"You off-load all your trade goods here in the N’Jarr valley," Danny began, "and don’t try to bullshit me, because I’ve read the manifests. We keep the manned lander and all its fuel—"

"The lander cost a fortune!" Carlo protested.

"Yeah, but by the time you get back to Earth, that plane’ll be older than most second wives," Danny pointed out as John began to do a little victory dance featuring Italian gestures aimed at a position in the sky somewhere above the 32nd parallel. "Now, then," Danny continued, "our cut will be one hundred percent of the coffee trade, but we’ll broker the rest for you—"

"What guarantee do I have that you won’t keep the drone after I send the last shipment down?" Carlo asked suspiciously. "You could leave me with a half-empty hold."

"Which is exactly what you deserve, you miserable SOB," John sang joyously, wiping tears from his eyes.

"I guess you’re just going to have to trust me, ace," said Danny, stretching his long legs out luxuriously and settling in for what promised to be a very satisfying day’s work. "But if you think you can get a better deal from somebody else…"

Carlo didn’t, and negotiations began in earnest.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?" EMILIO CRIED DAYS LATER, AS TIYAT AND KAJPIN shuffled off with Nico to find something to eat. "Danny, the reservations were a disaster for the Indians—"

"Sandoz, this is not the United States," the Canadian said firmly, "and we are not the BIA, and we have the benefit of hindsight—"

"And a reservation is better than extinction," Joseba pointed out with chilling accuracy. "I estimate that even an increase of ten additional deaths a year over present rates could kill the Jana’ata off in a couple of generations. If you have to choose between apartheid and genocide—"

"And Danny knows all the ways a reservation system can be awful," John started, "so he can—"

"Desperate measures for desperate times," Sean was saying. "And as much as I hate partition, it’s a way to stop the killin’. Gives people time to get over their grudges, or at least stop accumulating new ones—"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Emilio begged, his mind so fogged by fatigue that he found himself wishing they’d speak Spanish—a sure sign of exhaustion. Countless hours on a treadmill had prepared him to some extent for the month he had just spent on the road, but he was wrung out from seeing Sofia again, and hadn’t reckoned on being mobbed by men full of news and anxious for his approval the moment he came within sight. "All right," he said finally, deciding he could manage another few minutes of this. "Tell me again…?"

"I see this as politically independent territory," said Danny. "The Jana’ata are already isolated up here—it’s just a matter of getting the government in the south to formalize the situation! And Suukmel thinks this may be a workable solution. She’s convinced Shetri, and they’re off trying to get Athaansi’s faction on board."

Who the hell is Athaansi? Emilio wondered dully. He probably looked like shit, but then again, he always looked like shit, so nobody was attaching much significance to it. "Have you spoken to Sofia about this?"

"Of course!" said John, his happiness still barely containable. "We talked to her a few days ago. It’s not like we were sitting here sucking our thumbs while you were gone—"

"She said she’d float the idea," said Danny, "but it’ll be up to the Runa Parliament in Gayjur. It’s going to take time, but—"

"The problem right now," Joseba said, "is getting the word out so the VaN’Jarri know that the army’s turned back and it’s safe to come home. We should have set up some kind of signal for that, but nobody thought of it."

Nico arrived with two mess plates of food from the lander. "Don Emilio," he interjected quietly, "I think you should sit down. Are you hungry?" Sandoz shook his head at the question, but sat on a stool.

"— going to rebuild their numbers, they’ll need food," Joseba was saying, "and plenty of it, but that central plains region is a meat factory, and perhaps the Runa would be willing to provide game in exchange for coffee or something. Eventually we’ll find something new to domesticate." He didn’t even notice that he’d begun to think in terms of "we." "The Jana’ata think kha’ani could be bred to lay eggs all year round—"

"In the meantime," John said, "we go out and shoot something big every so often—"

"I can help with hunting," Nico offered, not fully understanding what was being discussed, but content to be of service to Don Emilio and the priests, now that Carlo was going to desert them.

"Ah, I’m sure y’could, Nico," Sean said, "but you and Sandoz’ll be goin’ home after all."

Nico’s mouth dropped open, and an expectant hush fell. Sandoz looked at Sean sharply, then stood and walked a few steps away. When he turned, his face was unreadable. "It’s a long walk back to Naples, Sean."

"Well, it would be, ace, but we already booked you passage home with Carlo," said Danny. "We got him to agree to wait a while before he goes back. You’ll be on the drone with the last shipment of trade goods from Rakhat."

John was grinning. "We arranged for Frans to sample a little of the yasapa shampoo. All of a sudden, Carlo decided to reconsider his business arrangements. It was amazing, Emilio. Danny cut the VaN’Jarri a beautiful deal—"

Resilience now utterly gone, Sandoz shook his head. "No," he said flatly. "Nico can go back, but I gave my word. I told Sofia that I’d stand surety for the Jana’ata—"

"Christ, she told us," Sean said. "Now there’s a woman who’d feel at home in Belfast! She’s a wee hard bitch, but y’can do a deal with her, if she gets what she wants. I’ll be the goat, Sandoz. You go home and see if y’can find that sweet Gina and her Celestina."

It was Danny who broke the silence. "You’re done here, ace," he said quietly. "We got this covered."

"But there’s more," John added excitedly. "Rukuei wants to go back to Earth with you—"

"I tried to talk him out of it," Joseba said. "They need all the breeding pairs they can get, but it turns out he was neutered, so—"

Sandoz frowned, now thoroughly confused. "But why does he want…?"

"Why not?" Sean shrugged, unsurprised by yet another example of wayward sentient willfulness. "He says he needs t’see Earth with his own eyes."

It was all too much. "No puedo pensar," Emilio muttered. Pulling his eyes wide open, he shook his head. "I’ve got to get some sleep."

WAITING FOR SANDOZ IN THE FOREIGNERS’ HUT, RUKUEI KITHERI PACED and paced, helpless against imagination, burdened with possibility, like a pregnant woman who cannot know what she carries within her.

"Go back with them," Isaac had told him. And Rukuei heard in those words an echo of his own yearning.

He feared that Sandoz would refuse him this. All of the foreigners had argued against it, and Sandoz more than anyone had reason to hate the Jana’ata. But everything was different now, and for days, Rukuei had planned the plea he would make to a man he hardly knew and barely hoped to understand.

He would tell the foreigner: I have learned that poetry requires a certain emptiness, as the sounding of a bell requires the space within it. The emptiness of my father’s early life provided the resonance for his songs. I have felt in my heart his restlessness and lurking ambition. I have felt in my own body the violent exuberance, the almost sexual exultation of creation.

He would tell the foreigner: I have learned that a soul’s emptiness can become a place where Truth will dwell—even if it is not made welcome, even when Truth is reviled and fought, doubted and misunderstood and resisted.

He would tell the foreigner: My own hollowed heart has made a space for others’ pain, but I believe there is more—some larger Truth we are all heir to, and I want to be filled with it!