Xenocide
Page 30
To which Jane answered, "Will you kill a raman who has done no harm to any living soul, or will you let me live?"
Qing-jao pressed the transmit button. Jane bowed her head and disappeared.
It would take several seconds for the message to be routed by the house computer to the nearest ansible; from there, it would go instantly to every Congress authority on every one of the Hundred Worlds and many of the colonies as well. On many receiving computers it would be just one more message in the queue; but on some, perhaps hundreds, Father's code would give it enough priority that already someone would be reading it, realizing its implications, and preparing a response. If Jane in fact had let the message through.
So Qing-jao waited for a response. Perhaps the reason no one answered immediately was because they had to contact each other and discuss this message and decide, quickly, what had to be done. Perhaps that was why no reply came to the empty display above her terminal.
The door opened. It would be Mu-pao with the game computer. "Put it in the corner by the north window," said Qing-jao without looking. "I may yet need it, though I hope not."
"Qing-jao."
It was Father, not Mu-pao at all. Qing-jao turned to him, knelt at once to show her respect--but also her pride. "Father, I've made your report to Congress. While you communed with the gods, I was able to neutralize the enemy program and send the message telling how to destroy it. I'm waiting for their answer."
She waited for Father's praise.
"You did this?" he asked. "Without waiting for me? You spoke directly to Congress and didn't ask for my consent?"
"You were being purified, Father. I fulfilled your assignment."
"But then--Jane will be killed."
"That much is certain," said Qing-jao. "Whether contact with the Lusitania Fleet will be restored then or not, I can't be sure." Suddenly she thought of a flaw in her plans. "But the computers on the fleet will also be contaminated by this program! When contact is restored, the program can retransmit itself and--but then all we'll have to do is blank out the ansibles one more time . . ."
Father was not looking at her. He was looking at the terminal display behind her. Qing-jao turned to see.
It was a message from Congress, with the official seal displayed. It was very brief, in the clipped style of the bureaucracy.
Han:
Brilliant work.
Have transmitted your suggestions as our orders.
Contact with the fleet already restored.
Did daughter help per your note 14FE.3A?
Medals for both if so.
"Then it's done," murmured Father. "They'll destroy Lusitania, the pequeninos, all those innocent people."
"Only if the gods wish it," said Qing-jao. She was surprised that Father sounded so morose.
Wang-mu raised her head from Qing-jao's lap, her face red and wet with weeping. "And Jane and Demosthenes will be gone as well," she said.
Qing-jao gripped Wang-mu by the shoulder, held her an arm's length away. "Demosthenes is a traitor," said Qing-jao. But Wang-mu only looked away from her, turning her gaze up to Han Fei-tzu. Qing-jao also looked to her father. "And Jane--Father, you saw what she was, how dangerous."
"She tried to save us," said Father, "and we've thanked her by setting in motion her destruction."
Qing-jao couldn't speak or move, could only stare at Father as he leaned over her shoulder and touched the save key, then the clear key.
"Jane," said Father. "If you hear me. Please forgive me."
There was no answer from the terminal.
"May all the gods forgive me," said Father. "I was weak in the moment when I should have been strong, and so my daughter has innocently done evil in my name." He shuddered. "I must--purify myself." The word plainly tasted like poison in his mouth. "That will last forever, too, I'm sure."
He stepped back from the computer, turned away, and left the room. Wang-mu returned to her crying. Stupid, meaningless crying, thought Qing-jao. This is a moment of victory. Except Jane has snatched the victory away from me so that even as I triumph over her, she triumphs over me. She has stolen my father. He no longer serves the gods in his heart, even as he continues to serve them with his body.
Yet along with the pain of this realization came a hot stab of joy: I was stronger. I was stronger than Father, after all. When it came to the test, it was I who served the gods, and he who broke, who fell, who failed. There is more to me than I ever dreamed of. I am a worthy tool in the hands of the gods; who knows how they might wield me now?
12
GREGO'S WAR
Quara was the last to arrive at Mother's house. It was Planter who fetched her, the pequenino who served as Ender's assistant in the fields. It was clear from the expectant silence in the living room that Miro had not actually told anyone anything yet. But they all knew, as surely as Quara knew, why he had called them together. It had to be Quim. Ender might have reached Quim by now, just barely; and Ender could talk to Miro by way of the transmitters they wore.
If Quim were all right, they wouldn't have been summoned. They would simply have been told.
So they all knew. Quara scanned their faces as she stood in the doorway. Ela, looking stricken. Grego, his face angry--always angry, the petulant fool. Olhado, expressionless, his eyes gleaming. And Mother. Who could read that terrible mask she wore? Grief, certainly, like Ela, and fury as hot as Grego's, and also the cold inhuman distance of Olhado's face. We all wear Mother's face, one way or another. What part of her is me? If I could understand myself, what would I then recognize in Mother's twisted posture in her chair?
"He died of the descolada," Miro said. "This morning. Andrew got there just now."
"Don't say that name," Mother said. Her voice was husky with ill-contained grief.
"He died as a martyr," said Miro. "He died as he would have wanted to."
Mother got up from her chair, awkwardly--for the first time, Quara realized that Mother was getting old. She walked with uncertain steps until she stood right in front of Miro, straddling his knees. Then she slapped him with all her strength across the face.
It was an unbearable moment. An adult woman striking a helpless cripple, that was hard enough to see; but Mother striking Miro, the one who had been their strength and salvation all through their childhood, that could not be endured. Ela and Grego leaped to their feet and pulled her away, dragged her back to her chair.
"What are you trying to do!" cried Ela. "Hitting Miro won't bring Quim back to us!"
"Him and that jewel in his ear!" Mother shouted. She lunged toward Miro again; they barely held her back, despite her seeming feebleness. "What do you know about the way people want to die!"
Quara had to admire the way Miro faced her, unabashed, even though his cheek was red from her blow. "I know that death is not the worst thing in this world," said Miro.
"Get out of my house," said Mother.
Miro stood up. "You aren't grieving for him," he said. "You don't even know who he was."
"Don't you dare say that to me!"
"If you loved him you wouldn't have tried to stop him from going," said Miro. His voice wasn't loud, and his speech was thick and hard to understand. They listened, all of them, in silence. Even Mother, in anguished silence, for his words were terrible. "But you don't love him. You don't know how to love people. You only know how to own them. And because people will never act just like you want them to, Mother, you'll always feel betrayed. And because eventually everybody dies, you'll always feel cheated. But you're the cheat, Mother. You're the one who uses our love for you to try to control us."
"Miro," said Ela. Quara recognized the tone in Ela's voice. It was as if they were all little children again, with Ela trying to calm Miro, to persuade him to soften his judgment. Quara remembered hearing Ela speak to him that way once when Father had just beaten Mother, and Miro said, "I'll kill him. He won't live out this night." This was the same thing. Miro was saying vicious things to Mother, words that had the power to kill. Only Ela couldn't stop him in time, not now, because the words had already been said. His poison was in Mother now, doing its work, seeking out her heart to burn it up.
"You heard Mother," said Grego. "Get out of here."
"I'm going," said Miro. "But I said only the truth."
Grego strode toward Miro, took him by the shoulders, and bodily propelled him toward the door. "You're not one of us!" said Grego. "You've got no right to say anything to us!"
Quara shoved herself between them, facing Grego. "If Miro hasn't earned the right to speak in this family, then we aren't a family!"
"You said it," murmured Olhado.
"Get out of my way," said Grego. Quara had heard him speak threateningly before, a thousand times at least. But this time, standing so close to him, his breath in her face, she realized that he was out of control. That the news of Quim's death had hit him hard, that maybe at this moment he wasn't quite sane.
"I'm not in your way," said Quara. "Go ahead. Knock a woman down. Shove a cripple. It's in your nature, Grego. You were born to destroy things. I'm ashamed to belong to the same species as you, let alone the same family."
Only after she spoke did she realize that maybe she was pushing Grego too far. After all these years of sparring between them, this time she had drawn blood. His face was terrifying.
But he didn't hit her. He stepped around her, around Miro, and stood in the doorway, his hands on the doorframe. Pushing outward, as if he were trying to press the walls out of his way. Or perhaps he was clinging to the walls, hoping they could hold him in.
"I'm not going to let you make me angry at you, Quara," said Grego. "I know who my enemy is."
Then he was gone, out the door into the new darkness.
A moment later, Miro followed, saying nothing more.
Ela spoke as she also walked to the door. "Whatever lies you may be telling yourself, Mother, it wasn't Ender or anyone else who destroyed our family here tonight. It was you." Then she was gone.
Olhado got up and left, wordlessly. Quara wanted to slap him as he passed her, to make him speak. Have you recorded everything in your computer eyes, Olhado? Have you got all the pictures etched in memory? Well, don't be too proud of yourself. I may have only a brain of tissues to record this wonderful night in the history of the Ribeira family, but I'll bet my pictures are every bit as clear as yours.
Mother looked up at Quara. Mother's face was streaked with tears. Quara couldn't remember--had she ever seen Mother weep before?
"So you're all that's left," said Mother.
"Me?" said Quara. "I'm the one you cut off from access to the lab, remember? I'm the one you cut off from my life's work. Don't expect me to be your friend."
Then Quara, too, left. Walked out into the night air feeling invigorated. Justified. Let the old hag think about that one for a while, see if she likes feeling cut off, the way she made me feel.
It was maybe five minutes later, when Quara was nearly to the gate, when the glow of her riposte had faded, that she began to realize what she had done to her mother. What they all had done. Left Mother alone. Left her feeling that she had lost, not just Quim, but her entire family. That was a terrible thing to do to her, and Mother didn't deserve it.
Quara turned at once and ran back to the house. But as she came through the door, Ela also entered the living room from the other door, the one that led back farther into the house.
"She isn't here," said Ela.
"Nossa Senhora," said Quara. "I said such awful things to her."
"We all did."
"She needed us. Quim is dead, and all we could do--"
"When she hit Miro like that, it was . . ."
To her surprise, Quara found herself weeping, clinging to her older sister. Am I still a child, then, after all? Yes, I am, we all are, and Ela is still the only one who knows how to comfort us. "Ela, was Quim the only one who held us together? Aren't we a family anymore, now that he's gone?"
"I don't know," said Ela.
"What can we do?"
In answer, Ela took her hand and led her out of the house. Quara asked where they were going, but Ela wouldn't answer, just held her hand and led her along. Quara went willingly--she had no good idea of what to d
o, and it felt safe somehow, just to follow Ela. At first she thought Ela was looking for Mother, but no--she didn't head for the lab or any other likely place. Where they ended up surprised her even more.
They stood before the shrine that the people of Lusitania had erected in the middle of the town. The shrine to Gusto and Cida, their grandparents, the xenobiologists who had first discovered a way to contain the descolada virus and thus saved the human colony on Lusitania. Even as they found the drugs that would stop the descolada from killing people, they themselves had died, too far gone with the infection for their own drug to save them.
The people adored them, built this shrine, called them Os Venerados even before the church beatified them. And now that they were only one step away from canonization as saints, it was permitted to pray to them.
To Quara's surprise, that was why Ela had come here. She knelt before the shrine, and even though Quara really wasn't much of a believer, she knelt beside her sister.
"Grandfather, Grandmother, pray to God for us. Pray for the soul of our brother Estevao. Pray for all our souls. Pray to Christ to forgive us."
That was a prayer in which Quara could join with her whole heart.
"Protect your daughter, our mother, protect her from . . . from her grief and anger and make her know that we love her and that you love her and that . . . God loves her, if he does--oh, please, tell God to love her and don't let her do anything crazy."
Quara had never heard anyone pray like this. It was always memorized prayers, or written-down prayers. Not this gush of words. But then, Os Venerados were not like any other saints or blessed ones. They were Grandmother and Grandfather, even though we never met them in our lives.
"Tell God that we've had enough of this," said Ela. "We have to find a way out of all this. Piggies killing humans. This fleet that's coming to destroy us. The descolada trying to wipe everything out. Our family hating each other. Find us a way out of this, Grandfather, Grandmother, or if there isn't a way then get God to open up a way because this can't go on."
Then an exhausted silence, both Ela and Quara breathing heavily.