“I n-never saw stars like this,” said Ton-Ton, as they sat on the top of the marble steps leading out of the hacienda. “They must have always been there.”
“The sky was muddy in Aztlán,” said Chacho.
“Not on the seashore,” remembered Fidelito. “Mi abuelita used to find pictures in the night sky—Orion the Hunter, the Seven Sisters, the Big and Little Bears. She told me stories about them, but there was one big, red star she said was new. See? There it is.”
“That’s a space station,” Matt said.
“¿Verdád? You can live on it?” asked the little boy.
“It’s like a big city inside a clear bubble. It has buildings and even hovercrafts to fly around in. In the middle is a big garden with trees and animals.”
“What a great place to live,” said Chacho. “You could see the whole Earth. But it would always be night, wouldn’t it?”
Matt considered. On TV shows outer space was black, so the skies of the Scorpion Star were probably black too. “There are lights inside the buildings,” he said. “I saw close-up pictures of them from a telescope.”
“If only I could go there,” said Chacho, with the same longing Matt had noticed in the Bug. And then Matt thought, I own that space station. I can go there whenever I want.
The thought gave him a chill. When he was young, Celia had told him that the Indians in her village carried charms to keep from being carried off by the wind. And Matt had experienced a strange terror while lying exposed under a dark sky, as though he might lose his hold on the Earth and find himself lost among all those bright, inhuman lights. “Earth is a good place,” he said.
“Not anymore,” said Chacho, and Matt could find no answer for that. A small sliver of moon rose before the dawn. A rooster crowed somewhere in the shadowy buildings surrounding the hacienda, to be answered by another and another.
Ton-Ton yawned. “I’m too sleepy to, uh, think now, Matt, but tell me more about the m-microchips later. They seem to work together like the inside of a music box.”
“What a brilliant idea,” said Matt. “They must work together. If you can figure out how to break a music box, maybe you can do the same to microchips.”
“Give a box to Fidelito,” Chacho said. “He’ll break it for free.”
30
A VISIT TO THE AJO HILLS
In the morning, as the doctor had predicted, Listen had no memory of her night terror. She shuffled into the banquet room, and Matt noticed how frail she looked. Sor Artemesia lifted her into a chair and fetched a bowl of oatmeal. Mirasol waited patiently by the food cart.
“I don’t like oatmeal,” said Listen.
“Tough,” said Sor Artemesia.
Only Matt was up, and so they had the huge banquet hall to themselves. It was going to be a hot day. The desert had at last decided spring was over, and a heat haze shimmered over the garden. Birds flew back and forth through a lawn sprinkler.
“María told me about Mirasol,” said the nun, buttering a slice of toast.
“She has nothing to worry about. I talked to her alone and told her,” said Matt.
“I know you did. As for whether there’s something to worry about, I’m not sure.”
“You can’t think Mirasol is a—is a girlfriend,” stammered Matt.
“You pity her, which is a good thing, but it must not go any further.” Sor Artemesia bit into her toast and licked the butter off her fingers.
Matt was almost speechless with outrage. “You’ve been talking to Cienfuegos. Why does everyone think I’m such a monster?”
“Because you’re El Patrón reborn.”
“I’m not the same!” Matt felt his face tighten and a current of heat run under his skin.
“Not yet,” said the nun. “You’ve been given great power, and stronger people than you have fallen under its spell. Think of me as the slave that used to stand in Caesar’s chariot and whisper into his ear, ‘Remember. You, too, are mortal.’ ”
“How dare you say things like that to me!”
“I dare because I serve God, not the rulers of this world. I thought about El Patrón while I was praying in the chapel. How did a reasonably decent village boy wind up killing so many people? And I thought about whether you were strong enough to avoid his fate. Cienfuegos told me about your party. You’ve realized that you can have anything and do anything you want. You even have a clone.”
“That wasn’t my doing!” cried Matt.
“No, it wasn’t. But don’t you see the tremendous temptation set out before you? To live forever, to have everything you desire. That’s what hollowed out El Patrón’s soul.”