General moved from his desk and took his place at the head of the superb eighteenth-century table they would use during the hearings. The tall office windows were open to the June air, gauzy curtains moving prettily in the breeze. After a wet, gray spring, the summer promised to be cooler than usual, rainier, but quite enjoyable, Giuliani thought, watching the others settle into their places. Felipe Reyes left a chair in the corner of the office and hesitated before taking a seat, as though considering what position to take, relative to Sandoz. Voelker stood and pulled out the chair next to his own, putting Reyes directly opposite Candotti, who sat next to Emilio. Edward Behr took a seat near the windows where he could observe without being noticed, and where Emilio could see him.

"Gentlemen," Giuliani began, "I would like to make it clear at the outset that this is neither a trial nor an inquisition. Our purpose is to establish a clear picture of events that took place during the mission to Rakhat. Father Sandoz has a unique perspective and a degree of insight into these events that we hope will clarify our partial knowledge. For our part, we have information to share that, I believe, may be new to Father Sandoz." Never able to speak from a sitting position, Giuliani rose and began to circle the office. "Some of us are old enough to recall that approximately a year after the Stella Maris left the solar system, Mr. Ian Sekizawa of the Ohbayashi Corporation publicized his suspicions that the Society had sent a ship to Rakhat. There was a great outcry, Emilio, which was to be expected. Sekizawa went to his own people first and they approached the United Nations with a detailed plan to follow the Stella Maris into space using much the same technology. The U.N., faced with a fait accompli, authorized a consortium of commercial interests to make direct contact with the Singers. A diplomatic element was added to the Contact Consortium's crew, to represent all humankind." Giuliani stopped his slow circuit of the room and looked at Sandoz. "You may remember Wu Xing-Ren and Trevor Isley, Emilio."

"Yes."

If Giuliani had expected a reaction, he was disappointed. "The Contact Consortium's ship, the Magellan, left for Rakhat about three years after the Stella Maris. And, at this point, I'm afraid things become rather tangled. While it takes seventeen years in Earth-time for humans to travel between Earth and Rakhat, radio signals require only four and a third years, so there is a confusing overlap and it's hard to sort out the sequence of events. I must remind you that we lost all communication from your party about three years after your landing on Rakhat, Emilio." Nothing. No reaction at all. "When the Magellan arrived near the planet, her crew didn't know that you were all presumed dead. They attempted to contact you by radio. When they couldn't raise any response, they boarded the Stella Maris and gained access to the records, which gave them every reason to believe that your contact with the sentient species was successful…"

Sandoz continued to gaze out the windows. Irritated, Giuliani found himself reacting as though Emilio were a daydreaming graduate student. "Excuse me, Father Sandoz, if this is failing to hold your attention—"

Sandoz raised his eyebrows and turned his head to look at the Father General. "I'm listening, sir," he said. The voice was even and firm, without a trace of insolence. Nevertheless, the eyes returned to the hills beyond the courtyard.

"Good. Because this is important. Our understanding is that the Magellan party landed near the last coordinates reported by your party before your transmissions ended. They located you after about twelve weeks, and took considerable trouble to remove you from your predicament and to tend to your injuries." Again, there was no reaction. "Our understanding is that you were then taken to the Stella Maris, which was programmed to return you to solar orbit, and you were sent home alone." Giuliani paused and his tone changed. "I'm sure the voyage was very difficult."

For the first time, Emilio Sandoz had a comment. "It was," he said, almost to himself, still looking out the windows, "unimaginable."

The words hung in the room, distant and thin as birdsong.

"Quite," the Father General said at last, thrown off momentarily. "In any case, the radio transmissions from the Magellan party continued for an additional three and a half months. At that point, all contact was lost. We have no idea what happened to them, nor do we understand why the transmissions from Ours stopped after only three years. And we trust that you will be able to explain some of these mysteries, Emilio."

The Father General nodded to Voelker, who placed a tablet in front of Sandoz, the surface blanked. This, Voelker thought, is going to be exceedingly interesting to watch.

"But our first order of business, I'm afraid, is to deal with the very troubling allegations made by Wu and Isley." Emilio looked up, and Giuliani was forced to stop and consider him for a moment. The puzzlement looked genuine. "We have, naturally, waited until you were strong enough to speak in your own defense. Rakhat is far beyond any civil jurisdiction. No criminal charges have been brought against you but the accusations are disturbing, and there have been serious repercussions even in the absence of trial or proof." Voelker leaned over the table and brought up the display. Giuliani spoke again. "These allegations were sent by radio, so they arrived and were made public over twelve years ago. Please take your time and read them carefully. We are hoping to hear you refute them."

It took Emilio about ten minutes to make his way through the document. Toward the end, it was difficult to see clearly and he had to reread portions to be sure he understood, which was distressing.

The Contact Consortium's story didn't take him completely by surprise. "We know about the child," John had said, "and we know about the brothel." But it was so absurd, so unfair, that he hadn't taken in the implications, not really. The mind tries to protect you that way, he supposed. Until this day, he had not known what everyone else in this room, what the whole world had heard over twelve years earlier, nor could he have imagined how damning it would sound.

And yet, it explained some things, and for that Emilio was grateful. He'd begun to wonder if the headaches were because of a brain tumor, because there was so much that made no sense to him. This, at least, made the animosity and revulsion explicable: the way Isley and Wu looked at him, what they must have been thinking…But he found other parts of the report both mystifying and an outrage. He tried again to make sense of it all and wondered if he'd said something wrong or had been misunderstood. There is a clue here somewhere, Emilio thought, hoping to remember that later, when things were not so pressured. Then the headache tightened its grip and things began to flicker past his mind.

Often in the past months, he had found himself suspended between screaming hysteria and black humor. Screaming, he had determined on the voyage back, only made the headaches more devastating.

"It could be worse," Emilio said at last. "It could be raining."

Black humor, on the other hand, made everyone else angry. Giuliani and Reyes were not amused. Voelker was outraged. John got the joke, but even he thought the timing was pretty poor. Emilio, his vision very distorted now, looked for Edward Behr but saw only that the man was no longer next to the window.

"It is time that someone explained to you, Sandoz, that this is not simply your private disgrace," Voelker rapped, his voice hammering in Emilio's ears. "When these charges were made public, the reputation of the Society was all but destroyed. We now operate only fourteen novitiates worldwide! And there are hardly enough new men to fill even those—"

"Oh, come on, Voelker! That's the worst kind of scapegoating!" It was John's voice shouting back. "You can't blame Emilio for every problem we've had for—"

Then Felipe's voice added to the din, and Emilio began to feel that his head would shatter, that the bones of his skull would go to pieces. He tried to escape from the yelling somehow, to go inside himself away from all this, but found no place to hide. For weeks, he'd prepared single-mindedly, building walls brick by brick, deciding which questions to answer, which to turn aside and how. He'd been sure he could get through the hearings, that he had some distance from everything now, but the carefully constructed defenses were crumbling, and he felt as flayed and raw and exposed as if it were all happening again.

"That's enough." Giuliani's words cut through the argument and the room fell silent abruptly. His voice was very mild when he spoke again. "Emilio, is there any truth to these charges?"

Brother Edward, having spotted the whiteness around the eyes that signaled migraine, was already on the way to Sandoz, hoping to get him out of the room before the vomiting started. But he stopped and waited for Emilio to speak.

"It's all true, I suppose," Emilio said but the roaring in his head made it hard now to hear his own voice. And then everyone was shouting again, so probably no one heard him say, "But it's all wrong."

He could feel Edward Behr taking him under the arms, pulling him to his feet. There was more talk, Edward's voice close to his ear, but he didn't understand what anyone was saying. He thought it must have been John Candotti who half-carried him out of the office, and he tried to protest that there was nothing wrong with his legs. They managed to get him into the stone-paved hallway before he lost control; he was glad he hadn't spoiled the carpets. When it was over, there was the sting of the injection and the brief terrible sensation of falling and falling even as he was being carried up the stairs.

It's all true, he thought as the drug took hold. But it's all wrong.

The lander from the Magellan had set down near the village of Kashan, where the Jesuit party had lived for over two Rakhati years. The humans were met not by priests but by a terrifying mob of individuals they later learned to call Runa. The Runa were very big, very agitated, and Wu had expected to be killed on the spot. The Magellan party was about to retreat to their lander when a smaller person, whom they believed to be quite young, made her way through the crowd and went directly to Trevor Isley, whom she addressed, astonishingly, in English.

She introduced herself as Askama and asked Trevor if he had "come for Meelo?" Askama seemed convinced that Isley was a relative of Father Emilio Sandoz—or Meelo, as she called him—a family member come to fetch the priest. When they asked about any others like Sandoz, Askama said that the other foreigners were gone but told them over and over, "Meelo is not dead," that he was in the city of Gayjur now. Gradually the Magellan party understood that Askama meant to take them there. It seemed wise to go with her. They hoped that Sandoz would be able to explain the situation once they reached Gayjur.

They went by river barge to the city. Along the route, Runa villagers shouted from the banks and, once, rocks were thrown. Trevor Isley, who happened to be wearing black, was obviously the target of that assault and it seemed clear that the missionaries had somehow poisoned the atmosphere, the very thing the Magellan crew had expected and feared.

The city population was not openly hostile but the humans were watched silently as they made their way through the streets. Askama brought them to Supaari VaGayjur, whom they found to be something of a scholar. Supaari, they learned, had studied with Sandoz for a long while and his English was surprisingly good, although more heavily accented than Askama's. He was also a member of the ruling Jana'ata, a person of apparent wealth and a gracious host, although Askama was dismissed rather abruptly. She was not allowed to stay with them but she was permitted to remain in the compound somewhere and the humans saw her often. While Supaari confirmed Askama's story that Emilio Sandoz had once been accepted as a member of his household, he informed the Magellan party that Sandoz no longer resided with him. Why? they asked. Where was he now? Supaari was indirect. Other living arrangements had been made for the Foreigner Sandoz that were "more suited to his nature," Supaari told them, and changed the subject.

Over the next few weeks, the Magellan party was entertained lavishly, Supaari showing off his knowledge of their lingua franca and doing his best to answer their questions. At their request, he introduced them to other Jana'ata of influence. Everyone seemed cool and distracted, uninterested in trade or cultural exchanges. It became obvious that something ugly was brewing. Even the normally urbane Supaari became upset one afternoon, telling them that the Runa had attacked and killed several Jana'ata on a riverway near the city. Nothing like this had ever happened previously. Supaari assured them that relations between the Runa and the Jana'ata had always been good before. Supaari was of the opinion that the foreigners, as everyone called the Jesuits, were responsible for this. Balance had been lost. Traditions had been broken.

The Magellan party brought up Sandoz's name repeatedly, hoping for a more complete explanation of the situation from him, but Supaari seemed in no hurry to produce the man. In the end, it was not Supaari VaGayjur but the child Askama who located Sandoz and took Wu and Isley to him.

Father Emilio Sandoz was found in a state of shocking degradation in what was obviously a whorehouse, where he was employed as a prostitute. His first act when found was to kill Askama, a child who had clearly been devoted to him. Upon questioning, the priest became hysterical and then refused to speak. The Jana'ata, preoccupied with larger affairs, pressed no charges and released Sandoz to the custody of the Consortium. Wu and Isley were not in a position to conduct any kind of investigation, so they decided to send Sandoz back to Earth and let the authorities there deal with him. The priest was transported to the Stella Maris, along with a cargo of remarkable gifts from Supaari VaGayjur, and the Magellan party turned their attention to repairing relations with the VaRakhati.

In the weeks that followed, there were reports of additional Runa attacks on Jana'ata civilians near the city. Fearing that they would be caught up in the civil war that seemed imminent, Wu and Isley thanked Supaari for his hospitality and aid, and made plans to take their party back up to the Magellan, where they could either sit out the unrest or try a different region of the planet. Wu's last transmission reported his group's plan to head back toward their lander with an escort provided by Supaari VaGayjur. The Magellan party was never heard from again. And so it was that the only person to return from Rakhat alive was the priest and whore and murderer Emilio Sandoz, who had very much wanted to die.

The breathing had steadied now and Edward Behr knew that the medication had finally taken hold. It was much more effective if it could be taken orally when the headaches began. Edward tried to be alert to their onset, but Emilio hid a great deal. This time the pain had come screaming in with startling suddenness, and no wonder: to sit and read an indictment like that, minutely observed, the tiniest reaction analyzed for what clues might be given away.

Edward Behr had seen this kind of thing before—the body punished for what the soul could not encompass. Sometimes it was headache, as with Emilio. Sometimes excruciating back pain, or chronic stomach trouble. You saw it in the alcoholics, often, drinking to dull the sensitivity, to mute the hurt. So many people buried the soul's pain in their bodies, Edward thought. Even priests who, one would have thought, might have known better.

Brother Edward had spent many hours sitting like this, watching Emilio sleep, praying for him. Of course, he'd known the stories about Sandoz before being assigned to care for him. And he had tended the man's body, was well aware of the injuries, which were not merely those to his hands and which silently told the sordid story. The original release of the information came when Edward Behr was married, before he ever thought of his present life or imagined he might meet one of the principals, but he'd been interested, naturally. It was the news story of the century, after all. He recalled the teasing insinuations, the dramatic revelations, the scandalized reactions overshadowing the scientific and philosophical importance of the mission to Rakhat. Then there was, for the second time, a mysterious end to the transmissions and the long wait for Sandoz to return, bringing with him the only hope for some kind of explanation.

Emilio's very survival had been improbable, not to say miraculous. Alone for months, in a crude vehicle, navigated by only slightly less crude computers, he had been found in the Ohbayashi sector of the asteroid belt when a support ship investigated the automatic distress signal. By that time, he was so malnourished that the healed scars of his hands had reopened, the connective tissue going to pieces. He would have bled to death if the Ohbayashi people hadn't picked him up when they did.

Brother Edward realized that he might be the only one who believed wholeheartedly that it was a good thing Emilio had been found alive. Even John Candotti was ambivalent, if only because death seemed kinder and God was merciful.

Edward didn't know what to think about the killing of Askama or the violence said to have been triggered by the Jesuit missionaries. But if Emilio Sandoz, maimed, destitute, utterly alone, had turned to prostitution, who could condemn him? Not Edward Behr, who had some measure of the man's strength and of what it must have taken to bring him to the state he'd been found in, on Rakhat. Johannes Voelker, by contrast, was convinced that Sandoz was simply a dangerous rogue, gone to appalling excess in the absence of external controls. We are what we fear in others, Edward thought, and wondered how Voelker spent his time off.

There was a quiet knock at the door. Edward rose silently and went into the hallway, pulling the door almost but not quite closed behind him.

"Asleep?" the Father General asked.

"Yes. It'll be hours," Brother Edward said softly. "Once the vomiting starts, I have to inject the Prograine, and that knocks him out."

"The rest will do him good." Vincenzo Giuliani rubbed his face with both hands and let out a long uneven sigh. He looked at Brother Edward and shook his head. "He admits it's all true. But I could have sworn he was dumbfounded."

"Sir, if I may speak frankly?"

"Of course. Please."

"I can't say anything about the murder. I've seen real anger. To be honest, I've seen potential for violence, although he's always turned it on himself. But, Father, you only read the medical reports. I saw—" Brother Edward stopped. He'd never spoken of this to anyone, not even Emilio, silent always in the early days when he'd been too ill to move from bed. Perhaps the reports had been too clinical. Perhaps the Father General hadn't understood what the sodomy had done, how desperate Sandoz must have been…

"It was brutal," Brother Edward said plainly, and he looked at the Father General until Giuliani blinked. "He does not enjoy pain. If he worked as a whore, it gave him no pleasure."

"I don't suppose the work ever does give much pleasure, Ed, but your point is taken. Emilio Sandoz is not a depraved libertine."

Giuliani walked to the doorway and hesitated before taking a step into the room. Most men were simple. They were looking for security, or power, or a feeling of usefulness or of certainty or competence. A cause to fight for, a problem to solve, a place to fit in. There were many possibilities but once you grasped what a man was looking for, you had the beginnings of understanding. At a loss, he studied the exotic face, half-hidden by dark hair and bed linens, and whispered, "So what, in the name of Jesus, is he?" It was a question he'd pondered, one way or another, off and on, for sixty years. He didn't expect an answer, but he got one.

"A soul," said Edward Behr, "looking for God."

Vincenzo Giuliani stared at the fat little man standing in the hallway and then at Sandoz, sleeping drugged against an assault on his own body, and wondered, What if that's been it, all along?

It was well into the night before Emilio stirred. He became aware that the small reading lamp by the chair was on and said quietly, his voice blurred with sleep, "I'll be okay, Ed. You don't have to sit up. Go to bed." When he heard no response, he roused himself and turned over, rising onto an elbow, and saw not Edward Behr but Vincenzo Giuliani.

Before Sandoz could spit out the words that were forming in his mind, Giuliani spoke. "Emilio, I am sorry," he said, the calm conviction in his voice concealing the calculated risk he was taking. "You were condemned in absentia by men who had no right to judge. I can't think of any adequate way to apologize. I don't expect you to forgive me. Or any of us. I am sorry." He watched the words sink in, rain to parched ground. So, he thought, that's how he sees it. "If you can bring yourself to it, I'd like to begin again. I know it won't be easy, but I think you need to tell us your side of all this, and I know we need to hear it."

The face closed to him, pride warring with an exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep.

"Get out," Emilio Sandoz said at last. "And shut the door."

He did, and was about to go to his own room when he heard something that gave the Father General pause. It had been, simply, a gamble: a guess at how Sandoz might have felt. But hearing this, Vincenzo Giuliani required himself to remain in the hallway. Head against the wooden door, hands gripping the frame, he listened until the weeping was over, and learned the sound of desolation.