Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,156

succeeded?"

"We changed the world," she said.

"For now, anyway," said Hunahpu. "They can still find their own ways to make all the old mistakes."

She shrugged.

"Did you tell him?" asked Hunahpu. "About who we are, and where we came from?"

"As much as he could understand. He knows that I'm not an angel, anyway. And he knows that there was another version of history, in which Spain destroyed the Caribian people. He wept for days, once he understood."

Hunahpu nodded. "I tried to tell Xoc, but to her there was little difference between Xibalba and Pastwatch. Call them gods or call them researchers, she didn't see much practical difference. And you know, I can't think of a significant difference, either."

"It didn't seem as if we were gods, when we were among them. It was just Mother and Father and their friends," said Diko.

"And to me, it was a job. Until I found you. Or you found me. Or however that worked."

"It worked," said Diko with finality.

He cocked his head and looked at her sideways, to let her know that he knew he was asking a loaded question. "Is it true you aren't going with Colyn when he sails east?"

"I don't think Spain is likely to be ready for an ambassador married to an African. Let's not make them swallow too much."

"He's an old man, Diko. He might not live to come home."

"I know," she said.

"Now that we're making Atetulka the capital of Caribia, will you come there to live? To wait for his return?"

"Hunahpu, you aren't expecting that at our age we would start to set a bad example, are you? Though I admit to being curious about the twelve scars that legend says you carry on your ... person."

He laughed. "No, I'm not proposing an affair. I love Xoc, and you love Colyn. We both still have too much work to do for us to put it at risk now. But I hoped for your company. For many conversations."

She thought about it, but in the end, she shook her head. "It would be too ... hard for me. This is too hard for me. Seeing you brings back another life. A time when I was another person. Maybe now and then. Every few years. Sail to Haiti and visit us in Ankuash. My Beatrice will want to come home to the mountain -- Atetulka must be sweltering, there on the coast."

"Ya-Hunahpu is dying to go to Haiti -- he hears that the women wear no clothing."

"In some places they still go naked. But bright colors are all the fashion. I think he'll be disappointed."

Hunahpu reached out and took her hand. "I'm not disappointed."

"Neither am I."

They held hands like that, for a long time.

"I was thinking," said Hunahpu, "of the third one who earned a place atop this tower."

"I was thinking of him, too."

"We remade the culture, so that Europe and America -- Caribia -- could meet without either being destroyed," said Hunahpu. "But he's the one who bought us the time to do it."

"He died quickly," said Diko. "But not without planting seeds of suspicion among the Spaniards. It must have been quite a death scene. But I'm glad I missed it."

The first light of dawn had appeared over the jungle to the east. Hunahpu noticed it, sighed, and stood. Then Diko stood, unfolding herself to her full height. Hunahpu laughed. "I forgot how tall you were."

"I'm stooping a little these days."

"It doesn't help," he said.

They went down the pyramid separately. No one saw them. No one guessed that they knew each other.
* * *

Cristobal Colyn returned to Spain in the spring of 1520. No one looked for him anymore, of course. There were legends about the disappearance of the three caravels that sailed west; the name Colyn had become synonymous, in Spain, at least, with the idea of mad ventures.

It was the Portuguese who had made the link to the Indies, and Portuguese ships now dominated all the Atlantic sea routes. They were just starting to explore the coast of a large island they named for the legendary land of Hy-Brasil, and some were saying that it might be a continent, especially when a ship returned with reports that northwest of the desert lands first discovered was a vast jungle with a river so wide and powerful that it made the ocean fresh twenty miles from its mouth. The inhabitants of the land were poor and weak savages, easily conquered and enslaved -- much easier to deal with than the fierce Africans,