The Child Goddess Read online

  Oa’s bare feet glided soundlessly on the polished tiles as she crossed the room. She sat down, and ran her fingers through the ends of her long hair, her great eyes fixed on Jin-Li.

  “Jin-Li,” she whispered. “What is re-versing?”

  “Reversing? As in, to reverse something?”

  “Reversing—to reverse. Yes.”

  Jin-Li thought for a moment. “I guess I would say reversing is to turn around. I could reverse this chair, for example, turn it the other way. ”

  “What means reversing e-ffect?”

  “Oh. Well, that could mean to undo something, I suppose. Why don’t you tell me where you heard the word? I’ll explain better in context, maybe.”

  Oa’s eyes were pools of darkness ringed in silver. “Oa hears—Oa heard Doctor Simon say ‘try re-gen for reversing e-ffect of virus.’ You were—” She held out a cupped hand to show what she meant. “Being archivist.”

  “Oh! Oh, yes, I was recording. Recording what Doctor Simon said.”

  “‘Try re-gen for reversing e-ffect.’ ”

  “Yes, I remember that he said that.” Jin-Li leaned forward, and took Oa’s hand. “Oa, what are you thinking?”

  Oa turned her hand to grip Jin-Li’s fingers with surprising trength. “Forest spider bited—bit—Oa. Gave Doctor Simon’s vi-rus. Oa wants to reverse e-ffect.”

  *

  ISABEL WOKE WITH a start from a dream of Simon waving to her from the top of the cemetery’s little hill. She sat up amid tangled sheets. A sheen of perspiration dampened her throat and back.

  Automatically, she looked across to Oa’s bed. The covers were thrown back and the bed was empty. She threw her own blanket aside, and put her feet on the floor. The tiles were cool against her bare soles. Before she even reached the door, she heard the sibilance of a whispered conversation beyond it. She turned the handle slowly, so the catch would make no noise.

  In the misty light cast by the stars, she saw Jin-Li Chung at the table in the common room. Oa sat there, too, a wraith in a white sleepshift. They were whispering together, their heads bent close. Isabel paused in the doorway, not wanting to shatter the fragile moment. It was the first time she had seen Oa confide in anyone except herself.

  And their conversation looked very much as if confidences were being exchanged. When she looked closer, Isabel saw that Jin-Li’s hand lay lightly over Oa’s, and Oa had not drawn it away. Oa’s eyes were on Jin-Li’s face, and the archivist was speaking slowly, as if choosing each word with care.

  Softly, Isabel closed the door again. Jin-Li and Oa were managing on their own. If there was something she needed to hear, she could hear it in the morning.

  She went to the small window, and looked out into the mild Virimund night. Her objective mind knew it was a beautiful scene, the stars brilliant, the glimmer of the ocean just visible through the trees behind the barracks. But its beauty was lost on her, at this moment. Her solar plexus ached with missing Simon. She had lost him twice, she thought. And he wasn’t even hers to lose.

  She turned back to her bed, and pulled the blanket up to her chin. There was no point, now, in agonizing over what she might have done, or left undone. She would grieve, and in time she would come to accept that Simon was no longer in the world. She told herself she would make his legacy count, as best she could. It was the only way to make sense of the tragedy.

  *

  OA SLIPPED BACK into the room. Isabel lay on her cot, her bare scalp glistening faintly in the starlight, her face turned toward the wall. Someone had brought the teddy bear from Jacob Boyer’s flyer. Oa got into bed, and held the teddy bear close to her chest.

  Jin-Li had promised to find the place in the recording where Doctor Simon had spoken of reversing the effect of the virus. Where he had mentioned regen. Oa didn’t know what regen was, but hope made her heart pound as she lay staring at the unadorned ceiling. Reversing effect. Undoing. Was it possible? She prayed to Raimu-ke that it might be so, and then she lay replaying her newest memory, the sad, beautiful memory of Doctor Simon’s burial there beside Nwa, of Isabel in her black robes speaking on the little hillside, the Port Forcemen and women standing respectfully before her, listening.

  Tomorrow she must ask Isabel about the grave. It was, she thought, Doctor Simon’s kburi, though it was set deep in the ground. She wasn’t sure. And would Isabel pray to Doctor Simon now? Did being dead make Doctor Simon into god?

  Sleep surprised her, early in the morning when the sky was beginning to lighten, and when it came, it laid a heavy hand on her. It was full, bright morning when she opened her eyes to find Isabel’s bed empty.

  Oa got up slowly, feeling sluggish with the heavy, late sleep. She opened the door and looked out into the common room. Isabel was there, with Jin-Li. A pot of tea and two cups were on the table, with Jin-Li’s portable between them. When Oa appeared, they both turned to her.

  “Good morning,” Isabel said. Her voice sounded as it always did, calm, warm, comfortable, but her eyes were dark. “Did you sleep well?”

  Jin-Li held a chair for her, and Oa sat down. The barracks were quiet, all the hydros off to their work. Jin-Li touched the portable with one finger. “I found it, Oa. As I promised.”

  Oa’s heart began to thud again. “Reversing effect,” she said to Isabel. “Try regen, Doctor Simon said.”

  “Yes, I know, sweetheart.” Isabel’s eyes grew even darker. “Jin-Li explained it to me. And we listened to the recording.”

  Later, Oa would remember this conversation, and regret that listening to Doctor Simon’s voice made Isabel sad. But now, at this moment, she could think of only one thing. “Oa wants reversing effect,” she said. “Oa wants . . . to try regen.”

  Isabel put out her hand to Oa, as Jin-Li had done last night. “Oa. I don’t know if you understand what it would mean.”

  “Oa understands! Oa wants reversing effect.”

  “Yes, I know you do, sweetheart. But it would . . .” Isabel hesitated, passing a hand over her eyes. Oa gripped her hand in both of hers.

  “Isabel, please. Oa wants.”

  “I know. I know. But it would change you, Oa. It would change everything.”

  “Yes, Isabel! Yes! It would change Oa. Oa could be a . . .” Now that the moment was at hand, Oa found she hardly dared say the word. She paused, her tongue touching her lips, her breath coming quickly. Doctor Simon had spent the last night of his life at work on this very thing, this marvel. Doctor Simon had left behind a miracle. When Oa did speak the word at last, the wonder of it made her voice tremble. “Oa could be a—person.”

  *

  ISABEL LET OA and Jin-Li go on to breakfast without her. They parted on the sandy path, and Isabel turned in the other direction, away from the power park. She walked slowly, the weight of decision bowing her shoulders, her cross in her fingers. She passed no one on the path, and when she reached the cemetery, she was alone. She passed the Port Forceman’s grave, and the small mound with its new marker that now proclaimed the resting place of Nwa, child of Virimund. She crouched beside Simon’s grave, her elbows on her knees. She and Oa had planted a rhododendron there, a biotransformed seedling imported from the Multiplex. It was a shrub that would put down long, strong roots, to wrap around Simon’s coffin and dig deeply into the soil. In spring its riot of white flowers would blaze briefly, and then fall on the grave, a litter of snowy petals. Already the rhody was showing signs of new growth, tender green leaves peeking from the woody stems.

  “Simon,” Isabel said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  She looked out over Mother Ocean. The water shone like green glass. A few transitory clouds clustered at the horizon, and then dissipated under the morning breeze. “If Oa takes the antiviral—your antiviral, Simon, the gift you left us all—if she takes it, what will happen? I worry it might harm her, of course, although I don’t really think that. I guess I worry more that it will work, that it will do just what she wants it to do.

  “Did you hear what she said? She wa
nts Doctor Simon’s ‘reversing effect.’ ‘Try regen,’ she said. I swear she remembers everything she’s ever heard or seen. If the serum does reverse the growth of her tumor, Simon . . . that amazing memory could be only one of the many things about Oa that will change.”

  Isabel’s knees began to ache, and she sat down in the sand beside the grave, her legs stretched out before her. She closed her eyes, let the breeze caress her weary face. “Simon, I know this isn’t fair. This isn’t about me. But I love her, you know that, I love her the way she is. And if the antiviral works, if she . . . becomes a person . . .” She laughed, and patted the grave as if she could touch Simon himself. “I’d like to keep Oa the way she is. But that’s not fair to her.

  “If we give her the antiviral, if it works the way she hopes it will, she won’t be a child anymore. She’ll grow up. She’ll become a young woman, and then an old woman. And one day she’ll die.”

  The impact of this hard truth brought tears to her eyes. She lay flat on her back in the sand, one hand still on the grave. “Oh, Simon. I, who have never had a child, who never will have a child . . . I love this child. And I have to let her go. It’s her life, not mine.” The tears ran from her eyes, past her temples, to fall into the sand. “You left her a great gift, my dear friend.” She thought of Simon laboring throughout the night, his last night, to perfect the work he had begun, and her throat ached. “I have to find a way to be grateful.”

  *

  PAOLO ADETTI WORKED hard in the infirmary over the next few days. Every Port Forceman and woman at the power park had their turn, lying down under the medicator to receive the antiviral that Adetti and the medtech had formulated according to Simon’s last instructions. Boreson had been the first to receive it, of necessity. Adetti insisted on trying it on himself next, after refining it even further. Then came the medtech’s turn, and when none of the three of them experienced ill effects—and Boreson did, in fact, achieve a reversal of the illness, the tiny pituitary tumor beginning to shrink almost immediately—they began inoculations for the entire population. Isabel and Jin-Li received theirs early, two days after Simon’s funeral. Isabel planned to return to the island of the anchens, and Jin-Li, with a pilot, was going in search of the remnants of the Sikassa colony.

  When Isabel rose from the medicator bed, she found Oa, her small face set and brow furrowed, waiting her turn.

  Adetti, Isabel thought, had done a fair job of burying his disappointment at the frustration of his ambition. He had spent an entire day transcribing Simon’s thoughts about the antiviral serum, and another day and most of one night working on the formula. He watched over Boreson’s recovery, and personally monitored every hydro who received the serum. Still, he expressed doubts about inoculating Oa.

  “We don’t know for sure, Isabel,” he said wearily, “what the effect might be on her. When Simon suggested adding regeneration catalyst, he was thinking of those who were infected recently, not one of these—” He glanced aside at Oa, who stood stiffly beside the medicator, her gaze fixed on it as if it were a mountain to climb. “Anchens,” he finished, with a gesture of capitulation. “The anchens have adapted to the virus, have coped in their own way. At the very least, reversal might take months, or even years, if it happens at all.”

  Isabel touched Oa’s shoulder. “Are you listening, Oa? Do you understand what Dr. Adetti is telling us?”

  Oa didn’t take her eyes from the medicator. She muttered, “Oa understands.”

  “You wouldn’t have to do it now, Oa,” Isabel tried again. “You could wait. We could go back to the island, spend time with the anchens. And then you could—”

  Oa looked up, but not at Isabel. She lifted her little chin, and spoke directly to Adetti. “Doctor,” she said. “Oa is ready.” And without waiting for assistance, she climbed up on the medicator bed, and lay back, arranging her long braids over her shoulders, settling her head against the pillow. “Please may Oa hold Isabel’s cross?”

  Isabel sighed, and lifted the cross over her head. She placed it in Oa’s hands, and stroked her fingers. “I’m right here with you, sweetheart,” she murmured.

  “Thank you, Isabel.” Oa held the cross to her breast, and closed her eyes.

  Isabel took a breath, and then another one. “Well, Paolo. You may as well begin. I think Oa has made up her own mind.”

  33

  ISABEL CONVINCED JACOB Boyer to let her go back to the island of the anchens alone, with only Oa as companion. “Oa will translate for me, until I begin to learn more of their language.”

  “At least wait for Chung,” Boyer said gloomily. “Some protection.”

  “Jacob,” Isabel said with a smile. “I don’t need protection from the anchens.”

  He shook his head, and frowned, but he granted her request. He promised to fly Oa and Isabel to the island himself.

  Adetti came to say good-bye the night before they left. Like Boreson, he seemed to have aged, not dramatically, but in some obscure way Isabel couldn’t quite put her finger on. She had the impression he wanted to say something more, but he stood beside the door of the barracks, staring off toward the sea as if having difficulty meeting her eyes.

  “Would you like to take a walk, Paolo?” she asked finally. “Talk a bit?”

  He glanced up at her, and gave her a rueful smile. “Yes,” he said. “I would.”

  They strolled together down the sandy path toward the little crescent beach, listening to the night birds twittering from the nuchi trees. Isabel tipped her head back to appreciate the brilliance of the stars, to wonder if the anchens would have names for the constellations. Adetti walked in silence beside her. He didn’t speak until they stood on the narrow shore of pale sand.

  “Gretchen’s going to be okay,” he said finally.

  “That’s good,” Isabel said, knowing this was not what he had come to tell her.

  “Well, except for the Crosgrove’s. I can’t help her with that. No one can, I guess.”

  “It doesn’t seem so.”

  Adetti shuffled his feet. “Look, Mother Burke . . .”

  “Isabel.”

  He nodded, and cleared his throat. “Yes. Isabel. Look, I feel terrible about Edwards. About Simon.”

  “I know you do, Paolo. We all do.”

  A silence stretched again, broken only by the distant birdsong and the whisper of the waves against the shore. The starlight shone on the dark planes of Adetti’s face. Isabel put her hand on his forearm, and she felt a rush of pain and something like shame pour through her fingers.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?” she murmured. “Just say it out loud? It helps, I think.”

  He gave a deep sigh, and hung his head like a sorrowing child. “If I hadn’t been greedy,” he said. “If I hadn’t wanted to make a name for myself, somehow, someway . . .”

  “Paolo . . .”

  He lifted his head again to stare out over the water, misery in every line of his body. “It never occurred to me that anyone could be hurt,” he said in a gravelly tone. “And if I were a better scientist—even a better physician—I might have figured it all out first. And then Simon wouldn’t have died.”

  “No one knows why things happen the way they do.” Isabel followed Adetti’s gaze out over the calm face of Mother Ocean. “Perhaps this was always Simon’s destiny. And yours—to be part of this discovery.”

  He made a hard sound that was almost a chuckle. “Some destiny,” he said bitterly.

  Isabel patted his arm again. “Mistakes are part of being human, Paolo. I know Simon wouldn’t want you to go on blaming yourself. You’ve worked hard these last days, tirelessly. Who knows how many lives you may have saved? And we could never have done it without you.”

  “You’re being kind, Isabel.”

  She nodded. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs kindness from time to time. It’s no different for you. Or for me.”

  He chuckled again, a softer sound this time. “Thank you, Mother Burke. Th
anks for listening. And for your kindness.”

  *

  AS ISABEL WALKED with Oa to the terminal, she thought how appropriate it was that it was the Feast of the Transfiguration. Oa herself was transfigured. There was no sign of any physical change in her, not yet, but her belief in the coming miracle was unshakable. She glowed with an inner light, an absolute conviction that her prayers had been answered.

  Who am I to doubt? Isabel thought. She chided herself with St. Mark’s gospel: “All things are possible to one who has faith.” Oa’s faith shone bright as Virimund’s star.

  The evening before, the two of them had visited Simon’s grave, carrying water for the rhody, and a handful of wildflowers to lay at the base of his simple headstone. They stood before it, the evening breeze playing with Oa’s unbound hair.

  “Can you read it, Oa?”

  “Yes. It says Doctor Simon’s name. But there are numbers, too.”

  “Yes, those are dates. The day of his birth, and the day of his death.”

  Oa bent to lay the posy on the stone. When she straightened, she stood tugging on the ends of her hair. “Isabel?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Doctor Simon’s kburi.”

  “Is it, Oa?”

  “Yes. Doctor Simon’s kburi. Not like Raimu-ke’s kburi.”

  Isabel held her breath. This was a train of thought she did not want to derail.

  “Isabel—Doctor Simon is dead now. Is he god?”

  Isabel took a long moment to phrase her answer. She wasn’t sure that Oa’s vocabulary, though it had grown so much, was up to abstract concepts. “Oa, my belief is that Simon is not God, but is with God. Is part of God.”

  “God is man?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Oa.”

  “Oa means . . . Raimu-ke is god, but is not man. A man.”

  Isabel started to speak, but then stopped. The moment had a feeling of being crucial, of being pivotal. She said slowly, “There is a word, in English, for a god that is not male, Oa. Not a word I use much.” She gave a deprecating shrug. “But a perfectly good word, for a god that is female. It’s ‘goddess.’ ”