The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [144]
LONG AGO, MARC Robichaux had observed that a natural tendency to awaken early in the morning is a necessary though insufficient condition if a man is to survive formation and pass onward to ordination. He had known several men who might have become priests if waking at dawn had not done such violence to their normal sleep patterns.
Among the Jesuit party on Rakhat, Marc Robichaux was ordinarily the alpha to Jimmy Quinn’s omega, so the apartment was silent as usual when Marc sat up and looked around. In the brief morning witlessness that afflicts even early risers, the night’s events were forgotten; then Marc saw Sandoz in a sleeping bag next to the Father Superior’s bed and it all came back to him. His eyes went to Yarbrough, who, Marc saw with relief, was also sleeping.
Marc pulled on khaki shorts and, barefoot, padded noiselessly out to the terrace, where Anne sat with Askama, who was trying to teach her the incredibly complicated version of cat’s cradle the Runa played. He looked at Anne inquiringly and she smiled and rolled her eyes heavenward, shaking her head at her own fears.
"And sometimes they just get better," Marc said quietly.
"Deus vult, " she replied ironically.
He smiled in return, and made his way down to the river.
THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF their existence on this planet was once again in the forefront of their minds and D.W.’s probable recovery did not remove the sense of dancing on a high wire. By the time Emilio came out to the terrace, rubbing his face muzzily in the midmorning light, George and Sofia were trying to decide if they could rig some kind of rope ladder so somebody could jump off the Ultra-Light as she flew over the clearing at the slowest possible air speed, and then could clear the brush before she attempted to land. Anne was providing graphic descriptions of the sort of really interesting compound fractures that were likely to result from this plan while Marc argued that he might be able to tell from the air whether the growth that had undoubtedly begun to fill in the runway was woody or soft. Emilio, stupefied, stared at them for a few moments before turning away and going back to bed after an interlude at the river.
He slept another couple of hours and when he came back out to the terrace, even D.W. was up, pale and rumpled but feeling a little better and making jokes about Runa’s Revenge. Jimmy was back from wherever he’d been, and it appeared that at least one problem was about to resolve itself. That morning, Jimmy had learned that the villagers were about to leave for some kind of harvest.
"Pik root," Emilio said, yawning. "I heard about that last night."
"They want to know if we’re coming," Jimmy told them.
"Do they want us to?" George asked.
"I don’t think so. One of them said it was a long walk and asked me if I was going to carry all of you," Jimmy said. "It was obviously a big joke. Lots of tail twitching and huffing. I don’t think they’d mind if we stay home." In fact, it was his impression that the Runa would be just as happy to find out that the foreigners weren’t coming. The troop moved at the pace of the slowest member, which had often been Anne or Sofia. No one complained, but it was obvious when they got where they were going that some of the flowers had passed their peak.
"If they all leave, we won’t have to explain about the plane," Emilio said, sitting down. The sky was hazy and it felt like it was going to be very hot. Sofia handed him a cup of coffee. Askama spotted him from two terraces away and scampered over, full of questions about D.W., whom she was too shy to address directly, and why had Meelo slept so late and was everyone coming to dig pik root?
"Sipaj, Askama," Emilio said. "Dee was very sick. Someone thinks we will stay here with him while he rests." The child