The Sparrow Read Online Free Page B
Author: Mary Doria Russell
to see that the manâs body was beginning to shake. And then Sandoz put his face in his hands.
Moved, Tahad went to him. "Youâve done good work here, Emilio. It seems crazy to keep pulling you from hill to valley â¦" Tahadâs voice trailed off.
Sandoz was, by this time, wiping tears from his eyes and making terrible whining sounds. Wordlessly, he waved Tahad in closer to the screen, inviting him to read the message. Tahad did, and was more puzzled than ever. "Emilio, I donât understandâ"
Sandoz wailed and nearly fell off the stool.
"Emilio, what is so funny?" Tahad demanded, bewilderment turning to exasperation.
Sandoz was asked to report to John Carroll University outside Cleveland in the United States, not to take up a post as a professor of linguistics, but to cooperate with an expert in artificial intelligence who would codify and computerize Sandozâs method of learning languages in the field so that future missionaries would benefit from his wide experience, for the greater glory of God.
"Iâm sorry, Tahad, itâs too hard to explain," gasped Sandoz, who was on his way to Cleveland to serve as intellectual carrion for an AI vulture,
ad majorem Dei gloriam
. "Itâs the punchline to a three-year joke."
A S MANY AS thirty or as few as ten years later, lying exhausted and still, eyes open in the dark long after the three suns of Rakhat had set, no longer bleeding, past the vomiting, enough beyond the shock to think again, it would occur to Emilio Sandoz to wonder if perhaps that day in the Sudan was really only part of the setup for a punchline a lifetime in the making.
It was an odd thought, under the circumstances. He understood that, even at the time. But thinking it, he realized with appalling clarity that on his journey of discovery as a Jesuit, he had not merely been the first human being to set foot on Rakhat, had not simply explored parts of its largest continent and learned two of its languages and loved some of its people. He had also discovered the outermost limit of faith and, in doing so, had located the exact boundary of despair. It was at that moment that he learned, truly, to fear God.
3
ROME:
JANUARY 2060
S EVENTEEN YEARS OR a single year later, on his way to see Emilio Sandoz a few weeks after their first meeting, John Candotti very nearly fell into the Roman Empire.
Sometime during the night, a delivery van had provided the last little bit of weight and vibration that could be withstood by a nineteenth-century street paved over a medieval bedroom constructed from the walls of a dry Roman cistern, and the whole crazy hollow thing collapsed. The road crew managed to extricate the van but hadnât gotten around to putting up barriers around the hole. John, hurrying as usual, almost walked right into it. Only the odd echo from his footsteps warned him that something wasnât right and he slowed down, his foot in the air, stopping just short of a historically interesting broken neck. This was the kind of thing that kept him constantly on edge in Rome but that he made comical in his messages home. His entire experience in this city sounded better than it lived.
John had decided to see Sandoz in the morning this time, hoping to catch him fresh after a night of rest and to talk some sense into him. Somebody needed to let the guy know exactly which rock and what kind of hard place he was between. If Sandoz was unwilling to talk about the mission, the crew of the ship that had sent him back, against all odds, had suffered from no such reticence. People whoâd argued that interstellar travel was financially impractical had reckoned without the immense commercial possibilities of having a story to tell to an audience of over eight billion consumers. The Contact Consortium had played the drama for all it was worth, releasing it in tiny episodes, milking the interest and the money even after it was clear that their own people had probably perished on
Moved, Tahad went to him. "Youâve done good work here, Emilio. It seems crazy to keep pulling you from hill to valley â¦" Tahadâs voice trailed off.
Sandoz was, by this time, wiping tears from his eyes and making terrible whining sounds. Wordlessly, he waved Tahad in closer to the screen, inviting him to read the message. Tahad did, and was more puzzled than ever. "Emilio, I donât understandâ"
Sandoz wailed and nearly fell off the stool.
"Emilio, what is so funny?" Tahad demanded, bewilderment turning to exasperation.
Sandoz was asked to report to John Carroll University outside Cleveland in the United States, not to take up a post as a professor of linguistics, but to cooperate with an expert in artificial intelligence who would codify and computerize Sandozâs method of learning languages in the field so that future missionaries would benefit from his wide experience, for the greater glory of God.
"Iâm sorry, Tahad, itâs too hard to explain," gasped Sandoz, who was on his way to Cleveland to serve as intellectual carrion for an AI vulture,
ad majorem Dei gloriam
. "Itâs the punchline to a three-year joke."
A S MANY AS thirty or as few as ten years later, lying exhausted and still, eyes open in the dark long after the three suns of Rakhat had set, no longer bleeding, past the vomiting, enough beyond the shock to think again, it would occur to Emilio Sandoz to wonder if perhaps that day in the Sudan was really only part of the setup for a punchline a lifetime in the making.
It was an odd thought, under the circumstances. He understood that, even at the time. But thinking it, he realized with appalling clarity that on his journey of discovery as a Jesuit, he had not merely been the first human being to set foot on Rakhat, had not simply explored parts of its largest continent and learned two of its languages and loved some of its people. He had also discovered the outermost limit of faith and, in doing so, had located the exact boundary of despair. It was at that moment that he learned, truly, to fear God.
3
ROME:
JANUARY 2060
S EVENTEEN YEARS OR a single year later, on his way to see Emilio Sandoz a few weeks after their first meeting, John Candotti very nearly fell into the Roman Empire.
Sometime during the night, a delivery van had provided the last little bit of weight and vibration that could be withstood by a nineteenth-century street paved over a medieval bedroom constructed from the walls of a dry Roman cistern, and the whole crazy hollow thing collapsed. The road crew managed to extricate the van but hadnât gotten around to putting up barriers around the hole. John, hurrying as usual, almost walked right into it. Only the odd echo from his footsteps warned him that something wasnât right and he slowed down, his foot in the air, stopping just short of a historically interesting broken neck. This was the kind of thing that kept him constantly on edge in Rome but that he made comical in his messages home. His entire experience in this city sounded better than it lived.
John had decided to see Sandoz in the morning this time, hoping to catch him fresh after a night of rest and to talk some sense into him. Somebody needed to let the guy know exactly which rock and what kind of hard place he was between. If Sandoz was unwilling to talk about the mission, the crew of the ship that had sent him back, against all odds, had suffered from no such reticence. People whoâd argued that interstellar travel was financially impractical had reckoned without the immense commercial possibilities of having a story to tell to an audience of over eight billion consumers. The Contact Consortium had played the drama for all it was worth, releasing it in tiny episodes, milking the interest and the money even after it was clear that their own people had probably perished on
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