Speaker for the dead ew-2

by Orson Scott Card

  “I notice he sent in the petition anyway.”

  “For the good of the community. And there were all those miracles.”

  “Someone touches the shrine and a headache goes away and they cry 'Milagre!– os santos me abenqoaram!'” Miracle!– the saints have blessed me!

  “You know that Holy Rome requires more substantial miracles than that. But it doesn't matter. The Pope graciously allowed us to call our little town Milagre, and now I imagine that every time someone says that name, Novinha burns a little hotter with her secret rage.”

  “Or colder. One never knows what temperature that sort of thing will take.”

  “Anyway, Pipo, you aren't the only one who ever asked about her. But you're the only one who ever asked about her for her own sake, and not because of her most Holy and Blessed parents.”

  It was a sad thought, that except for the Filhos, who ran the schools of Lusitania, there had been no concern for the girl except the slender shards of attention Pipo had spared for her over the years.

  “She has one friend,” said Libo.

  Pipo had forgotten that his son was there– Libo was so quiet that he was easy to overlook. Dona Crist also seemed startled. «Libo,» she said, «I think we were indiscreet, talking about one of your schoolmates like this.»

  “I'm apprentice Zenador now,” Libo reminded her. It meant he wasn't in school.

  “Who is her friend?” asked Pipo.

  «Marc o.»

  «Marcos Ribeira,» Dona Crist explained. «The tall boy–»

  “Ah, yes, the one who's built like a cabra.”

  «He is strong,» said Dona Crist . «But I've never noticed any friendship between them.»

  «Once when Marc o was accused of something, and she happened to see it, she spoke for him.»

  «You put a generous interpretation on it, Libo,» said Dona Crist . «I think it is more accurate to say she spoke against the boys who actually did it and were trying to put the blame on him.»

  “Marcdo doesn't see it that way,” said Libo. “I noticed a couple of times, the way he watches her. It isn't much, but there is somebody who likes her.”

  “Do you like her?” asked Pipo.

  Libo paused for a moment in silence. Pipo knew what it meant. He was examining himself to find an answer. Not the answer that he thought would be most likely to bring him adult favor, and not the answer that would provoke their ire– the two kinds of deception that most children his age delighted in. He was examining himself to discover the truth.

  “I think,” Libo said, “that I understood that she didn't want to be liked. As if she were a visitor who expected to go back home any day.”

  Dona Crist nodded gravely. «Yes, that's exactly right, that's exactly the way she seems. But now, Libo, we must end our indiscretion by asking you to leave us while we–»

  He was gone before she finished her sentence, with a quick nod of his head, a half-smile that said, Yes, I understand, and a deftness of movement that made his exit more eloquent proof of his discretion than if he had argued to stay. By this Pipo knew that Libo was annoyed at being asked to leave; he had a knack for making adults feel vaguely immature by comparison to him.

  “Pipo,” said the principal, “she has petitioned for an early examination as xenobiologist. To take her parents' place.”

  Pipo raised an eyebrow.

  “She claims that she has been studying the field intensely since she was a little child. That she's ready to begin the work right now, without apprenticeship.”

  “She's thirteen, isn't she?”

  “There are precedents. Many have taken such tests early. One even passed it younger than her. It was two thousand years ago, but it was allowed. Bishop Peregrino is against it, Of course, but Mayor Bosquinha, bless her practical heart, has pointed out that Lusitania needs a xenobiologist quite badly– we need to be about the business of developing new strains of plant life so we can get some decent variety in our diet and much better harvests from Lusitanian soil. In her words, 'I don't care if it's an infant, we need a xenobiologist.'”

  “And you want me to supervise her examination?”

  “If you would be so kind.”

  “I'll be glad to.”

  “I told them you would.”

  “I confess I have an ulterior motive.”

  “Oh?”

  “I should have done more for the girl. I'd like to see if it isn't too late to begin.”

  Dona Crist laughed a bit. «Oh, Pipo, I'd be glad for you to try. But do believe me, my dear friend, touching her heart is like bathing in ice.»

  “I imagine. I imagine it feels like bathing in ice to the person touching her. But how does it feel to her? Cold as she is, it must surely burn like fire.”

  «Such a poet,» said Dona Crist . There was no irony in her voice; she meant it. «Do the piggies understand that we've sent our very best as our ambassador?»

  “I try to tell them, but they're skeptical.”

  "I'll send her to you tomorrow. I warn you– she'll expect to take the examinations cold, and she'll resist any attempt on your part to pre-examine her. "

  Pipo smiled. “I'm far more worried about what will happen after she takes the test. If she fails, then she'll have very bad problems. And if she passes, then my problems will begin.”

  “Why?”

  “Libo will be after me to let him examine early for Zenador. And if he did that, there'd be no reason for me not to go home, curl up, and die.”

  "Such a romantic fool you are, Pipo. If there's any man in Milagre who's capable of accepting his thirteen-year-old son as a colleague, it's you. "

  After she left, Pipo and Libo worked together, as usual, recording the day's events with the pequeninos. Pipo compared Libo's work, his way of thinking, his insights, his attitudes, with those of the graduate students he had known in University before joining the Lusitania Colony. He might be small, and there might be a lot of theory and knowledge for him yet to learn, but he was already a true scientist in his method, and a humanist at heart. By the time the evening's work was done and they walked home together by the light of Lusitania's large and dazzling moon, Pipo had decided that Libo already deserved to be treated as a colleague, whether he took the examination or not. The tests couldn't measure the things that really counted, anyway.

  And whether she liked it or not, Pipo intended to find out if Novinha had the unmeasurable qualities of a scientist; if she didn't, then he'd see to it she didn't take the test, regardless of how many facts she had memorized.

  Pipo meant to be difficult. Novinha knew how adults acted when they planned not to do things her way, but didn't want a fight or even any nastiness. Of course, of course you can take the test. But there's no reason to rush into it, let's take some time, let me make sure you'll be successful on the first attecipt.

  Novinha didn't want to wait. Novinha was ready.

  “I'll jump through any hoops you want,” she said.

  His face went cold. Their faces always did. That was all right, coldness was all right, she could freeze them to death. “I don't want you to jump through hoops,” he said.

  “T'he only thing I ask is that you line them up all in a row so I can jump through them quickly. I don't want to be put off for days and days.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. “You're in such a hurry.”

  “I'm ready. The Starways Code allows me to challenge the test at any time. It's between me and the Starways Congress, and I can't find anywhere that it says a xenologer can try to second-guess the Interplanetary Examinations Board.”

  “Then you haven't read carefully.”

  “The only thing I need to take the test before I'm sixteen is the authorization of my legal guardian. I don't have a legal guardian.”

  “On the contrary,” said Pipo. “Mayor Bosquinha was your legal guardian from the day of your parents' death.”

  “And she agreed I could take the test.”

  “Provided you came to me.”

 
Novinha saw the intense look in his eyes. She didn't know Pipo, so she thought it was the look she had seen in so many eyes, the desire to dominate, to rule her, the desire to cut through her determination and break her independence, the desire to make her submit.

  From ice to fire in an instant. “What do you know about xenobiology! You only go out and talk to the piggies, you don't even begin to understand the workings of genes! Who are you to judge me! Lusitania needs a xenobiologist, and they've been without one for eight years. And you want to make them wait even longer, just so you can be in control!”

  To her surprise, he didn't become flustered, didn't retreat. Nor did he get angry in return. It was as if she hadn't spoken.

  “I see,” he said quietly. “It's because of your great love of the people of Lusitania that you wish to become xenobiologist. Seeing the public need, you sacrificed and prepared yourself to enter early into a lifetime of altruistic service.”

  It sounded absurd, hearing him say it like that. And it wasn't at all what she felt. “Isn't that a good enough reason?”

  “If it were true, it would be good enough.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Your own words called you a liar. You spoke of how much they, the people of Lusitania, need you. But you live among us. You've lived among us all your life. Ready to sacrifice for us, and yet you don't feel yourself to be part of this community.”

  So he wasn't like the adults who always believed lies as long as they made her seem to be the child they wanted her to be. "Why should I feet like part of the community? I'm not. "

  He nodded gravely, as if considering her answer. “What community are you a part of?”

  "The only other communities on Lusitania are the piggies, and you haven't seen me out there with the tree-worshippers. "

  "There are many other communities on Lusitania. For instance, you're a student– there's a community of students.

  “Not for me.”

  “I know. You have no friends, you have no intimate associates, you go to mass but you never go to confession, you are so completely detached that as far as possible you don't touch the life of this colony, you don't touch the life of the human race at any point. From all the evidence, you live in complete isolation.”

  Novinha wasn't prepared for this. He was naming the underlying pain of her life, and she didn't have a strategy devised to cope with it. “If I do, it isn't my fault.”

  “I know that. I know where it began, and I know whose fault it was that it continues to this day.”

  “Mine?”

  “Mine. And everyone else's. But mine most of all, because I knew what was happening to you and I did nothing at all. Until today.”

  “And today you're going to keep me from the one thing that matters to me in my life! Thanks so much for your compassion!”

  Again he nodded solemnly, as if he were accepting and acknowledging her ironic gratitude. “In one sense, Novinha, it doesn't matter that it isn't your fault. Because the town of Milagre is a community, and whether it has treated you badly or not, it must still act as all communities do, to provide the greatest possible happiness for all its members.”

  “Which means everybody on Lusitania except me– me and the piggies.”

  “The xenobiologist is very important to a colony, especially one like this, surrounded by a fence that forever limits our growth. Our xenobiologist must find ways to grow more protein and carbohydrate per hectare, which means genetically altering the Earthborn corn and potatoes to make–”

  “To make maximum use of the nutrients available in the Lusitanian environment. Do you think I'm planning to take the examination without knowing what my life's work would be?”

  “Your life's work, to devote yourself to improving the lives of people you despise.”

  Now Novinha saw the trap that he had laid for her. Too late; it had sprung. “So you think that a xenobiologist can't do her work unless she loves the people who use the things she makes?”

  “I don't care whether you love us or not. What I have to know is what you really want. Why you're so passionate to do this.”

  “Basic psychology. My parents died in this work, and so I'mixying to step into their role.”

  “Maybe,” said Pipo. “And maybe not. What I want to know, Novinha, what I must know before I'll let you take the test, is what community you do belong to.”

  “You said it yourself! I don't belong to any.”

  “Impossible. Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to and the ones she doesn't belong to. I am this and this and this, but definitely not that and that and that. All your definitions are negative. I could make an infinite list of the things you are not. But a person who really believes she doesn't belong to any community at all invariably kills herself, either by killing her body or by giving up her identity and going mad.”

  “That's me, insane to the root.”

  “Not insane. Driven by a sense of purpose that is frightening. If you take the test you'll pass it. But before I let you take it, I have to know: Who will you become when you pass? What do you believe in, what are you part of, what do you care about, what do you love?”

  “Nobody in this or any other world.”

  “I don't believe you.”

  “I've never known a good man or woman in the world except my parents and they're dead! And even they– nobody understands anything.”

  “You.”

  “I'm part of anything, aren't I? But nobody understands anybody, not even you, pretending to be so wise and compassionate but you're only getting me to cry like this because you have the power to stop me from doing what I want to do–”

  “And it isn't xenobiology.”

  “Yes it is! That's part of it, anyway.”

  “And what's the rest of it?”

  “What you are. What you do. Only you're doing it all wrong, you're doing it stupidly.”

  “Xenobiologist and xenologer.”

  “They made a stupid mistake when they created a new science to study the piggies. They were a bunch of tired old anthropologists who put on new hats and called themselves Xenologers. But you can't understand the piggies just by watching the way they behave! They came out of a different evolution! You have to understand their genes, what's going on inside their cells. And the other animals' cells, too, because they can't be studied by themselves, nobody lives in isolation.”

  Don't lecture me, thought Pipo. Tell me what you feel.

  And to provoke her to be more emotional, he whispered, “Except you.”

  It worked. From cold and contemptuous she became hot and defensive. “You'll never understand them! But I will!”

  “Why do you care about them? What are the piggies to you?”

  “You'd never understand. You're a good Catholic.” She said the word with contempt. “It's a book that's on the Index.”

  Pipo's face glowed with sudden understanding. “The Hive Queen and the Hegemon.”

  “He lived three thousand years ago, whoever he was, the one who called himself the Speaker for the Dead. But he understood the buggers! We wiped them all out, the only other alien race we ever knew, we killed them all, but he understood.”

  “And you want to write the story of the piggies the way the original Speaker wrote of the buggers.”

  “The way you say it, you make it sound as easy as doing a scholarly paper. You don't know what it was like to write the Hive Queen and the Hegemon. How much agony it was for him to– to imagine himself inside an alien mind– and come out of it filled with love for the great creature we destroyed. He lived at the same time as the worst human being who ever lived, Ender the Xenocide, who destroyed the buggers– and he did his best to undo what Ender did, the Speaker for the Dead tried to raise the dead–”

  “But he couldn't.”

  “But he did! He made them live again– you'd know it if you had read the book! I don't know about Jesus, I listen to Bishop Peregrino and I don't think there's any power in their prie
sthood to turn wafers into flesh or forgive a milligram of guilt. But the Speaker for the Dead brought the hive queen back to life.”

  “Then where is she?”

  “In here! In me!”

  He nodded. “And someone else is in you. The Speaker for the Dead. That's who you want to be.”

  “It's the only true story I ever heard,” she said. “The only one I care about. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I'm a heretic? And my whole life's work is going to be adding another book to the Index of truths that good Catholics are forbidden to read?”

  “What I wanted to hear,” said Pipo softly, “was the name of what you are instead of the name of all the things that you are not. What you are is the hive queen. What you are is the Speaker for the Dead. It's a very small community, small in numbers, but a great-hearted one. So you chose not to be part of the bands of children who group together for the sole purpose of excluding others, and people look at you and say, poor girl, she's so isolated, but you know a secret, you know who you really are. You are the one human being who is capable of understanding the alien mind, because you are the alien mind; you know what it is to be unhuman because there's never been any human group that gave you credentials as a bona fide homo sapiens.”

  “Now you say I'm not even human? You made me cry like a little girl because you wouldn't let me take the test, you made me humiliate myself, and now you say I'm unhuman?”

  “You can take the test.”

  The words hung in the air.

  “When?” she whispered.

  “Tonight. Tomorrow. Begin when you like. I'll stop my work to take you through the tests as quickly as you like.”

  “Thank you! Thank you, I–”

  “Become the Speaker for the Dead. I'll help you all I can. The law forbids me to take anyone but my apprentice, my son Libo, out to meet the pequeninos. But we'll open our notes to you. Everything we learn, we'll show you. All our guesses and speculation. In return, you also show us all your work, what you find out about the genetic patterns of this world that might help us understand the pequeninos. And when we've learned enough, together, you can write your book, you can become the Speaker. But this time not the Speaker for the Dead. The pequeninos aren't dead.”