Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,100

long his arms, how strong he was. He held him, held him long.

"They tell me you're good at drawing, Diego."

"Yes, I am," said Diego.

"Show me."

As they walked toward Diego's room, Cristoforo talked to him. "I'm drawing again myself. Quintanilla cut off my funds a couple of years ago, but I fooled him. I didn't go away. I draw maps for people. Have you ever drawn a map?"

"Uncle Bartolomeu came and taught me how. I've mapped the monastery. Right down to the mouseholes!"

They laughed together all the way up the stairs.
* * *

"We wait and wait," said Diko. "We're not getting any y ounger.

"Kemal is," said Hunahpu. "He works out constantly. To the neglect of his other studies."

"He has to be strong enough to swim under the ships and set the charges," said Diko.

"I think we should have a younger man."

Diko shook her head.

"What if he has a heart attack, did you think of that? We send him back in time to stop Columbus, and he dies in the water. What good is that? I'll be among the Zapotecs. Will you set the charges and keep Columbus there? Or will he sail back to Europe and make the whole effort a waste?"

"Just by going we'll accomplish something. We'll be infected with the carrier viruses, you remember."

"So the New World will be immune to smallpox and measles. All that means is that more of them will survive to enjoy many years of slavery."

"The Spanish weren't that far ahead, technologically speaking. And without the plagues to make them think the gods are against them, the people won't lose heart. Hunahpu, we can't help but make things better, at least to some degree. But Kemal won't fail."

"No," said Hunahpu. "He's like your mother. Never say die."

Diko laughed bitterly. "He never says it, but he plans it all the same."

"Plans what?"

"He hasn't mentioned it in years. I think I only heard him say it as a half-formed thought, and then he simply decided to do it."

"What?"

"Die," said Diko.

"What do you mean?"

"He was talking, back in -- oh, forever ago. About how the sinking of one ship is a misfortune. Two ships is a tragedy. Three ships is a punishment from God. What good will it do if Columbus thinks God is against him?"

"Well, that's a problem. But the ships have got to go."

"Listen, Hunahpu. He went on. He said, 'If only they knew that it was a Turk who blew up the boats. The infidel. The enemy of Christ.' Then he laughed. And then he stopped laughing."

"Why didn't you mention this before?"

"Because he chose not to mention it. But I thought you should understand why he isn't taking all the other learning assignments seriously. He doesn't expect to live to need them. All he needs is athletic ability, knowledge of explosives, and enough Spanish or Latin or whatever to tell Columbus's men that he is the one who blew up their ships, and that he did it in the name of Allah."

"And then he kills himself?"

"Are you joking?. Of course not. He lets the Christians kill him."

"It won't be gentle."

"But he'll be taken up to heaven. He died for Islam."

"Is he really a believer?" asked Hunahpu.

"Father thinks so. He says that the older you get, the more you believe in God, whatever face he wears."

The doctor came back into the room, smiling. "All very excellent, just like I tell you. Your heads are very fall of interesting things. No one in all of history has ever had so much knowledge in their heads as you and Kemal!"

"Knowledge and electromagnetic time bombs," said Hunahpu.

"Yes, well," said the doctor, "it is true that when the signaling device is set off, it could cause cancer after several decades of exposure. But it does not signal until a hundred years, so I think you are nothing but bones in the ground and cancer is not a big problem for you." He laughed.

"I think he's a ghoul," said Hunahpu.

"They all are," said Diko. "It's one of the classes in med school."

"Save the world, young man, young woman. Make a very good new world for my children."

For a horrible moment Diko thought that the doctor didn't understand that when they went, his children would all be snuffed out, like everyone else in this dead-end time. If only the Chinese made more of an effort to teach their people English so they could understand what the rest of the world was saying.

Seeing the consternation on their faces, the doctor laughed. "Do you