The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [4]
"He is a whore," Voelker said with quiet precision. "He killed a child. He should be in chains." Voelker watched Giuliani circle the room, picking things up and putting them down without really looking at anything. "At least he has the decency to want to leave. Let him go— before he does more harm to the Society."
Giuliani stopped pacing and looked at Voelker. "We aren’t going to disavow him. Even if that’s what he v its, it’s wrong. More to the point, it won’t work. He’s one of Ours, in the eyes of the world if not in his own eyes." He walked to the windows and stared out at the crowd of reporters and seekers and the merely curious. "And if the media continue to indulge in idle speculation and baseless supposition, we’ll simply call it what it is," said the Father General in the light ironic voice that generations of graduate students had learned to dread. He turned to gaze with cool appraisal at his secretary, sitting sullenly all this time. Giuliani’s voice didn’t change but Voelker was stung by what came. "I am not Emilio’s judge, Father Voelker, and neither is the press."
And neither was Johannes Voelker, S.J.
They concluded their meeting with one or two businesslike remarks, but the younger man left knowing he’d overstepped his bounds, politically as well as spiritually. Voelker was efficient and intelligent but, atypically for a Jesuit, he had a polar mind: everything was black or white, sin or virtue, Us versus Them.
Still, Giuliani thought, such people could be useful.
The Father General sat at his desk and fingered a stylus. Reporters thought the world had a right to know. Vincenzo Giuliani felt no need whatsoever to pander to that illusion. On the other hand, there was the question of what to do next, regarding Rakhat. And he did feel a need to bring Emilio to some sort of resolution. This wasn’t the first time the Jesuits had encountered an alien culture and it wasn’t the first mission to come to grief and Sandoz wasn’t the first priest to disgrace himself. The whole business was regrettable but not beyond redemption.
He’s salvageable, Giuliani thought stubbornly. It’s not as though we have so many priests that we can write one off without an effort. He’s one of Ours, dammit. And what right have we to declare the mission a failure? Seeds may have been sown. God knows.
Even so, the allegations against Sandoz and the others were very serious.
Privately, Vincenzo Giuliani was inclined to believe that the mission went wrong at its inception, with the decision to involve the women. A breakdown in discipline from the beginning, he thought. The times were different then.
RUMINATING OVER THE same problem as he walked back to his lightless room on the eastern side of the Rome Ring, John Candotti had his own theory about how things had gone wrong. The mission, he thought, probably failed because of a series of logical, reasonable, carefully considered decisions, each of which seemed like a good idea at the time. Like most colossal disasters.
2
ARECIBO RADIO TELESCOPE, PUERTO RICO:
FEBRUARY 2019
"JIMMY, I JUST heard they assigned you a vulture!" Peggy Soong whispered, and the first step toward the mission to Rakhat was taken. "Are you going to cooperate?"
Jimmy Quinn continued to move down the line of vending machines, selecting arroz con pollo, a container of bean soup and two tuna sandwiches. He was absurdly tall, finally done growing at twenty-six but not really filled out yet, and constantly hungry. He stopped to pick up two packets of milk and a couple of desserts and checked his debit total.
"You cooperate, it’s that much harder for the rest of us," Peggy said. "You saw what happened to Jeff."