The Child Goddess (32 page)

34

ISABEL LIT HER
little blessed candle and set out the crucifix on a flat stone before the kburi. The morning light paled the flame of her candle, and made the wood of the crucifix glow. Oa came to kneel beside her, and Isabel smiled at her. “Today is All Saints’ Day, Oa.”

“All the saints? Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Teresa?”

“Yes, all of them, but especially the martyrs.”

Oa frowned at the new word. “Mar-tyrs.”

“A martyr is someone who gives her life for something she believes in. In my church, Christ is the first martyr. Here, on Virimund, we already have two.”

Oa nodded. “Yes,” she said gravely. Were there changes in Oa’s face, a slight lengthening of her neck, perhaps a broadening of the shoulders? Or would that be her imagination? It had been almost six months since Oa received the serum.

“Doctor Simon is a martyr,” Oa said “And Raimu-ke is a martyr.”

“That’s right. Because Raimu-ke died trying to protect other anchens.” Isabel had heard this story from several of the anchens, sitting on the great boulder on the north side of the island. The tale varied depending on the teller, but the essence of it was always the same. Raimuke had been the first child to cease growing before her menses. Her people had not known what to do with her, Oa had said, translating, and had begun the tatwaj when Raimu-ke’s younger sister became a woman, and the people realized something was wrong.

Isabel now had her own memory of Raimu-ke, as real to her as if she had witnessed the events herself. She pictured a slender dark child, rather like Oa, rejected by her parents and siblings, living out her days on the fringes of her community. When the tatwaj revealed a second old child, and a third, Raimu-ke stormed the village to destroy the inks and needles, to steal the drums that accompanied the ceremony, to try to stop the tatwaj itself.

According to one version, Raimu-ke was felled by a single blow from one of the elders. In another version, several of the elders attacked her, striking her with their fists. In some versions, she died instantly, in others she lingered a few hours, murmuring words of comfort and wisdom to the other anchens. It was this version Isabel preferred, because it made her think of Simon. In all the stories, Raimu-ke was put into a canoe with the other two anchens, and banished forever. The two survivors buried Raimu-ke beneath stones at the top of the old volcanic island. It became tradition for each new arrival, each newly sorrowing anchen, to place a new stone. Some of them were far too heavy for one child to lift, but the others helped, and over the years the cairn grew. If an anchen died, the little body was also buried at the top of the hill, to stay close to Raimu-ke.

The anchens squatted in an uneven circle around Isabel and Oa, waiting their turn. Together they had created a new ritual, one in which Isabel first made her morning devotions, and then the anchens made their own offerings. Isabel, too, made an offering to Raimu-ke. To the Child Goddess. She crumbled a bit of cereal in her fingers and laid it in the hollow votive stone. When she turned to look at the anchens, a rush of satisfaction filled her breast. A little miracle had been wrought here, on this tiny island. Six months of improved food, supplements designed and produced at the power park and flown to the island, a little basic medical care had brought a shine to the skin of the anchens, filled out their narrow bodies, strengthened their legs. There was more that needed doing, much more. Ette’s eye required more skill than the medtech possessed. Isabel, recalled now to the Mother House, hoped to find a physician who would make the journey to Virimund to heal Ette, and perhaps to do something for Usa’s crooked arm. Marian Alexander had already begun the search for a volunteer.

Jin-Li squatted with the anchens, showing respect to Raimu-ke. Jin-Li would be staying on Virimund. ExtraSolar had deemed it worth the expenditure of one archivist as advocate for the remnants of an Earth colony. Isabel had no doubt that ExtraSolar’s motives were political, but they were useful. She was comforted by knowing Jin-Li would be here, that the mission would be in capable hands, and the work would go on.

The issue of Oa, however, was still unresolved.

*

WHEN ISABEL RETURNED
to the power park, she was shocked to see how much Gretchen Boreson’s chorea had worsened. They would travel together back to Earth. Boreson said she planned to be in twilight sleep the entire time. “No point in trying to exercise,” she said. The older woman spoke without inflection, without any sign of resentment or sadness. A cane leaned against her chair, and her hands trembled uncontrollably. Her lips were pale and her eyelashes almost white. Isabel imagined her shaking hands could no longer manage to apply the artful cosmetics that had been such a part of her. Only her eyes were the same, ice-blue, still sharp.

“I’m very sorry, Gretchen,” Isabel said. “I know you had hopes that the virus would provide a cure for you.”

One of the trembling hands waved a dismissive gesture, and came to rest on the desk before her. Jacob Boyer had provided Boreson with a small office, outfitted with an r-wave installation and a computer, but Isabel doubted much work was being done. Gretchen no longer toyed with objects, as she had when they first met. She seemed to spend most of her energy trying to keep her body still.

“I simply want to be home,” Boreson said. “Paolo tells me there’s nothing more to be done for my condition.”

“I’m sure I would want the same,” Isabel said. “I’m eager to see my own home, now that my superior has recalled me. It’s been a long time.”

“I don’t think I’ve had a chance to tell you how sorry I am about Dr. Edwards.”

“Thank you. One of the things I’ll need to do is to visit his wife, in Geneva. Anna.”

Even at this revelation, Boreson’s eyes did not swerve. No hint of compunction shone in her cool gaze. “That’s generous of you.”

“I hope she’ll understand. There are some of his personal possessions to be returned, and I thought it would be better if they came from someone who cared about him.”

“Paolo tells me you want to take the girl with you.”

Isabel nodded. “Yes. I want to take Oa to the Magdalene Mother House, in Tuscany.”

“I don’t see the point of that. We’re setting up facilities here, we’ll bring a physician out to the power park. The children will be cared for. They should stay together.”

Isabel leaned forward. “I agree that the anchens should stay together. But Oa is changed. She’s different, because Paolo brought her to Earth, exposed her to all that Earth has to offer. How could she ever go back to living the way she did?”

Now Boreson’s eyes did drop, and her cheek began to jerk in an arrythmic spasm. “The provision has expired . . .” she began.

“I’ve been in touch with Madame Mahmoud, and she’s spoken to the other regents. They’ve agreed to extend my guardianship of Oa indefinitely.”

Boreson pressed her hand to her cheek. “No one informed me.”

“I will ask Madame Mahmoud to send you a transcript of the meeting.”

A quiver shook Gretchen Boreson’s body. She dropped her hand to the desk, where her tapering fingers twitched against the surface. “It was a waste,” she said. The flatness of her tone had a bitter edge to it. “A total waste. We came all this way for a virus that’s useless.”

“Gretchen,” Isabel said gently. “We came all this way to save the anchens. To restore these children to their birthright.”

Boreson’s eyes glittered with a little of their old, cold fire as she lifted her head. “That’s why you came, Mother Burke,” she said. The corners of her lips curved upward in a mirthless smile. “I came to find a cure for my disease. To find Paolo’s delayed senescence factor. I came for my own purposes, and I failed.”

Isabel sat back in her chair, stunned by Boreson’s pragmatism, her naked honesty. In a way, Boreson had made a confession, but it was a confession marred by a complete lack of penitence. If she was unburdening her soul, it didn’t seem to be a burden that troubled her.

Isabel didn’t respond. She could hardly offer absolution to someone who neither asked for it nor believed in it. It would have been gratifying to see Boreson exhibit some sort of regret. But it would not have been in character.

As she left the little office, Isabel felt weighed down by the coldness, the utter selfishness, that drove Gretchen Boreson. It was terrifying to think what Boreson might have achieved, how she might have used the anchens, without Simon Edwards to thwart her. It was disturbing to think of what she still might accomplish, once she had resumed her seat of power at the Multiplex. At least the anchens of Virimund would be beyond her reach. Simon had seen to that.

*

ON THEIR LAST
night with the anchens, Oa looked around at the faces of her old companions, marveling at how they had changed in only six months. Their skin was soft and shining, their hair painstakingly trimmed and untangled under Isabel’s ministrations. The myriad cuts and bruises and rashes they so often carried about with them had been bandaged and soothed. But more importantly, their eyes had begun to lose the haunted look that Oa had always taken for granted. The anchens had grieved over the disappearance of the people, but they blossomed under the constant attention of Isabel and Jin-Li. And Oa.

Oa watched her own body for changes, wishing for them with all her might. Was she perhaps a little bit taller, her fingers a little longer? She couldn’t say for certain. And of course it could simply be that she was eating good food every day, instead of starving most of the time. Po was still the tallest of the anchens. Oa knew the number of the tattoos she bore on her arms and neck. One hundred two. Add to that two years in space, and how many years more since the last tatwaj of the people? Eventually, ExtraSolar would figure that out, and Oa might know exactly how old she really was. Certainly, the number was a great one, and during all those years, she had lived with only the faintest hope, a ghost of hope. Now her hope was a tangible thing, a constant presence. She felt, on most days, as if she could walk on air. She closed her eyes against the sweetness of it, the beguiling power of anticipation. She tried not ever to think of Doctor Simon’s serum failing her.

Isabel sat a little apart from her tonight, with Bibi on one side and Ette on the other. Likaki curled as close to Isabel’s feet as possible. Jin-Li, too, sat in the midst of the anchens as they looked out over the darkening face of Mother Ocean and remembered.

Bibi told the story of the night her little sister was born, a younger sister who had grown to be a woman, who was now long dead. Likaki remembered the accident that blinded Ette, the bleeding of her eye, the screams of pain, and how the anchens gathered around her, holding her, crying together, not knowing how to help.

Po recited the story of Doctor Simon and the forest spider, and spoke of the sadness of Isabel and Oa at the death of their friend.

Darkness fell. Oa looked up into the blanket of stars, knowing that the stars of Earth would never be so brilliant. She felt sadness at leaving Virimund again, but it had been her own choice. She would go to Earth with Isabel, and she would grow, and learn, and then she would come back. The Child Goddess had told her so.

Po’s eyes were fixed on her, reflecting the starlight in their dark pupils. She knew what he wanted. She nodded to him, and then she turned to Isabel.

“Isabel,” she said.

“Yes?”

“The anchens want to take the serum. For reversing effect.”

Isabel’s eyes glowed in the darkness as if they were the stars themselves. “Have you explained, Oa? That we don’t know yet if it will work?”

“Yes. Oa has explained.”

Jin-Li said, “She did. I think they understand.”

Isabel sighed. “Jin-Li, I don’t know how you’ve learned the language so quickly.”

“I already speak several. Each one gets easier.”

“So I understand.” Isabel passed her hand over bare scalp, and turned her face out to the ocean once again. “Oa, I’ll talk to World Health about it. I don’t know what they’ll say.”

“But Oa took the serum.”

“Yes, but that was different.”

“The anchens do not think it was different,” Oa said stubbornly.

“No, I suppose they don’t.” Isabel propped her chin on one hand, elbow on knee. “Jin-Li, this is all so hard to think through. An anthropologist is supposed to study new cultures, not interfere with them. Not change them. If we inoculate these children . . .”

“If the antiviral works,” Jin-Li said.

“Right. If it works. But there are no others like them. No other anchens in the universe.”

“But can we withhold this from them, if they want it?”

“No. I don’t think so. But I’m not certain it’s our decision to make.”

Oa said quietly, “Whose decision is it?” She saw Isabel and Jin-Li look at each other, and Jin-Li began to grin. In a moment, Isabel, too, was laughing. Oa lifted her hands, bewildered. “Oa is not being funny,” she said.

Isabel smiled, her lamplight smile that could light even the darkest night. “No, sweetheart, of course not. It’s just that you’re right. You’re so right, and we both see it. The decision belongs to you, to each of you. There’s no point in my troubling myself over it!”

*

THEY LEFT VIRIMUND
on the first day of Advent. A departure, Isabel thought, rather than an arrival. An ending, but charged with possibilities.

Two volunteers from Port Force, a man and a woman, had gone to the island of the anchens to assist Jin-Li in building a proper shelter for the children, and to acclimate them to more people. Isabel had a long conversation via r-wave with Madame Mahmoud, and it had been decided that inoculation of the anchens should wait until they knew how Oa’s body reacted. Oa and Jin-Li explained to Po and the others that the serum would be theirs, if they still wanted it, after that time.

Boyer was busy overseeing the loading of the shuttle, the hydrogen containers in the cargo bay, Isabel’s and Oa’s things in the passenger cabin. Isabel was carrying copies of all Jin-Li’s work, pictures of the anchens for the regents, and recordings for linguists to study. Simon’s things had been carefully packed to be returned to Geneva. To Anna.