A lay member of the first Jesuit expedition to planet Rakhat, Sofia Mendes marries a tall, homely, kind Irish Catholic astronomer, Jimmy Quinn, even as death is claiming most of the crew members. Sofia authors the AI (artificial intelligence) language instruction program that her companions use to learn Ruanja and K'San and on which Emilio Sandoz bases his instruction of the second Jesuit mission. Sofia is a Jew, originally from Istanbul where she is taught the Sephardic tradition by her parents but is then forced to support herself by prostitution when orphaned during the Turkish civil war. She arrives on Rakhat immune to emotion, particularly love, which requires payment in grief, and only once breaks down, when she dreams that her unborn child has been harmed.
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