The Child Goddess (16 page)

17

“THERE IS A
tattoo for every year of age,” Simon told the regents. “Virimund years. One hundred and two in all.”

Though Isabel had braced herself, the gasps of the regents made her shudder. Oa, too, quivered. Isabel put an arm around her shoulders.

“I know this is shocking,” Simon said. “But the bone histology, with a margin of error of plus or minus twelve years, supports this conclusion.”

“I don’t suppose . . .” The regent from India lifted his fingers from the table, and then laid his hand down again. “No, surely not.”

“A hoax?” Simon asked. “I can’t see how.”

Madame Mahmoud leaned forward. “How is this possible? And are all the—” She hesitated over the word, and then, with a flicker of her eyelids, pressed on. “The children—are they all so—” She shook her head.

“We don’t know if they’re all as old as Oa,” Simon said. “Some may be older.”

“They should all be brought here,” Adetti put in swiftly. “Although we will be content if our request for two more subjects is granted.”

Isabel glared at him. “After what happened on Virimund?”

“What did happen?” asked Mahmoud.

“They call it an incident,” Isabel said. “It was an outrage.”

“And what does the girl say about it?”

Isabel took a deep breath. “Oa either can’t remember it or can’t speak of it. The hydros had hand weapons, shock guns. They fired them at the children.”

“If they are children,” Adetti said sourly.

“World Health categorically opposes ESC’s request to force another Sikassa to emigrate,” Simon said coolly. “Until we understand the situation fully, there must be no further interference with the population on Virimund.”

Gretchen Boreson leaned forward, her hands linked before her on the table. Her nails were long and silver, making Isabel think of shards of ice. “Dr. Edwards,” Boreson said smoothly. “This—child—” Her inflection was minimal, but pointed. “If she is unable or unwilling to answer our questions, what can we do but ask them of someone else?”

“We have no reason to think one of the other children will be more capable of putting things in perspective,” Simon answered her. He looked around at the regents. Madame Mahmoud had a fire in her eye as she watched Boreson. Dr. Fujikawa frowned as he flicked screens on his reader. Simon went on, “There are a hundred unanswered questions. Even with the confidence Oa has developed in Mother Burke, there are cultural issues she cannot explain. It’s not only language, but the lack of context. Mother Burke feels, and I agree, that the only way to solve the puzzle of the Sikassa colony is to go to Virimund, to interview the other—
children
—” He let the word hang in the air for a moment. “And to try to discover the source of the virus that caused Oa’s tumor.”

Adetti leaped to his feet. “Damn it!” he cried. Boreson lifted her hand, but she was too late to stop him. “This is
my
discovery!” he exclaimed. “You can parade your charts and scans all you want, Edwards, but that’s no child sitting there, and DSF is going to be a priceless commodity!”

Simon let Adetti’s outburst hang in the air for a moment before he said, looking around the table at the stunned faces, “By DSF, Dr. Adetti means ‘delayed senescence factor.’ He and Administrator Boreson have filed for a patent for the virus.”

“Pardon, please, but this was not in our briefing.” The furrows in Dr. Fujikawa’s forehead grew deeper. “Would that not be a biological patent? I believe biological patents to be illegal since the genome scandals.”

“Not,” Adetti said triumphantly, “if the biological entity meets the criteria for function and application!”

Boreson put in, “We believe this virus does, since it—”

The regent from Oceania interrupted her, demanding of Adetti, “Delayed senescence? You’re talking anti-aging, then. Longevity.”

Adetti cried, “Exactly!”

Boreson gave the Oceania representative her chilly smile. “You can see that the benefit to humankind—”

Someone else called out a question, and someone else tried to answer it, and was interrupted. Voices rose. Gretchen Boreson’s cheek began to twitch, and she pressed her fingers to it. Paolo Adetti, still standing, smiled across the table at Isabel and Oa. His eyes glittered in the cold light. Isabel dropped her eyes. Beside her, Simon sighed and closed his reader.

Isabel murmured, through the clamor, “That’s all the progress we’ll make today, I think.”

Simon turned to look at her. His eyes shone with determination. “You know, Isabel,” he said softly. “You’re going to need me on Virimund.”

“If they let us go,” she said.

“Yes. If they let us go. But look at this bunch.” He nodded to the regents, who were standing now in knots of two and three, arguing. “They’re going to want answers.”

“It’s all about the virus, for them, isn’t it, Simon? About long life. Not about the children. They’re no better than . . .” Isabel let her sentence trail off. Paolo Adetti and Gretchen Boreson bent their heads together, talking.

“It’s a great temptation, Isabel,” Simon said. “Long life. Eternal youth.”

Isabel closed her eyes against a deep wave of sadness, and breathed a prayer to her patroness for wisdom. Oa trembled beside her, a poor, frightened, ancient child.

*

JIN-LI AND MATTY
Phipps hitched a ride on one of the Port Force trucks making early-morning deliveries in the city, jumping out when they reached the Old Space Needle. It was dwarfed by the spires and domes around it. Its old-fashioned supports were still visible, reinforced now from within, tubes of titanium alloy gleaming past painted steel. There had once been a restaurant at the top, now transformed into an observation deck for the spaceport. A nautilus slidewalk with translucent walls curled around the base and up to the Offworld Exhibit Gallery, just beneath the observation deck. To the east the Cascade range glimmered with snow, and to the west the Olympics lay shrouded in gray cloud.

The exhibit had only just opened for the day. They strolled past the yawning attendant, following a circular corridor to an arched portal leading to the first exhibit, Irustan. The holographic display shifted around them depending on where they stood.

The display was a simulated room with a white tile floor, a skyroof above their heads showing the constellations of an Irustani night sky. A wall niche held a met-olive, its gray-green leaves shining in the light. A mock rose grew from a planter, its vermilion blooms so true to life Jin-Li could almost smell their fragrance.

They moved to a new position, and found themselves looking out over a scene of an Irustani marketplace, where women in floating pastel veils were escorted by men in flat caps and soft shirts and trousers. In the distance they saw the rhodium mines, with the blazing star of Irustan turning everything to bronze. A recorded lecture on the uses of rhodium for r-wave communication began.

“Looks hot,” Matty said.

“The star’s very hot,” Jin-Li said. “Earthers have to wear protective glasses and clothes. Even the Irustani do, and they’ve been there three hundred years.”

“You liked it, Johnnie.”

“It’s a hard place, Matty. But colorful. Mysterious.”

“Would you go back?”

“Can’t.” Jin-Li turned toward the portal to go to another exhibit.

“Why can’t you?” Phipps asked, following. “If you liked the world, liked the work?”

Jin-Li stood gazing up at the skyroof. “I violated the Terms of Employment. Almost got booted out of Port Force and sent back to Hong Kong.”

Phipps gave a low whistle. “You were taking a big chance, then, helping Mother Burke and the kid.”

Jin-Li shrugged. “Sometimes you have to do what needs doing.”

They moved down the circular corridor and stepped inside the next display. “Nuova Italia,” Jin-Li said. “You’ve been there, Matty.”

Matty grinned, looking around at the holographic images. “I’m seeing more of it right now than I saw when I was there,” she said. “Never got off the transport.”

It was a pastoral scene that might have come straight from an alpine meadow, had it not been for the odd, elongated beasts that cropped its short, yellowish grass. The recorded lecture described the vaccone, and the attempts of the research teams to make the meat edible to Earthers. It talked about the search for intelligent life, and the challenges of biotransforming the plant life of Nuova Italia. There was only one other display, a view from a hillside of the domed settlement Port Force had built for the scientific teams.

“Doesn’t look like I missed much,” Matty said.

Crescent was an ice world with soaring structures that the explorers had dubbed castles. No one as yet had any idea who or what had made them. It didn’t look possible to Jin-Li that such shapes had grown naturally. Matty shivered, although the cold was only illusion.

Udacha was even more mysterious. Scattered monoliths rose from an empty plain, huge slabs of stone in some pattern that no one had yet discerned.

Virimund, though, was beautiful, a world of vivid blue sky, emerald green waters, white clouds, and pastel sand. They seemed to be standing on an island, looking out to sea. The sand glittered beneath their feet, and white-crested waves washed the beach. The lecture described hundreds of islands ringing the planet, mostly covered by rainforest. It spoke of the need for hydrogen, the abundant supply of water. No mention was made of the Sikassa.

“Beautiful,” Phipps said. “If I weren’t sick of space, I’d go there.”

“Wish I could,” Jin-Li said.

“Yeah? Haven’t had enough?”

“I’ve always wanted to be an archivist,” Jin-Li said, taking a last look at the view of Virimund. “I’ve always been curious, about people, about places. There’s no archivist in the Virimund team. It was supposed to be uninhabited. Nothing to record.”

“They’ll need one now. You could ask for a promotion.”

Jin-Li, with a low laugh, turned to the door. “I don’t dare ask.”

“Yeah. Sometimes best to lie low, huh?”

“Yes. Sometimes that’s best.”

*

AN ENORMOUS BOUQUET
of spring flowers had appeared in Isabel’s room, with a small card that read,
from the office of the general administrator
. Isabel raised her eyebrows at Simon, and he shrugged. “Oh, well,” Isabel said. “It’s not the flowers’ fault.” She left the arrangement where it was, in the center of the table.

Simon left early to attend another meeting of the regents. He thought it best that Isabel and Oa not come with him. They stayed behind, and sat over a leisurely breakfast. Isabel pointed out the different flowers to Oa, saying the names. “This is a tulip,” she said.

“Tu-lip,” Oa repeated.

“Yes. And this is a daffodil.”

“Daff-o-dil.”

“Baby’s breath.”

Oa’s eyes widened. “Babies?”

Isabel laughed. “It sounds strange, Oa, but it’s just a name. It doesn’t have anything to do with babies. With a baby, I mean.” She was learning to be careful about words. Oa took things literally. “Baby’s breath is just a description.”

“Baby’s breath,” Oa said slowly, tasting the alliteration. “Baby’s breath.”

“Tell me what flowers you have on Virimund.”

Oa tugged on her braids, thinking. “Oa has nuchi flowers,” she said. “And Oa has—” She frowned, struggling to find the words. “Water flowers? Flowers grow in Mar-Mar.”

“You mean Mother Ocean,” Isabel reminded her.

Oa flashed her white smile. “Yes. Mother Ocean.”

“That’s right.” Isabel reached across the table and drew the pad and the colored pencils toward her. “Draw the flowers for me, Oa.”

The girl selected a pink pencil, and sketched a flower that looked something like a sea anemone. Isabel watched her absently, wondering how Simon was faring with the regents. She had been relieved not to go again, to watch the curious faces staring at Oa as if she were on display in a zoo. She couldn’t blame them, but it made her want to put herself between the child and—well, and the world. That, she feared, would not be possible.

“It’s a beautiful flower,” Isabel said. She was pleased by how quickly Oa had learned to use a pencil. She loved watching the deft, precise movements of her small fingers. “What is your word for it?”

“Marmala.” Oa put a final touch on her drawing, and slid it toward Isabel. “Marmala grows in—in Mother Ocean—until the people are taking it. The people are eating the flower.”

“Perhaps it’s not truly a flower, then,” Isabel said. “Perhaps it’s a fruit, like the banana or the apple.”

Oa frowned, tugging at her hair. “Not like banana. Not like apple. Marmala tastes like Mother Ocean. Like water of Mother Ocean.”

“Ah,” Isabel said, nodding. “Salty.”

“Sal-ty.”

Isabel smiled at her. “I don’t know a flower like this one, Oa. Let’s just use your word, the Sikassa word. We will call this marmala.”

Oa smiled up at her. “Marmala is salty.”

“Yes. Marmala is salty.”

Oa chose another pencil, and Isabel gave her back the pad of paper. She rose and walked to the window to look out past the Multiplex to the city. Spring had brought color to Seattle. Shades of green layered the hills, lacy ferns, glossy rhododendrons beginning to bud, the feathery tops of evergreen trees bowing in the wind like dancers. Or, she thought, like priests reverencing the altar.

Marian Alexander had called the night before. Gretchen Boreson had been asking pointed questions about Isabel’s relationship with Simon.

Marian said in a matter-of-fact way, “There’s no question ESC has mistreated you, and the child as well.”

Isabel bit her lip to stop herself protesting the understatement.

“You’re in a political fight,” Marian pointed out. “It’s not your first. I know you can find a way to be diplomatic and still be effective.”

“I don’t think so, Marian,” Isabel answered softly. “Not this time.”

“They want you to step down. They’re going to try to use your history to justify appointing someone else as guardian.”

Isabel closed her eyes to picture Marian at her big desk, leaning back in her chair, the little r-wave transmitter glistening in her hand. She felt as far away from her home as if she were already on Virimund. “Oh lord,” she breathed. “If Oa is hurt because of me . . . I can’t bear it.”