The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [98]
The discussion went on for hours but ultimately D.W. decided that they would attempt to land in an area that appeared to be uninhabited, with supplies for a month’s stay, to assess the conditions and plan their next move. And later they all realized that in the end, the decision to go had once again come down to the words of Emilio Sandoz.
"I agree with Marc and Anne about a cautious approach, but there are logical arguments either way and no empirical means of choosing between them," he’d said. "So, I suppose, at some point, we must simply make a leap of faith." Then, to his own surprise, he added, "If God brought us this far, I don’t think He will fail us now."
And if the statement was not entirely unconditional, only Anne noticed.
19
LANDFALL, RAKHAT:
OCTOBER 13, 2039, EARTH-RELATIVE
THE FOLLOWING DAYS were the worst they’d experienced, physically and mentally. From the tonnage of stored matériel, they had to select the equipment, clothing and food that seemed likely to be most immediately useful and stow it on the lander. The asteroid systems had to be locked down for their absence. The radio transceivers had to be set up to receive, encrypt and relay their reports to Earth. The onboard computers had to be left in a condition to be accessed remotely.
D.W. double-checked everything, catching errors, correcting mistakes. Having nursed a certain amount of resentment about his high-handedness, Anne began to reassess. D.W. was right to have gotten a grip on things when he did. Even with his steadying influence, the activity verged on frantic toward the end. They were all secretly scared they’d forgotten something or made a mistake that would result in some disaster or get someone killed. So when D.W. finally called a halt and brought them all together, there was a sense of being pulled back from the brink of hysteria.
"Finish what you have to do by five o’clock this afternoon," he told them. "Then let it go. Stop thinkin’ about what can go wrong. It’s more important right now to calm down. Y’all’re too strung out for your own good. Go to bed early tonight. Just rest if you can’t sleep. We’ll say Mass at nine. And then we’ll go down." D.W. smiled into the eyes of all his tired people, one by one. "You’ll do fine. I’d trust any of you, apart or together, with my life and my soul. And when you bed down tonight, I want y’all to think about what Emilio said: God didn’t bring us this far to let us down now."
THAT NIGHT, ANNE left George and pushed herself across the commons to D.W.’s door. She knocked softly, not willing to wake him if he was asleep but wanting to talk to him in private if he wasn’t.
"Who is it?" he called quietly.
"Anne." There was a little delay, and then the door opened.
"Evenin’. C’mon in. I’d offer you a chair but..."
She smiled and tried to find a place to float that felt properly situated. A paper for some graduate student, she thought. Maintenance of Culturally Based Distancing Norms in Zero G. "This won’t take long, D.W. You need rest, too. I just wanted to ask if you’d consider letting Emilio be the first one out of the lander tomorrow."
In the silence that fell, Anne watched him work it through in his mind. There was no place in history at stake here, no plan to record this event. No reporters, no photography or AV feed to the nets. From a culture gone mad with documentation, publicity, broadcast, narrowcast and pointcast, where every act of public and private life seemed to be done for an audience, the voyage of the Stella Maris had begun in privacy, and its mission would be carried out in obscurity. Jesuits being as they are, there would be no mention of who set foot on this planet first, not even in the internal report relayed back to the Father General, whoever he might be when the news got back. Even so, as their leader by nature and by Order, it was D.W’s risk to take and his privilege to claim. If Emilio Sandoz had first suggested this endeavor, it had nevertheless become D. W. Yarbrough’s mission. No one had worked harder or longer, no one had