The Child Goddess (7 page)
For some moments Isabel thought she would say nothing, but then, in her high, slender voice, the child said, “Oa gives per-mission. Permission to Isabel.”
Isabel let her breath out in a long sigh. She drew her hand out from beneath the coverlet, and extended her open fingers toward Oa. The girl looked at her hand, pale in the darkness, and then, hesitantly, put her own dark fingers into it.
As gently as she could, Isabel closed her hand around the child’s.
An immense darkness swept over her at the touch, a bottomless grief that was almost unbearable. Isabel closed her eyes, letting it flow through her.
She found, in a moment, that it was not an absolute darkness that immersed her. A flicker of hope brightened the shadows of Oa’s mind. There was a sense of love, and faith, and tenderness. And underlying all, in the midnight sea that was Oa’s soul, was the bedrock of pure courage, the stuff of which great spirits are made.
Isabel murmured, “Thank you, Oa.” And she sent a private, silent thanks to her patroness for this small step forward.
7
THE WORD WAS
out about the damage the Magdalene had done to the infirmary’s medicator. A man who had been posted at the infirmary laughed about the incident to a group of friends at the Rec Fac, in Jin-Li’s hearing.
Paolo Adetti was not a popular man. The longshoremen and technicians, the clerks and secretaries of Port Force, had heard the rumors from Virimund. A secretary in purchasing had talked to her brother on Virimund via r-wave, and the word spread. The secretary’s brother told her that two people had died on the ocean planet after an altercation on one of the hundreds of small islands. Everyone at the Multiplex, it seemed, knew now that one of the dead had been a native child.
Gossip boiled through the ranks. Matty Phipps had been reassigned to the Multiplex, a reward for serving a long voyage. Jin-Li sought her out in the Rec Fac. Phipps was a broad-shouldered woman with a strong jaw and wispy red hair. She was watching a program on the big screen in the lounge, her boots off, her long legs propped on a table.
Jin-Li waited till the program ended to settle into a chair near her. “Are you Phipps?”
The woman looked up. “That’s me.”
Jin-Li put out a hand to shake. “Jin-Li Chung.”
“Jin—what did you say your name is?”
Jin-Li smiled. “Everyone calls me Johnnie.”
“I get that! Johnnie it is, then.” Phipps grinned, her freckled cheeks creasing, and put out her hand. “Matty.”
“Just thought I’d say welcome,” Jin-Li said. “I teach some classes here in the Rec Fac, so if you have any questions . . .”
“Thanks. I might take a class. For now, I’m still resting up.”
“Right. You were on the Virimund transport, weren’t you? Interesting.”
Matty Phipps sighed and stretched long arms over her head. “More like boring. Long, long trip, that. Everybody in twilight sleep.”
“I guess that’s what it’s like for crew. I went to Irustan, a few years ago,” Jin-Li said.
“Irustan,” Phipps said, shaking her head. “That’s a two-year trip.”
“But I was in twilight sleep the whole time,” Jin-Li said. “Woke up enough to eat meals, do the circulation exercises. That was it.”
“Best that way, believe me. Nothing to look at, not a lot to do.”
Phipps waved a broad, freckled hand. “I did two voyages, back to back. Nuova Italia and then Virimund. Thought I’d go nuts, frankly. Great if you’re antisocial. I’ve had enough.”
“What kind of work did you do onboard?”
“Maintenance and supply. There was plenty of work, just got lonely. Only three crew and the officers to talk to.” She laughed. “And not a one of ’em played a decent game of Go. You play Go, Johnnie?”
“No, sorry. I could learn, I guess.” Jin-Li leaned back in the chair.
“Ever see the girl? The one ESC brought from Virimund?”
Phipps’s grin faded. “Yeah.” Her voice grew hard. “That damned doctor kept me running with his lab supply requests, I can tell you. And the poor kid! Fourteen months in space, and he kept her awake the whole damned time.”
Jin-Li straightened. “Awake?”
“You got it. Shut up in quarantine the whole voyage, wide awake, with only Doctor fucking Adetti for company. ” She winked at Jin-Li. “Well, and me, once in a while. Through the glass, anyway. I couldn’t stand the thought of this little girl all alone. She didn’t speak much English, but I slipped her a reader and a few disks to pass the time. She figured ’em out right quick, too!” Phipps shook her head, her eyes clouding. “Hope she’s doing all right. I haven’t heard a word about her since we got here.”
Jin-Li stood up. “She has somebody with her now. It’s a Magdalene priest.”
“Well, I hope she gets her out of there,” Phipps said. “Rotten business, keeping her locked up in quarantine all those months. She sure didn’t look sick to me.”
*
“DR. EDWARDS, THE
people at Earth Multiplex assure me the child is being well cared for.”
Simon leaned back in his chair and frowned at ExtraSolar’s liaison to World Health. He had been asking hard questions, and getting very few answers. He had finally demanded a face-to-face, and Hilda Kronin had come to his office.
“Why is she being kept under wraps?”
“I’m told Dr. Adetti is examining her.” Kronin shifted nervously in her seat.
“Look,” Simon said. He leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. “ESC is going to have to explain why they brought this girl away from her own world. Otherwise, I’m going to recommend official censure, and that’s a very public event.”
She put up an anxious hand. “No, no. Dr. Edwards, that isn’t necessary. Cole Markham called me this morning from Seattle. He assures me ExtraSolar has satisfied the requirements of the charters. They acquired an extraordinary empowerment provision from the regents, and they brought in a medical anthropologist to sort out the child’s situation.”
“What does that mean, sort out the situation?”
Kronin shook her head. “I’m so sorry. Dr. Edwards. I’m not a scientist, so I can’t explain it well. But, you know—” She waved the same hand in an apologetic gesture.
Simon let his eyes stray to the view of Geneva beyond the window. Lowering gray clouds promised more snow by evening. The bitter weather suited his mood.
The liaison said hesitantly, “I suppose they mean, you know, understand the child’s background. What happened on Virimund. And why.”
Simon watched the light change from pale gray to a deeper ash as the layers of cloud shifted over the city. It was almost evening, when he would go home to Anna, and they would spend the long empty hours carefully not talking of anything that mattered. “Why don’t you try to make me understand what happened, Hilda,” he said. He felt his temper rising. It was good, somehow, to feel an emotion that was not sadness. He steepled his fingers, and focused his gaze on them. “Tell me about Virimund.”
“Well, it was complicated . . .”
“Of course.”
“The hydros took a flyer out over the islands and saw movement, what looked like people on a beach. They decided to check it out. Only one island. No one knew, you understand . . .”
“Virimund was supposed to be uninhabited.”
“Right, right. And even after weeks, no one had any idea. There were no lights, no radio communication, nothing. It was a complete surprise to our people.”
“But they saw someone . . .” Simon prompted.
“They were just curious,” she said defensively. “And after the—the incident—our people have stayed strictly away.”
“Okay,” Simon said. He flexed his fingers. “Now tell me why the physician assigned to the hydrogen installation—” He glanced at the reader inset into his desk. “Adetti,” he said. “Paolo Adetti. What made him decide to bring this little girl back with him? And why was it allowed?”
The woman breathed a wilting sigh. “I can only tell you what they’ve told me. I’m supposed to forestall censure, and a World Health investigation. I’m doing my best, believe me.”
“I know you’re trying, Hilda.”
“They told me the children attacked the hydros when they landed. Two children and one of the workers were injured. One child and one man died, but this girl survived. Dr. Adetti discovered, I guess, that she had some communicable illness, so he put her in quarantine.”
“But why bring her to Earth?”
She spread her hands. “I’m afraid they didn’t think I needed that information. I’m sorry.”
“And what’s her status now?”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I just don’t know.”
“Well, it can’t go on much longer. Not without an accounting.”
She nodded. “I know. But that’s why the anthropologist is there. She’s a Magdalene priest,” she offered, with a hopeful raising of the eyebrows.
Simon pushed away from his desk and went to stand at the window, looking out over the peaked roofs of the city to the lake. The old fountain had shut down, but he knew where it was. Anna was working near the lakeshore, teaching in a school for refugees. He felt a spasm of sorrow for her. Her steadiness, her persistence, the same qualities that now drove a wedge between them, were taken as great virtues by her colleagues in the school.
He forced himself to turn his eyes back to Hilda Kronin. “Make it clear to your people,” he said, “that we understand perfectly why they called in a Magdelene.” He avoided saying Isabel’s name. Surely even this minor diplomat, this nervous woman, would hear something in his voice, some hint of his feelings. He cleared his throat. “This was a public relations move, Hilda, a transparent ploy to garner public approval. Unless some solid information comes out of it, it won’t be enough.”
She stood, eager to leave. “Right, Dr. Edwards. I understand.”
“I’d like to make it easy for you,” he said. “But we have to be clear on this.”
“Thanks. I’ll try to explain it to them.”
“It’s best to be straight out with it. Diplomacy is all well and good, but we have a child to consider, and apparently an islandful of them out on Virimund.”
“I know it. Thank you.” She made a hasty exit, and Simon turned back to the austere winter scenery.
His secretary looked in the open door. “Dr. Edwards? Do you want anything?”
“No. Not now,” he said. What he wanted, he could not ask for.
*
JAY APPLETON TOLD
Jin-Li that the priest had asked for coffee.
“We could just get it from the cafeteria,” he said, waving at the big institutional pots at the end of the line of hot tables.
“But she’s from Italy, Jay. Bet she likes her coffee strong and fresh. Think it would be all right if I could find her a small machine and some good coffee?”
Appleton grinned. “Figured you’d say that. But you don’t fool me, Johnnie. You just wanta see what’s happening.”
Jin-Li laughed, but showed up on Jay’s next shift at the infirmary, carrying a small espresso maker, wheedled from a friend in the cafeteria, and a pound of freshly ground coffee.
Jin-Li spoke into the comm mike. “Mother Burke? It’s Jin-Li Chung here. May I clear the window?”
The priest’s light voice answered almost immediately. “Of course, Jin-Li.”
The silver deliquesced to show Isabel Burke standing beside the window, dressed as before in black. Her white collar glistened in the harsh light. She nodded to Jin-Li. “Hello.”
The girl from Virimund came out of the side room, peering shyly past her curtain of kinky hair. She wore an oversize black sweater and loose fleece trousers.
Jin-Li held up the espresso maker and the foil bag of coffee. “I heard you like coffee.”
Isabel Burke laughed, a warm sound even through the little comm system. “I love it! It’s my weakness. But how did you know?”
Jin-Li shrugged. “Oh—we talk, you know. In the cafeteria. In the Rec Fac.”
“What a kindness! I’ve really missed my little vice. I hope you didn’t go to any trouble.”
“Not at all. I’ll send these in with your dinner trays.”
“Thank you for being so thoughtful.” She hesitated, and then said. softly, “Jin-Li—I don’t mean to take advantage of you when you’ve already been so helpful—”
“Yes?” Jin-Li encouraged.
The priest glanced to her right, to the closed door of the infirmary. Jin-Li gave a slight nod. Jay was on the other side of the sterile bubble.
“I’m quite cut off here,” the priest murmured. “This is my fourth day, and I haven’t been able to speak to anyone. I could really use a wavephone.”
Jin-Li glanced at the wavephone mounted on the wall.
The priest made a wry face. “It’s not working,” she said. “Disabled, actually.”
Jin-Li eyed the spare furnishings of the infirmary, the guarded bubble. It was a risk. But the infirmary had been turned into a virtual prison. It was worth taking the chance. “See what I can do,” Jin-Li said. “I’ll be back soon. Mother Burke.”
“Thank you,” the priest said again, and she smiled in farewell. She had a wonderful smile, which made her eyes seem to light from within. People probably did favors for Isabel Burke often, just to see her smile. Jin-Li smiled back, touched the control to restore the mirror, and went off in search of a wavephone.
8
DOCTOR’S EYES BLAZED
with fury over the broken spider machine.
Oa trembled, but Isabel faced Doctor through the not-mirror without fear. Her slight shoulders were squared. She even smiled, not her lovely, lamplight smile, but a cool curving of the lips.
Oa had started to tell Isabel things, things she remembered. Then Isabel told Oa things, about her home, about her prayers, about her work. It was a trading of memories, like the trading of mats and pots and blankets among the three islands, or of cutting stones and baskets among the anchens.
It started when Oa knelt beside Isabel’s bed in the night. The faint light shone softly on Isabel’s bare scalp, and her clear gray eyes were bright in the darkness, reflective, like the shimmery flanks of fish in Mother Ocean. Her hand was warm, and strong, though it was so slender. Oa clung to it, so grateful for the touch of skin that tears burned in her eyes, and she tried not to worry that it was a person’s skin, and not an anchen’s.
She started with “parents.”
“Parents live on people’s island,” she whispered. She could feel Isabel listening. “Papi is making shahto.” It was a relief to speak of Papi again. The anchens had always spoken of their papis and mamahs, sitting at night around their fire. “Papi is taking nuchi vines to Mamah. Mamah soaks vines in Mother Ocean and stretches them on sand—so.” Oa stretched out her free arm to demonstrate. “Then Papi—” Again she demonstrated, weaving her hand back and forth to show the braiding, though she didn’t have a word in English to express it. “Is making vines together. Is making big knots. Knots is against forest spiders.” She sighed. “Anchens are not making shahto.”
Isabel lay quietly for long moments. Oa let her eyes drift up to her face, to see if perhaps she had fallen asleep, as the anchens so often did while they were remembering. But Isabel’s eyes were open, glistening with reflected light. Finally, she said, “Why, Oa? Why do the anchens not make shahto?” She didn’t sound angry, or shocked, or anything other than curious.
Oa sighed. “Hands too small,” she said. “Vines too hard. And—” She swallowed, the memory making her shiver. “Forest spiders are coming,” she finished in a whisper.
“Oh,” Isabel said, as if she understood.
But could she? These people lived in ships, or in rooms like this, with floors that were slick and objects that were made by machines. And except for the spider machine, Oa had seen nothing like a forest spider, or any creatures at all, since she left the world of Mother Ocean.
“Isabel is making shahto?” she breathed, daring to ask a question.
Isabel seemed to think for a time before she answered. “I don’t know your word,” she said finally. “I live in a house, with other women priests, and with girls who want to be priests.”
“Oh,” Oa said, in imitation.
Isabel squeezed her fingers gently. “I’m going to tell you all about my house, Oa. But suppose we get you back into your bed first, and I will sit beside you while you fall asleep.”
Oa’s breast filled with gratitude. It was almost as if Isabel were an anchen. She must not think that, must not allow herself to hope. One day Isabel would understand, and then everything could change. But it would be so easy . . . and it had been so long . . .
*
WHEN OA SLEPT
at last, Isabel still sat beside the bed, her legs crossed at the ankles, her back against the wall, pondering. She watched the child’s slender chest rise and fall, long lashes fluttering gently as she dreamed. What did Oa of Virimund dream, Isabel wondered. Of the shahto made by her father? Of the forest spiders that, in her mind, had given their name to the medicator? Or would she dream of something she longed for, something she yearned to have or to do? Isabel’s heart ached with pity.
She had worked with many children in Australia, and among the refugees from the east who crowded into Italy. Some were starving, or orphaned, or abused. They could be withdrawn, frightened, clinging, rebellious. But Oa mystified her, with her flashes of intelligence, of laughter, her retreats into silence, her refusal to speak of herself in the first person. And Isabel sensed that Oa was keeping some deep secret, something of desperate importance, at least to her. Isabel had framed her questions carefully, trying not to provoke the fearful reaction she had seen before. What, she wondered, did the child mean by the word “anchen” ? She struggled with it as she went to her own bed, yawning. When her eyes closed, she still had no answer.
She woke late the next morning, and hurried to set out the crucifix, arrange her foam pad, light her candle. Just as she was kneeling, ready to begin her devotions, she heard Oa’s soft step at her door. She glanced over her shoulder.
“Oa? Would you like to come in?”
The child’s hair was tangled from sleep, and she had pulled Isabel’s black sweater on over her pajamas. She stepped inside the small room, and stood looking at the little crucifix.
“You can touch that, if you like,” Isabel said. She held it out. Oa took it in her hand, frowning over the carved figure on the cross, tracing the thorny crown with one dark finger.
When she handed it back to Isabel, she said, “Raimu?”
“Raimu?” Isabel repeated. “I don’t know that word, Oa.”
Oa took another step, and then knelt beside Isabel, with a nod to the crucifix and the burning candle. “Raimu,” she repeated. She shrugged, and spread her hands.
Isabel smiled at her. “Perhaps later you can make me understand, Oa. Right now I’m going to say my prayers. Thank you for joining me.”
She turned to the cross and the candle, and began, speaking slowly and clearly, hoping the child could understand some of the words.
SAINT MARY OF MAGDALA,
PATRONESS OF THOSE WHO ASK . . .
Isabel paused at the end of her devotions, eyes closed, searching in the silence for the source of her inspiration. It was not there, or she couldn’t find it. She sighed, and snuffed out the candle. “We had better get you dressed, Oa,” she said. “I think they’re coming today to fix the medicator.” She rose to replace the crucifix and the kneeler. As she turned to the door, she glanced up at the little camera in the corner, its light blinking at her like an unfocused eye. She murmured, “Do you suppose they enjoy my prayers?”
Oa’s eyes moved from Isabel to the camera and back. Isabel wasn’t sure she understood. But as they left the room, she saw that Oa glanced once more up at the camera. Isabel was sure she saw a quick, defiant blaze in Oa’s dark eyes. She hoped they—whoever was watching—had seen it, too.
*
WHEN JIN-LI CHUNG
spoke a cheerful greeting over the comm system, Isabel and Oa hurried out into the central room. The longshoreman was at the window, a wrapped package in one hand. A big redheaded woman was there as well, wearing a huge grin as she looked through the glass.
Oa exclaimed, “Ship lady!”
Isabel turned to see Oa’s flashing white smile, a hand lifted in greeting to the redheaded woman. Isabel nodded to their visitors. laughing. “Good morning, Jin-Li,” she said. “I gather Oa knows your companion.”
The redheaded woman leaned closer to the glass. “Hey, kiddo,” she said in a deep voice. “It’s good to see you.” She turned her eyes to Isabel. “Mother Burke. I’m Matty Phipps. I was crew on the transport from Virimund.”
“So I understand,” Isabel said. “You were kind to Oa.”
“Mother Burke—” Jin-Li began, and glanced to the left, where Appleton stood, arms crossed, eyes watching the corridor.
“I think you should call me Isabel, Jin-Li.”
Jin-Li’s long eyes gleamed briefly. “Thank you. Isabel. Matty tells me the doctor kept Oa awake the whole journey.”
Isabel felt the smile fade from her lips, and her skin went cold. “He kept her awake? You mean, all those months, alone in quarantine . . .”
“Right,” Phipps said. Isabel saw the anger in the big woman’s eyes, in the set of her long jaw. “Whole ship in twilight sleep except crew, Adetti, and the little girl.”
A chill fury tightened Isabel’s cheeks and prickled across her scalp. She gripped her cross. “Fourteen months,” she breathed. She turned and gazed at Oa.
The child had taken her customary place, scrunched on her bed, the teddy bear in her arms. Her eyes searched Isabel’s for reassurance. Isabel tried to smile at her, but her lips were stiff with anger. Fourteen months, alone, with only Adetti for company, and occasional visits from the ship lady. And still the child had not broken.
She turned back to the window, and her voice dropped. “Jin-Li. Do you have it?”
Jin-Li Chung held up the wrapped package. “I can send it in with your breakfast.”
“Adetti?”
“Hasn’t arrived at the Multiplex yet. But soon.”
“Better not wait for breakfast then. Please ask Jay if he would bring the package in now, Jin-Li. I don’t want this child to spend another day as a prisoner.”
*
“ISABEL?” SIMON COULD
hardly believe his ears. When his secretary had announced the call, he had been certain she was mistaken. “Isabel, aren’t you in Seattle?”
“I am,” she said. He heard the deep note in her voice. She was angry.
“Tell me,” he said. He saw her in memory, the smooth scalp, the clear gray eyes, the set of her jaw when she lost her temper. He wished she had used a video phone.
“I have to be quick,” she said. “They’ll cut off the call if they know I’m making it.”
“You mean—ExtraSolar? They’re not letting you—”
“Simon. I can explain all that later. For now, listen, all right? You have to hear this.”
She spoke swiftly, and Simon listened. He soon understood why she was angry, and why she had called. It wasn’t for him, not a change of heart, but for the child. Still, foolishly, his heart lifted.
Within half an hour he had Hilda Kronin in his office again. Within an hour, he had invoked the authority of World Health and Welfare to demand an accounting from Paolo Adetti, Gretchen Boreson, and ExtraSolar Corporation over the treatment of an indigenous child from Virimund. Within two hours, Simon had a sample of medicator readouts from Adetti’s examinations of the girl. By afternoon he had sent a terse report of events as he understood them to Marian Alexander at the Magdalene Mother House in Tuscany, and his secretary had booked his overnight flight on the sonic cruiser from Geneva to Seattle. He left his office early, needing to explain the situation to Anna, and dreading it.
She asked, as he knew she would, “Why you, Simon? Why does it have to be you?” Her voice was high and light, and when she was upset, it tended to shrill. She pressed her fingers to her mouth as if she knew it.
Middle age was not dealing kindly with Anna. The gray in her once lustrous brown hair had faded it to a muddy color Simon had no name for. Her skin, once lustrous and smooth, had grown sallow. She worked too hard, of course. And Simon, though he was the same age as his wife, forty-two, had the sort of wiry body that changed only slowly with the passing of years. Sometimes he felt her eyes on him when he was dressing, a look of vague resentment that he stayed lean while her figure thickened. He touched her hand, filled with a pity that did nothing to restore the affection between them. He was deeply sorry to have hurt her, and filled with added compunction over the joy he felt, despite everything, at being called to Isabel’s side.
“Anna,” he said. “I’m the advisory physician. It’s my job to supervise disadvantaged populations. This girl falls into that category.”
“You have people who could go in your place.”
He hesitated. It was true, he could send someone else. But the medicator reports hinted at something very strange about the child, something that fired him with curiosity. “You know, Anna,” he said slowly. “I want to go. This is why I do this work, why I’ve always done it, because I think I have something important to offer.”
“I don’t know what else I can do, Simon.” Anna pushed aside the papers before her, and rested her head on her hands. She looked exhausted. He had come home to find her immersed in a stack of rewritable flexcopies, struggling with the school budget. Even in her unhappiness, she would return to the problem, would wrestle with the numbers far into the night. It was her nature to persevere, to grapple with a problem far past the point where a less stubborn person would have surrendered. It was both her strength and her weakness. When she woke tomorrow, her eyes would be shadowed with fatigue. He knew he was not helping, and he tried to speak gently.
“What do you mean? There’s nothing for you to do.”
She lifted her head and fixed him with a gaze full of misery. “You know what I mean, Simon. I can’t fight this. I can’t even understand it.”
He gazed down at her, wishing he could speak some words of comfort. He wished she didn’t look so—defeated, he decided, was the word. As if she had lost a battle.
“You don’t need to fight anything,” he said.
She gave a bitter laugh.
“I’m sorry about all of this, Anna. But whatever this ESC physician is up to—Adetti, his name is—it’s going to take someone with authority to take him in hand. To force ESC to an accounting.”
“It sounds as if you’ve already decided the case, Simon. Or she has.” She spoke the pronoun as if it burned her mouth.
He set his jaw. There was no time for an argument. “I’m trying to reserve judgment.” He bent to pick up his valise. “But they’ve been keeping Isabel—”
Anna winced at the name, and dropped her head again. He made himself put a hand on her shoulder.
Anna knew, of course. She had guessed, and he had admitted everything when she asked. She had listened to the recitation, her face drawn with pain and anger. She had asked a few questions. She had said nothing of her fury and resentment, but they had been plain in her clouded eyes and her tight voice. When she offered him forgiveness, he had said something, stumbled over some hollow expression of regret and shame. He had been in pain himself.
None of this could help Anna now. “I’m sorry, Anna. ExtraSolar has kept Isabel cut off from outside communication for almost a week. I need to find out why.”
The beep of a car horn sounded from the street, and Simon reached for the door handle.
