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By Root 1023 0

men who had never been tested in such inhuman conditions of isolation and loneliness. Giuliani recognized that even to fail such a test bestowed a certain moral authority upon the man. And for that reason, he found it easy to beg Emilio’s forgiveness and give him some measure of respect. The tactic seemed to work. There were moments of genuine contact now and then, times when Sandoz was willing to risk some small disclosure in hope of being understood or of understanding something himself. But Giuliani knew that he was being kept at more than arm’s length, as though there were something that Sandoz himself couldn’t look at, let alone display. Something that could be dreamt of but not spoken, even in the dark of night. Something that would have to be brought into the light.

It was necessary to consider the possibility that Ed Behr was wrong and Johannes Voelker was right. Perhaps, in isolation, Sandoz had turned to prostitution because he enjoyed it. He had loved God but found rough sex ... gratifying. Such a truth, at the core of his identity, held up for public scrutiny, might haunt his dreams and sicken him. Sometimes, as John Candotti was fond of saying, the simplest solution is the best. No less an observer of the human condition than Jesus once said, "Wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction, and many go that way."

Patience, Giuliani thought. An old sailor’s virtue. First one tack and then another.

His staff in Rome, carefully nurtured and trained these past ten years, was competent. Time, and past time, for him to delegate more of the decisions, to let younger men strengthen as he kept a light hand on the tiller. Time for this particular old priest, for Vince Giuliani, to bring the experience and knowledge of a lifetime to bear on one human problem, to call upon any wisdom he had garnered in his years to help one human soul, one man who called himself, with bitterness, God’s whore. Patience. It will take as long as it takes.

Vincenzo Giuliani rose at last and moved toward the windows, where Sandoz had remained all this time, gray as the weather, staring out at the rain. Giuliani stepped in front of him and stood in plain sight, waiting until Sandoz noticed him, for he had learned never to startle the man by coming up behind him.

"Come on, Emilio," Vince Giuliani said softly. "I’ll buy you a beer."

23

CITY OF GAYJUR:

SECOND NA’ALPA

VILLAGE OF KASHAN:

SEVEN WEEKS AFTER CONTACT

SUPAARI VAGAYJUR PROFITED from the presence of the Jesuit party on Rakhat before he knew of its existence. This was both characteristic of him and unusual. Characteristic, in that he had recognized a potential Runa fad before anyone else and took steps to capture the market just before the trend took off in Gayjur. Unusual, in that he was not in command of the facts underlying the market before he moved. It was unlike him to risk so much without investigating first. The gamble paid off handsomely but even as the profits were totaled, it left him feeling uneasy, as though he had just missed being killed in a ha’aran duel undertaken while drunk.

Moving through the warehouse with Awijan, his Runa secretary, who took down his orders and noted his inquiries, Supaari had spotted one of the Kashan villagers, a woman named Chaypas, standing at a doorway, waiting for permission to speak to him. She was wearing a cascade of ribbons worked into the circlet worn around her head: a waterfall of color, arrayed gracefully down her back. Lovely, Supaari thought, and it would quintuple the number of double-length ribbons desired by anyone who took the fashion up. He turned to Awijan. "Call the runners. Buy ribbon and take possession. Get contracts for all the deliveries available—" Supaari hesitated. How long would it last?

"Someone suggests that the contracts go no further out than Eighth Na’alpa."

Supaari VaGayjur knew better than to second-guess Awijan on a decision like that. "Yes. When you get back, have Sapalla clear out some merchandise to make room for the shipments, even if we have to take a loss on the berinje.