"He is a whore," Voelker said with quiet precision. "He killed a child. He should be in chains." Voelker watched Giuliani circle the room, picking things up and putting them down without really looking at anything. "At least he has the decency to want to leave. Let him go—before he does more harm to the Society."

Giuliani stopped pacing and looked at Voelker. "We aren't going to disavow him. Even if that's what he wants, it's wrong. More to the point, it won't work. He's one of Ours, in the eyes of the world if not in his own eyes." He walked to the windows and stared out at the crowd of reporters and seekers and the merely curious. "And if the media continue to indulge in idle speculation and baseless supposition, we'll simply call it what it is," said the Father General in the light ironic voice that generations of graduate students had learned to dread. He turned to gaze with cool appraisal at his secretary, sitting sullenly all this time. Giuliani's voice didn't change but Voelker was stung by what came. "I am not Emilio's judge, Father Voelker, and neither is the press."

And neither was Johannes Voelker, S.J.

They concluded their meeting with one or two businesslike remarks, but the younger man left knowing he'd overstepped his bounds, politically as well as spiritually. Voelker was efficient and intelligent but, atypically for a Jesuit, he had a polar mind: everything was black or white, sin or virtue, Us versus Them.

Still, Giuliani thought, such people could be useful.

The Father General sat at his desk and fingered a stylus. Reporters thought the world had a right to know. Vincenzo Giuliani felt no need whatsoever to pander to that illusion. On the other hand, there was the question of what to do next, regarding Rakhat. And he did feel a need to bring Emilio to some sort of resolution. This wasn't the first time the Jesuits had encountered an alien culture and it wasn't the first mission to come to grief and Sandoz wasn't the first priest to disgrace himself. The whole business was regrettable but not beyond redemption.