The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [90]
Before Sandoz could spit out the words that were forming in his mind, Giuliani spoke. "Emilio, I am sorry," he said, the calm conviction in his voice concealing the calculated risk he was taking. "You were condemned in absentia by men who had no right to judge. I can’t think of any adequate way to apologize. I don’t expect you to forgive me. Or any of us. I am sorry." He watched the words sink in, rain to parched ground. So, he thought, that’s how he sees it. "If you can bring yourself to it, I’d like to begin again. I know it won’t be easy, but I think you need to tell us your side of all this, and I know we need to hear it."
The face closed to him, pride warring with an exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep.
"Get out," Emilio Sandoz said at last. "And shut the door."
He did, and was about to go to his own room when he heard something that gave the Father General pause. It had been, simply, a gamble: a guess at how Sandoz might have felt. But hearing this, Vincenzo Giuliani required himself to remain in the hallway. Head against the wooden door, hands gripping the frame, he listened until the weeping was over, and learned the sound of desolation.
18
THE STELLA MARIS:
SEPTEMBER 2039, EARTH-RELATIVE
"NONE FOR ME, thanks," Emilio said.
Sofia sighed. "Three."
"I got a hand that looks like a foot," said D.W., staring at his cards with disgust.
"I’m a skilled surgeon," Anne said. "I could help you with a problem like that." Emilio laughed.
"Nothing’s gonna help this mess. Fold."
"One for me," Anne told Alan.
"Dealer takes three. You know, Sandoz, it’s draw poker. You don’t always have to stand pat," Alan Pace explained patiently, dealing out his own three cards. "You can draw."
"Robichaux’s the artist," Emilio said serenely. "He draws. I stand pat."
"Leave me out of this," Marc yelled from the little gym off the commons.
"Nice that you guys have nothing better to do than play cards," Jimmy called from the bridge, where he and George were processing sequential images of the vast region between the center sun and the two outliers, hoping to detect some telltale difference—a smeared line or a displaced dot—that would indicate a planet moving in orbit. They’d been circling at .25 G high above the plane of the Alpha Centauri system for weeks and were collectively bored witless. "Some people around here are actually working."
"Anne and I could take your appendix out if you like," Emilio offered, raising his voice slightly. He looked back at his cards. "See your two and raise you two."
Sofia and Anne folded. Alan tossed in two more Wolverton tube peanuts. George, taking a break, strolled buoyantly into the common room and reached over Anne’s shoulder to look at the cards she’d thrown down. "No guts!" he said. "I’d have played that!" She glared at him, but he planted a noisy kiss on the back of her neck. Quarter G was a lot of fun.
Emilio added four peanuts and then four more and leaned back in his chair, squinting through imaginary cigarette smoke. "Cost you eight legumes to find out what I’ve got, Pace."
Alan ignored the Bogart impression and took the bet. Sandoz would play with anything or nothing. "Fives? You stood pat with a pair of fives?" Alan cried when they laid the cards down. "Sandoz, I will never understand you! Why didn’t you draw three cards?"
Emilio smiled delightedly and shrugged. "Fives are good enough to beat fours, yes? My deal. Ante up, ladies and gentlemen, ante up." The cards went out again, Emilio’s infectious merriment spreading around the table as they each looked at the hands he dealt them.
"The perfect poker face," D.W. said, shaking his head. "He laughs at everything he gets. The good hands are funny and so are the lousy ones."
"This is true," Emilio