The Child Goddess Read online

  “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.