It was the music of the Jana’ata that brought the team to Rakhat.

Eventually, the team meets a merchant named Supaari, one of the Jana’ata, a more urban and technologically advanced species than the Runa. They are startled-and distressed-by the humans’ attempts to share their music, and they can’t abide the eating of meat, but they mostly treat the humans with curiosity and affection. The Runa are interested in the humans but don’t seem terribly startled by them, presumably because the Runa are used to entering into trade agreements with other species who differ from them. On Rakhat, the planet that becomes their home, they discover a village of peaceful herbivores called the Runa. And although this is a Jesuit mission, supervised by the Roman Catholic church, the non-priestly members of the team are treated as equal partners, as family members even, for this team does become a family. These are not solemn, stoic, holier-than-thou priests. The years they spend together only bring them closer. They were a tight-knit group many of the team members were long-time friends of Emilio, a brilliant linguist who would learn the language of the aliens and serve as translator.

The team of Jesuit priests and scientists had left in 2021. God may know that a sparrow falls, but the sparrow falls just the same. He has doubts about what it all means and what it says about God and his plan. But his hold on it is never quite secure. As his hands become better able to grasp a coffee mug, he becomes better able to grab onto the truth of what happened to him. He gives official testimony and reports to his superior, but he’s reluctant, fearful, haunted, broken.

He shares with the priests who are taking care of him, part confessor and part jury.

In The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell tells Emilio’s story as he recovers it, gradually. Reports from the UN consortium that followed the Jesuit team have led the world to consider Emilio not just a failure but a pariah. His hands have been surgically mutilated much of the skin of his palms has been removed, giving his fingers an elongated appearance and making it impossible for him to use his hands. He is mentally and physically traumatized. Father Emilio Sandoz has just returned to Earth, the lone survivor of a mission to Alpha Centauri to find the aliens whose music was the first clear evidence of life on another planet.

The sparrow mary