Emilio José Sandoz

With high cheek bones, slicked-back black-and-silver hair, and a trimmed conquistador goatee, Emilio is the novel's protagonist. A Taino Indian born in a Puerto Rican slum, he is treated brutally as a child because he is born while his legal father is in prison for drug trafficking. He becomes a linguist and a Jesuit priest and conceives the idea of a mission to the planet Rakhat when music is detected emanating from there. Emilio innocently believes that the mission is inspired by God. Emilio is the only member to return to Earth alive and is closely examined about the mission. The press declares him a cannibal and child-killer, based on biased reports from Rakhat.

As the novel opens, Emilio is around eighty years old, but thirty-four years traveling at near light-speed, during which he ages only six years, makes him functionally forty-six. His seminary classmate, Vincenzo...