The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [208]
Two days later, he sat again in wait for her, determined now to go to Marc no matter what. "Someone’s heart will stop if he does not see Marc," he insisted, and stood, moving toward the door on thin legs empty of bone. The Runao caught him as he fell and, muttering, carried him through the compound to the room where Marc was sleeping.
The stink of blood was everywhere and Marc was the color of rain. Emilio sat on the edge of the sleeping nest, his own ruined hands in his lap, and called Robichaux’s name. Marc’s eyes opened, and there was a glimmer of recognition.
He had no clue to what Marc said during those last hours. In Latin, he asked Marc if he wished to confess. There was more whispered French. When it stopped, Emilio said the absolution. Marc slept then and he did as well, sitting on the floor next to the bed, his head resting next to Marc’s right hand, still seeping blood. Sometime that night, he felt something brush his hair and heard someone say, "Deus vult." It might have been a dream.
In the morning, when the sunlight hit his eyes, he awoke, stiff and wretched. Rousing himself, he left the room and tried to get a Runao to call a healer or to put pressure on the oozing wounds between Marc’s fingers. Awijan only looked at him blankly. Later, he wondered if he’d remembered to speak Ruanja. Maybe he’d used Spanish again. He would never be sure.
Marc Robichaux died about two hours later without regaining consciousness.
"FATHER ROBICHAUX WAS in poor physical condition when this procedure took place," John was saying, "and did not survive it."
Emilio looked up and saw that everyone was staring at his hands. He put them in his lap.
"It must have been very difficult," the Father General said.
"Yes."
"And then you were alone."
"Oh, no," Emilio said softly. "Oh, no. I believed that God was with me." He said this with great sincerity and because of that, it was impossible to know if he was serious or if this was mockery. He sat and looked into Vincenzo Giuliani’s eyes. "Do you believe that? Was God with me?" He looked around at each of them: John Candotti, Felipe Reyes, Johannes Voelker, Edward Behr, his eyes coming to rest again on Giuliani, who found it impossible to speak.
Sandoz rose and went to the door, opening it. Then he paused, struck by a thought. "Not comedy. Not tragedy." Then he laughed, a feral sound, devoid of humor. "Perhaps farce?" he suggested. And then he left.
32
NAPLES:
AUGUST 2060
"I THINK PERHAPS that I was a disappointment to Supaari," Sandoz told them the next day. "Anne was a delight to work with, and they had enjoyed each other a great deal. I was not nearly so amusing."
"You were grieving and terrified and half-dead," Voelker told him flatly. And John nodded, in agreement at last with something Johannes Voelker had said.
"Yes! A poor dinner companion." Sandoz had a bright and brittle sound to him this afternoon. Giuliani was openly disapproving of this strange glittery mood; Sandoz ignored him. "I’m not sure Supaari really thought through the idea of formally accepting me as a dependent. It might have been a sort of spontaneous gesture of interplanetary goodwill. Maybe he wished he’d let the government have me after all." Sandoz shrugged. "In any case, he seemed primarily interested in the trade aspects of the situation, and I was not much good to him as an economic adviser. He asked me if I thought that there might be other parties coming from Earth. I told him that we had radioed news of our situation back to our home planet and that it was possible others might come. We had no way of knowing when. He decided to learn English from me because it is our lingua franca. He had already started to pick it up from Anne."
"So. You had work as a linguist," Giuliani said lightly. "For a time, at least."
"Yes. Supaari was making the best of things, I think. We had many conversations,