The Sparrow

discussion into the conversation. 'Music may very well afford us our only means of communication.'

The clink of forks and dishes became audible in the quiet, and Anne was about to say something tart when Sofia Mendes spoke.

'Oh, I shouldn't think so. Dr. Sandoz has mastered thirteen languages, six of them in the space of a little over three years,' she said coolly, passing the salad to Jimmy, whose own mouth had dropped open at Pace's comment. 'Would you be interested in a wager? If we make contact successfully, I am willing to bet that he'll have the basic grammar worked out in under two months.' She smiled pleasantly at Pace and watched him, brows raised expectantly, as she took another bite of spaghetti.

'I'll take a piece of that action, Alan,' D.W. said comfortably, looking somewhere in the vicinity of Alan Pace but quite possibly at Sofia or Emilio instead. 'You lose, we can call you Al for a month.'

'Ah. Stakes are too high for me,' Pace said, backing down smoothly. 'I stand corrected, Sandoz.'

'Forget it,' said Emilio a little stiffly, and he left the table carrying a plate of half-eaten food to the galley, evidently finished with his meal.

He was grateful to hear Anne pick up the conversation after he left, and put himself to work cleaning the pots. Intent on mastering his reaction, he was startled when he heard Sofia Mendes's voice behind him, and that infuriated him further.

'Which is worse,' she asked levelly, reaching past him to put her dishes on the counter, 'to be insulted or to be defended?'

Emilio stopped scrubbing, not used to having his mind read, and rested his hands on the sink but resumed resolutely a moment later. 'Forget it,' he said again, without looking at her.

'It is said that the Sephardim taught pride to the Spaniards,' she commented. 'I apologize. That was inappropriate. It won't happen again.'

When he turned, she was gone. He swore violently under his breath and wondered, not for the first time, what had ever made him believe he might have the temperament of a priest. Finally, he straightened his shoulders, ran wet hands through his hair and walked back into the common room.

'I am not a complete jerk,' he informed the table formally, and having caught their attention with that, he assured them, 'but I could be if I made an honest effort.' Through their surprised laughter, he begged pardon of Father Pace for taking offense and Alan reiterated his own regrets as well.

Emilio took his place at the table again and waited until the others seemed engrossed in the after-dinner talk before he leaned slightly toward Sofia, sitting on his left. 'Derech agav,' he said quietly, 'yeish arba-esrei achshav.'

'I stand corrected,' she said, echoing Alan Pace. Her eyes were sparkling, although she didn't look at him directly. 'You're rolling the r's a little but otherwise the accent is quite good.' By the way, he'd said casually in Sephardic Hebrew that would almost have passed for that of an Israeli native, it's fourteen now.

And if Jimmy Quinn and Anne Edwards and D. W. Yarbrough noticed Sofia's face, because they were all alert to such things for different reasons, they also realized later that this was the last time Emilio Sandoz sat next to the young woman for nearly a year.

16 THE STELLA MARIS: 2031, EARTH-RELATIVE

It was five months into the voyage when Emilio heard a knock at his door after dinner one night. 'Yes?' he called quietly.

Jimmy Quinn stuck his head into the room. 'Got a minute?'

'Let me check my schedule.' Emilio sat up cross-legged on his bed and consulted an appointment book made of air. 'Tuesday? Eleven-fifteen?'

Grinning, Jimmy came all the way in, closing the door behind him. He looked around the little room, never having been inside it before. 'Same as mine,' he commented. A narrow bunk, a desk and chair, a terminal networked to the ship's backup computer system. One difference: a crucifix on the wall. 'Jeez, you keep it bright in here! Hot, too. I feel like I'm at the beach.'

The priest narrowed his eyes sensuously and shrugged. 'What can I say? Latinos like it sunny and warm.' But he turned down the light panels to make Jimmy more comfortable and flicked off the display on the ROM tablet he'd been reading, setting it aside. 'Have a seat.'

Jimmy swiveled the chair away from the desk and sat looking around for a while. 'Emilio,' he said, 'can I ask you something? A personal question?'

'Of course, you may ask,' Sandoz said a little warily. 'I don't promise I will answer.'

'How do you stand it?' Jimmy suddenly burst out in a strangled whisper. 'I mean, I'm going crazy! Look, I hope this doesn't embarrass you, because I sure as hell am embarrassed, but even D.W. is starting to look good to me! Sofia made it real clear that she's not interested and—'

Emilio held up a hand, not wanting further details. 'Jim, you knew what the crew complement was when you volunteered. And I'm sure you did not believe that Ms. Mendes was included for your convenience—'

'Of course not!' Jimmy said, indignant because he had entertained a certain low- level expectation of life's possibilities in that direction. 'I just didn't know how hard it would be.'

'So to speak,' Sandoz murmured, eyes sliding away, a smile flickering on his lips.

'So to speak. God, this is awful!' Jimmy laughed, wrapping his long arms around his head and contracting into a coil of mortification. Then his limbs uncurled and he looked back at the priest and asked frankly, 'Look, seriously, what do you do? I mean, what am I supposed to do?'

He expected something along the lines of Zenlike self-mastery and Rosaries, so he almost didn't understand when Emilio looked him in the eye and said, 'Take care of yourself, Jim.' At first, from the way it was said, with the intonation used to say good-bye to someone, Jimmy thought he was being dismissed. It took a moment to sink in. 'Oh. Well, yeah. I do, but…'

'Then take care of yourself more often. Until it's not right in the front of your mind all the time.'

'Is that what you do? I mean, maybe after a while, you don't feel the need anymore, I guess, huh?'

Emilio's face closed. 'Even priests have private lives, Jim.'

For the first time since meeting the man, Jimmy felt he'd crossed some line and he backpedaled as quickly as he could. 'I'm sorry. Really. You're right. I shouldn't have asked that. Jesus.'

Sandoz sighed, clearly uncomfortable. 'I suppose, under the circumstances…All right. In answer to your first question, I can tell you that in a survey of five hundred celibates, four hundred and ninety-eight of them said that they masturbated.'

'What about the other two?'

'Elementary, Watson. From their response we may deduce that they had no arms.' Before Jimmy had recovered, Emilio continued dryly, 'As for your second question, I can only say that after twenty-five years, the need persists.'

'God! Twenty-five years.'

'The first part of your exclamation explains the second part.' Emilio ran his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit he had never been able to break. He let his hands fall and rested them on his knees. 'You are actually in a more difficult situation than a priest or a nun is. Celibacy is not the same as deprivation. It is an active choice, not simply the absence of opportunity.' Jimmy said nothing, so Emilio went on, voice quiet, face and eyes serious. 'Look, I'll be honest with you. Priests differ in their ability to hold themselves to the vow. This is common knowledge, yes? If a priest goes secretly to a woman once a month, he may be stretching his self-control to its limit and he may also be having sex more often than some married men. And yet, the ideal of celibacy still exists for him. And as time goes on, such a priest may come closer and closer to consolidating his celibacy. It's not that we don't feel desire. It's that we hope to reach a point, spiritually, that makes the struggle meaningful.'

Jimmy was quiet. He looked at the grave and unusual face of the man opposite him and when he spoke, he sounded older, somehow. 'And you've gotten to that point?'