How so? Todd said.
Subotin, Hillsinger said, is a celebrity’s son that the KGB let into the service, most likely without proper vetting. He did not live up to expectations. Worse, he was a liability—both professionally and, more important, politically. As such, he was shunted around to different departments and denied any real information, while all of his supervisors tried simultaneously to avoid both firing him and giving him any real responsibility. And now, here with us, he’s tried to inflate his own importance and hide his lack of success. Subotin’s entire case is consistent with that interpretation.
You’re about this close, Danziger said, to being an enemy of the state.
As for Astrakhov, Hillsinger continued, right now his entire life is dependent on our patronage; if you were him—if you had access to the highest levels at the CIA and your entire life and future depended on keeping that privileged access—wouldn’t you do everything to avoid being supplanted as the official CIA oracle? Wouldn’t you predict that Moscow would send false defectors to discredit you, and wouldn’t you try to cannibalize anyone who came over afterward?
Are you accusing Astrakhov of being dirty? Danziger said.
No, Hillsinger said. I’m accusing him of being human.
There was a heavy silence.
The question for your consideration, Cressie said—he was using the official formula now, which meant they were voting for the record—is this: is Subotin a legitimate defector? Yes means we accept Subotin’s information. No means we do not accept it. Yes means bona fide, No means not bona fide. Inconclusive is self-explanatory.
Can we have a bit more time? Todd said.
Delay is not in my instruction set, Cressie said. I’ll bring in a third-party witness to certify the polling of this panel.
Cressie went out and returned with Harris, Subotin’s interrogator, who did not say anything.
Now I’ll begin the polling, Cressie said. Mr. Danziger?
No, Danziger said.
Mr. Danziger—no, Cressie said. Subotin not bona fide. Mr. Hillsinger?
Yes, Hillsinger said.
Mr. Hillsinger—yes, Cressie said. Subotin bona fide. Mr. Todd?
There was a pause.
Inconclusive, Todd said.
59
When Catta reached dry land, Conrad handed him one of the big glass nectar jugs to carry. It was heavy and it smelled like sweat, raspberries, and gasoline.
“Go slow,” Conrad said.
It was darker on North than on the Baffin shore, and there was no light anywhere on the horizon apart from the slender moon, nothing to be seen except for the stars.
“Where?” Catta said.
“Walk straight for the tail of the Big Bear,” Conrad said, “and for Christ’s sake go slow.”
Catta’s shoes and shorts were soaked and he was already shivering as he set out toward Orion with the jug slung over his shoulder. He walked over a small rise and then he saw a fire in a sunken pit, which was itself inside a larger depression. The fire was so low down that from the other side he had not seen even its glow.
“Gently now,” Smock said to Catta as he put the jug down. Dale opened a can and poured its contents into a large cast-iron pan and placed the pan directly on top of the fire. It smelled more than good.
“Won’t they see the fire from Seven?” Catta said as he climbed almost into the fire to get warm.
“Fire stays below the rises,” Dale said. “Family ain’t to know we’re on the property.”
All three of them, Dale said, had a long time ago been regular staff on Seven Island, before Catta was born. They had all had been fired—or, as Dale said, terminated for various voluptuous offenses. At present, they were “officially” (though also secretly, Smock said, as far as Billy Quick and the rest of the family were concerned) hired to tattoo numbers onto the ears of the new lambs and write those numbers in a small notebook. Unofficially, Dale said, they brewed the nectar and organized all the other peremptories that sustained the many different facets of the festival of the Migration.
“Full-service and humane flock accountability, state-of-the-art tattooing all numbers but one,” Smock said.
Conrad came over the rise and let his jug fall heavily next to the other one.
“Careful now,” Smock said to him.
“Stop lying to the boy and lift something,” Conrad said.
“Hospitality is my cross to bear,” Dale said cheerfully.
Conrad left, heading back toward the beach.
“Why not the number one?” Catta said.
“Conrad don’t know how to write it,” Smock said.
“Excuse me,” Dale said. “I meant to say there is one number we don’t tattoo, but it ain’t the number one.”
“Seven,” Smock said.
Catta could not see the logic of that, and said so.
“Leave it that seven by itself is bad luck,” Dale said. “Not seventeen and not forty-seven—just seven alone. Small point of doctrine. You will not see a lamb on these islands with a seven in its ear.”
They both laughed when Catta asked what else their church believed. Dale picked up a filthy oven mitt, pulled the pan from the fire, and placed it, smoking and popping, on the ground in front of him.
“Smock?”
“I ain’t—”
“Get the man a fork,” Dale said.
“Pardon, pardon,” Smock said, and he disappeared over the rise behind them, toward a shack whose roof, Catta could see now, was the mass hiding the stars just above the horizon.
“It’s basic,” Dale said. “Lambs is important; lambs is exceptional. All fires shall have fragrant smoke. Wakefulness. Songs. Contortions of the host. At the Migration we sing together, to be heard in other places.”
Smock returned, out of breath, and wiped the fork on his jacket before handing it to Catta. The pan held franks and beans that were scaldingly hot. Catta blew three or four times on each forkful and then ate so fast and so greedily that Dale and Smock laughed at him, which made him stop. He offered the pan back to them.
“No, sir—no, thank you. Good riddance to them beans,” Dale said.
They said Catta was welcome to any food they had and welcome to share their fire and their water (though not the nectar, which was only for the congregation). Dale said, however, that it would be both a sacrilege and an insult if Catta or any other member of either family were to be either on or near North Island between sunrise on the day of the Migration and the sunrise after that. Which, Dale said, gave him a limited number of minutes before the tide rose to walk the tidal path back to Baffin, or somewhat more minutes if they ferried him back by canoe. The choice was his.
Conrad returned to the circle with another jug, which he let fall heavily again.
“He can swim hisself back,” Conrad said.
60