Children of God (The Sparrow, #2)

by Mary Doria Russell

Which is why the first man from the Giordano Bruno to set foot on Rakhat was not Daniel Iron Horse, who was the mission’s superior, or Joseba Urizarbarrena, an ecologist aching for his first glimpse of this new world; not Emilio Sandoz, who knew the place and would react most quickly to danger, or John Candotti, determined to be at his side, in case disaster struck again; nor was it the would-be conquistador Carlo Giuliani or his bodyguard Niccolo d’Angeli. It was Father Sean Fein, of the Society of Jesus, who pushed his way to the front of the queue and exited the lander the moment the hatch opened, stumbling forward a few steps and falling gracelessly to his knees, where he threw up for a good two minutes. They might have hoped for a more auspicious beginning to their stay. Sean at least managed to arrange for the first words spoken by a member of their mission to be a kind of prayer. “Dear God,” he gasped, when things slowed down, “that was a shameful waste of good liquor.”

Ha!