The Sparrow

There were other regions showing features that suggested cities elsewhere on the continent, but they'd come because of the music, so there was no serious discussion of landing near those. Despite this unanimity, an argument broke out over how close to the transmitter city they should approach initially.

Alan Pace was astonished that there was any question at all. He wanted to make contact with the city inhabitants immediately and directly. 'With respect to Sandoz, the musical communication could be drawn on at the very beginning, just as we used music to make contact with the Guarnari in the eighteenth century. Also, there are the precedents of Xavier and Ricci, who determined to go as quickly as possible to the cities of Japan and China, and worked with the educated classes first.'

'You don't think we'd scare the lights out of 'em, just showin' up in all our alien glory some afternoon?' D.W. asked Alan.

'We could tell them we're from France,' Emilio suggested thoughtfully. Even Alan cracked up.

'Maybe we won't be all that big a surprise to them. Human beings have been speculating about alien species for hundreds of years,' Jimmy Quinn said, ignoring Emilio but grinning. 'With all the moons and suns, these folks have got to be interested in astronomy.'

'Do you think so, Jim?' Anne asked, joining the discussion for the first time. 'With three suns, very little of the planet is in darkness at any one time, or for very long. They might not pay any attention at all to the night sky.'

'They're aiming radio at the moons,' Sofia and Jimmy said simultaneously. Everyone laughed, and Anne shrugged and nodded, admitting defeat.

'Anyway, it seems to me that we'd do best to go where the high tech is. I'm willing to bet that this here' — George pointed to a lake in the mountainous area near the city—'is a hydroelectric dam. See? This could be the spillway. If they can build stuff like this and figure out how to bounce radio off their moons, they've got to be at least as technologically advanced as nineteenth- or twentieth-century Earth. So they're probably reasonably sophisticated. I say we go for it. Land in the center of town.'

Marc was very much disturbed by this line of reasoning and appealed directly to D.W. 'Father, it seems to me that we should learn something of the planet before we deal with the intelligent species, if for no other reason than to send basic ecological data back for the next party, in case something happens to us. We need to get our bearings first.'

D.W. turned to Anne. 'How long do you expect it to take us to get used to gravity again?'

'George says the planet is a little smaller than Earth, so we expect the gravity to be a little lighter than we were used to. That's a plus. But we've all lost muscle mass and bone density, and our feet are too soft to walk very far. And frankly, everyone is strung out,' she said. 'Alan, I know you're just dying to see the instruments and to sing with the Singers, but making contact is going to be very risky. Do you honestly feel you're ready to cope with any kind of crisis at this point?'

Pace grimaced. 'I suppose not.'

'Me, neither,' Anne said. 'I should think we could take two to three weeks getting used to conditions on the surface, building up strength and readapting to sunlight.'

'That would also give us time to study the flora and fauna at least in a limited region,' Marc said. 'And we could find out if we can eat or drink anything safely—'

The discussion went on for hours but ultimately D.W. decided that they would attempt to land in an area that appeared to be uninhabited, with supplies for a month's stay, to assess the conditions and plan their next move. And later they all realized that in the end, the decision to go had once again come down to the words of Emilio Sandoz.

'I agree with Marc and Anne about a cautious approach, but there are logical arguments either way and no empirical means of choosing between them,' he'd said. 'So, I suppose, at some point, we must simply make a leap of faith.' Then, to his own surprise, he added, 'If God brought us this far, I don't think He will fail us now.'

And if the statement was not entirely unconditional, only Anne noticed.

19 LANDFALL, RAKHAT: OCTOBER 13, 2039, EARTH-RELATIVE

The following days were the worst they'd experienced, physically and mentally. From the tonnage of stored materiel, they had to select the equipment, clothing and food that seemed likely to be most immediately useful and stow it on the lander. The asteroid systems had to be locked down for their absence. The radio transceivers had to be set up to receive, encrypt and relay their reports to Earth. The onboard computers had to be left in a condition to be accessed remotely.

D.W. double-checked everything, catching errors, correcting mistakes. Having nursed a certain amount of resentment about his highhandedness, Anne began to reassess. D.W. was right to have gotten a grip on things when he did. Even with his steadying influence, the activity verged on frantic toward the end. They were all secretly scared they'd forgotten something or made a mistake that would result in some disaster or get someone killed. So when D.W. finally called a halt and brought them all together, there was a sense of being pulled back from the brink of hysteria.

'Finish what you have to do by five o'clock this afternoon,' he told them. 'Then let it go. Stop thinkin' about what can go wrong. It's more important right now to calm down. Y'all're too strung out for your own good. Go to bed early tonight. Just rest if you can't sleep. We'll say Mass at nine. And then we'll go down.' D.W. smiled into the eyes of all his tired people, one by one. 'You'll do fine. I'd trust any of you, apart or together, with my life and my soul. And when you bed down tonight, I want y'all to think about what Emilio said: God didn't bring us this far to let us down now.'

That night, Anne left George and pushed herself across the commons to D.W.'s door. She knocked softly, not willing to wake him if he was asleep but wanting to talk to him in private if he wasn't.

'Who is it?' he called quietly.

'Anne.' There was a little delay, and then the door opened.

'Evenin'. C'mon in. I'd offer you a chair but…'

She smiled and tried to find a place to float that felt properly situated. A paper for some graduate student, she thought. Maintenance of Culturally Based Distancing Norms in Zero G. 'This won't take long, D.W. You need rest, too. I just wanted to ask if you'd consider letting Emilio be the first one out of the lander tomorrow.'

In the silence that fell, Anne watched him work it through in his mind. There was no place in history at stake here, no plan to record this event. No reporters, no photography or AV feed to the nets. From a culture gone mad with documentation, publicity, broadcast, narrowcast and pointcast, where every act of public and private life seemed to be done for an audience, the voyage of the Stella Maris had begun in privacy, and its mission would be carried out in obscurity. Jesuits being as they are, there would be no mention of who set foot on this planet first, not even in the internal report relayed back to the Father General, whoever he might be when the news got back. Even so, as their leader by nature and by Order, it was D.W.'s risk to take and his privilege to claim. If Emilio Sandoz had first suggested this endeavor, it had nevertheless become D. W. Yarbrough's mission. No one had worked harder or longer, no one had given more thought to it or slaved over its details more single-mindedly. Anne knew that and she honored it.

He looked up at her after a long time, almost bringing both eyes into alignment with the intensity of his gaze. She could see him making one of the decisions involved in discussing this with her and she maintained a strict neutrality, so as not to influence him. When he spoke, his voice was as empty of accent as his face was naked of defense. 'And you think that this would be appropriate? There would be no suspicion,' he said and then hesitated before saying, 'of favoritism?'

'D.W., I wouldn't have asked if I thought there was even a possibility of that.' It's okay, she wanted to say. He's easy to love. I understand. 'I think the others would approve and I believe it will mean a great deal to him. Spiritually.' She cleared her throat then, embarrassed even to have said that word. 'I hope you don't mind my venturing into your purview here—'