Speaker for the dead ew-2

by Orson Scott Card

  One of those who received this report and read Jane's clinching paragraph was Gobawa Ekumbo, the chairman of the Xenological Oversight Committee of the Starways Congress. Within an hour she had forwarded copies of Jane's paragraph– politicians would never understand the actual data– along with her terse conclusion:

  “Recommendation: Immediate termination of Lusitania Colony.”

  There, thought Jane. That ought to stir things up a bit.

  Chapter 12

  Files

  CONGRESSIONAL ORDER 1970:4:14:0001: The license of the Colony of Lusitania is revoked. All files in the colony are to be read regardless of security status; when all data is duplicated in triplicate in memory systems of the Hundred Worlds, all files on Lusitania except those directly pertaining to life support are to be locked with ultimate access.

  The Governor of Lusitania is to be reclassified as a Minister of Congress, to carry out with no local discretion the orders of the Lusitanian Evacuation Oversight Committee, established in Congressional Order 1970:4:14:0002.

  The starship presently in Lusitania orbit, belonging to Andrew Wiggin (occ:speak/dead,cit:earth,reg:001.1998.44-94.10045) is declared Congressional property, following the terms of the Due Compensation Act, CO 120:1:31:0019. This starship is to be used for the immediate transport of xenologers Marcos Vladimir “Miro” Ribeira von Hesse and Ouanda Qhenhatta Figueira Mucumbi to the nearest world, Trondheim, where they will be tried under Congressional Indictment by Attainder on charges of treason, malfeasance, corruption, falsification, fraud, and xenocide, under the appropriate statutes in Starways Code and Congressional Orders.

  CONGRESSIONAL ORDER 1970:4:14:0002: The Colonization and Exploration Oversight Committee shall appoint not less than 5 and not more than 15 persons to form the Lusitanian Evacuation Oversight Committee.

  This committee is charged with immediate acquisition and dispatch of sufficient colony ships to effect the complete evacuation of the human population of Lusitania Colony.

  It shall also prepare, for Congressional approval, plans for the complete obliteration of all evidence on Lusitania of any human presence, including removal of all indigenous flora and fauna that show genetic or behavioral modification resulting from human presence.

  It shall also evaluate Lusitanian compliance with Congressional Orders, and shall make recommendations from time to time concerning the need for further intervention, including the use of force, to compel obedience; or the desirability of unlocking Lusitanian files or other relief to reward Lusitanian cooperation.

  CONGRESSIONAL ORDER 1970:4:14:0003: By the terms of the Secrecy Chapter of the Starways Code, these two orders and any information pertaining to them are to be kept strictly secret until all Lusitanian files have been successfully read and locked, and all necessary starships commandeered and possessed by Congressional agents.

  Olhado didn't know what to make of it. Wasn't the Speaker a grown man? Hadn't he traveled from planet to planet? Yet he didn't have the faintest idea how to handle anything on a computer.

  Also, he was a little testy when Olhado asked him about it. “Olhado, just tell me what program to run.”

  “I can't believe you don't know what it is. I've been doing data comparisons since I was nine years old. Everybody learns how to do it at that age.”

  “Olhado, it's been a long time since I went to school. And it wasn't a normal escola baixa, either.”

  “But everybody uses these programs all the time!”

  “Obviously not everybody. I haven't. If I knew how to do it myself, I wouldn't have had to hire you, would I? And since I'm going to be paying you in offworld funds, your service to me will make a substantial contribution to the Lusitanian economy.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “Neither do I, Olhado. But that reminds me. I'm not sure how to go about paying you.”

  “You just transfer money from your account.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “You've got to be kidding.”

  The Speaker sighed, knelt before Olhado, took him by the hands, and said, “Olhado, I beg you, stop being amazed and help me! There are things I have to do, and I can't do them without the help of somebody who knows how to use computers.”

  “I'd be stealing your money. I'm just a kid. I'm twelve. Quim could help you a lot better than me. He's fifteen, he's actually gotten into the guts of this stuff. He also knows math.”

  “But Quim thinks I'm the infidel and prays every day for me to die.”

  “No, that was only before he met you, and you better not tell him that I told you.”

  “How do I transfer money?”

  Olhado turned back to the terminal and called for the Bank. “What's your real name?” he asked.

  “Andrew Wiggin.” The Speaker spelled it out. The name looked like it was in Stark– maybe the Speaker was one of the lucky ones who learned Stark at home instead of beating it into his head in school.

  “OK, what's your password?”

  “Password?”

  Olhado let his head fall forward onto the terminal, temporarily blanking part of the display. “Please don't tell me you don't know your password.”

  “Look, Olhado, I've had a program, a very smart program, that helped me do all this stuff. All I had to say was Buy this, and the program took care of the finances.”

  “You can't do that. It's illegal to tie up the public systems with a slave program like that. Is that what that thing in your ear is for?”

  “Yes, and it wasn't illegal for me.”

  “I got no eyes, Speaker, but at least that wasn't my own fault. You can't do anything.” Only after he said it did Olhado realize that he was talking to the Speaker as brusquely as if he were another kid.

  “I imagine courtesy is something they teach to thirteen-year-olds,” the Speaker said. Olhado glanced at him. He was smiling. Father would have yelled at him, and then probably gone in and beaten up Mother because she didn't teach manners to her kids. But then, Olhado would never have said anything like that to Father.

  “Sorry,” Olhado said. “But I can't get into your finances for you without your password. You've got to have some idea what it is.”

  “Try using my name.”

  Olhado tried. It didn't work.

  “Try typing 'Jane.'”

  “Nothing.”

  The Speaker grimaced. “Try 'Ender.'”

  “Ender? The Xenocide?”

  “Just try it.”

  It worked. Olhado didn't get it. “Why would you have a password like that? It's like having a dirty word for your password, only the system won't accept any dirty words.”

  “I have an ugly sense of humor,” the Speaker answered. “And my slave program, as you call it, has an even worse one.”

  Olhado laughed. “Right. A program with a sense of humor.” The current balance in liquid funds appeared on the screen. Olhado had never seen so large a number in his life. “OK, so maybe the computer can tell a joke.”

  “That's how much money I have?”

  “It's got to be an error.”

  “Well, I've done a lot of lightspeed travel. Some of my investments must have turned out well while I was en route.”

  The numbers were real. The Speaker for the Dead was older than Olhado had ever thought anybody could possibly be. “I'll tell you what,” said Olhado, “instead of paying me a wage, why don't you just give me a percentage of the interest this gets during the time I work for you? Say, one thousandth of one percent. Then in a couple of weeks I can afford to buy Lusitania and ship the topsoil to another planet.”

  “It's not that much money.”

  “Speaker, the only way you could get that much money from investments is if you were a thousand years old.”

  “Hmm,” said the Speaker.

  And from the look on his face, Olhado realized that he had just said something funny. “Are you a thousand years old?” he asked.

  “Time,” said the Speaker, “time is suc
h a fleeting, insubstantial thing. As Shakespeare said, 'I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.'”

  “What does 'doth' mean?”

  “It means 'does.'”

  “Why do you quote a guy who doesn't even know how to speak Stark?”

  “Transfer to your own account what you think a fair week's wage might be. And then start doing those comparisons of Pipo's and Libo's working files from the last few weeks before their deaths.”

  “They're probably shielded.”

  “Use my password. It ought to get us in.”

  Olhado did the search. The Speaker of the Dead watched him the whole time. Now and then he asked Olhado a question about what he was doing. From his questions Olhado could tell that the Speaker knew more about computers than Olhado himself did. What he didn't know was the particular commands; it was plain that just by watching, the Speaker was figuring out a lot. By the end of the day, when the searches hadn't found anything in particular, it took Olhado only a minute to figure out why the Speaker looked so contented with the day's work. You didn't want results at all, Olhado thought. You wanted to watch how I did the search. I know what you'll be doing tonight, Andrew Wiggin, Speaker for the Dead. You'll be running your own searches on some other files. I may have no eyes, but I can see more than you think.

  What's dumb is that you're keeping it such a secret, Speaker. Don't you know I'm on your side? I won't tell anybody how your password gets you into private files. Even if you make a run at the Mayor's files, or the Bishop's. No need to keep a secret from me. You've only been here three days, but I know you well enough to like you, and I like you well enough that I'd do anything for you, as long as it didn't hurt my family. And you'd never do anything to hurt my family.

  * * *

  Novinha discovered the Speaker's attempts to intrude in her files almost immediately the next morning. He had been arrogantly open about the attempt, and what bothered her was how far he got. Some files he had actually been able to access, though the most important one, the record of the simulations Pipo saw, remained closed to him. What annoyed her most was that he made no attempt at all to conceal himself. His name was stamped in every access directory, even the ones that any schoolchild could have changed or erased.

  Well, she wouldn't let it interfere with her work, she decided. He barges into my house, manipulates my children, spies on my files, all as if he had a right– And so on and so on, until she realized she was getting no work done at all for thinking of vitriolic things to say to him when she saw him again.

  Don't think about him at all. Think about something else.

  Miro and Ela laughing, night before last. Think of that. Of course Miro was back to his sullen self by morning, and Ela, whose cheerfulness lingered a bit longer, was soon as worried-looking, busy, snappish, and indispensible as ever. And Grego may have cried and embraced the man, as Ela told her, but the next morning he got the scissors and cut up his own bedsheets into thin, precise ribbons, and at school he slammed his head into Brother Adomai's crotch, causing an abrupt end to classwork and leading to a serious consultation with Dona Crist . So much for the Speaker's healing hands. He may think he can walk into my home and fix everything he thinks I've done wrong, but he'll find some wounds aren't so easily healed.

  Except that Dona Crist also told her that Quara actually spoke to Sister Bebei in class, in front of all the other children no less, and why? To tell them that she had met the scandalous, terrible Falante pelos Mortos, and his name was Andrew, and he was every bit as awful as Bishop Peregrino had said, and maybe even worse, because he tortured Grego until he cried– and finally Sister Bebei had actually been forced to ask Quara to stop talking. That was something, to pull Quara out of her profound self-absorption.

  And Olhado, so self-conscious, so detached, was now excited, couldn't stop talking about the Speaker at supper last night. Do you know that he didn't even know how to transfer money? And you wouldn't believe the awful password that he has– I thought the computers were supposed to reject words like that– no, I can't tell you, it's a secret– I was practically teaching him how to do searches– but I think he understands computers, he's not an idiot or anything– he said he used to have a slave program, that's why he's got that jewel in his ear– he told me I could pay myself anything I want, not that there's much to buy, but I can save it for when I get out on my own– I think he's really old. I think he remembers things from a long time ago. I think he speaks Stark as his native language, there aren't many people in the Hundred Worlds who actually grow up speaking it, do you think maybe he was born on Earth?

  Until Quim finally screamed at him to shut up about that servant of the devil or he'd ask the Bishop to conduct an exorcism because Olhado was obviously possessed; and when Olhado only grinned and winked, Quim stormed out of the kitchen, out of the house, and didn't come back until late at night. The Speaker might as well live at our house, thought Novinha, because he keeps influencing the family even when he isn't there and now he's prying in my files and I won't have it.

  Except that, as usual, it's my own fault, I'm the one who called him here, I'm the one who took him from whatever place he called home– he says he had a sister there– Trondheim, it was– it's my fault he's here in this miserable little town in a backwater of the Hundred Worlds, surrounded by a fence that still doesn't keep the piggies from killing everyone I love– And once again she thought of Miro, who looked so much like his real father that she couldn't understand why no one accused her of adultery, thought of him lying on the hillside as Pipo had lain, thought of the piggies cutting him open with their cruel wooden knives. They will. No matter what I do, they will. And even if they don't, the day will come soon when he will be old enough to marry Ouanda, and then I'll have to tell him who he really is, and why they can never marry, and he'll know then that I did deserve all the pain that C o inflicted on me, that he struck me with the hand of God to punish me for my sins.

  Even me, thought Novinha. This Speaker has forced me to think of things I've managed to hide from myself for weeks, months at a time. How long has it been since I've spent a morning thinking about my children? And with hope, no less. How long since I've let myself think of Pipo and Libo? How long since I've even noticed that I do believe in God, at least the vengeful, punishing Old Testament God who wiped out cities with a smile because they didn't pray to him– if Christ amounts to anything I don't know it.

  Thus Novinha passed the day, doing no work, while her thoughts also refused to carry her to any sort of conclusion.

  In midafternoon Quim came to the door. “I'm sorry to bother you, Mother.”

  “It doesn't matter,” she said. “I'm useless today, anyway.”

  “I know you don't care that Olhado is spending his time with that satanic bastard, but I thought you should know that Quara went straight there after school. To his house.”

  “Oh?”

  “Or don't you care about that either, Mother? What, are you planning to turn down the sheets and let him take Father's place completely?”

  Novinha leapt to her feet and advanced on the boy with cold fury. He wilted before her.

  “I'm sorry, Mother, I was so angry–”

  “In all my years of marriage to your father, I never once permitted him to raise a hand against my children. But if he were alive today I'd ask him to give you a thrashing.”

  “You could ask,” said Quim defiantly, “but I'd kill him before I let him lay a hand on me. You might like getting slapped around, but nobody'll ever do it to me.”

  She didn't decide to do it; her hand swung out and slapped his face before she noticed it was happening.

  It couldn't have hurt him very much. But he immediately burst into tears, slumped down, and sat on the floor, his back to Novinha. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he kept murmuring as he cried.

  She knelt behind him and awkwardly rubbed his shoulders.

  It occurred to her that she hadn't so much as embraced the boy since he was Grego's age. When did I dec
ide to be so cold? And why, when I touched him again, was it a slap instead of a kiss?

  “I'm worried about what's happening, too,” said Novinha.

  “He's wrecking everything,” said Quim. “He's come here and everything's changing.”

  “Well, for that matter, Estevao, things weren't so very wonderful that a change wasn't welcome.”

  “Not his way. Confession and penance and absolution, that's the change we need.”

  Not for the first time, Novinha envied Quim's faith in the power of the priests to wash away sin. That's because you've never sinned, my son, that's because you know nothing of the impossibility of penance.

  “I think I'll have a talk with the Speaker,” said Novinha.

  “And take Quara home?”

  “I don't know. I can't help but notice that he got her talking again. And it isn't as if she likes him. She hasn't a good word to say about him.”

  “Then why did she go to his house?”

  “I suppose to say something rude to him. You've got to admit that's an improvement over her silence.”

  “The devil disguises himself by seeming to do good acts, and then–”

  “Quim, don't lecture me on demonology. Take me to the Speaker's house, and I'll deal with him.”

  They walked on the path around the bend of the river. The watersnakes were molting, so that snags and fragments of rotting skin made the ground slimy underfoot. That's my next project, thought Novinha. I need to figure out what makes these nasty little monsters tick, so that maybe I can find something useful to do with them. Or at least keep them from making the riverbank smelly and foul for six weeks out of the year. The only saving grace was that the snakeskins seemed to fertilize the soil; the soft fivergrass grew in thickest where the snakes molted. It was the only gentle, pleasant form of life native to Lusitania; all summer long people came to the riverbank to lie on the narrow strip of natural lawn that wound between the reeds and the harsh prairie grass. The snakeskin slime, unpleasant as it was, still promised good things for the future.