Speaker for the dead ew-2

by Orson Scott Card

  “He doesn't want you to go,” said Quim.

  “I'll stay if you want,” said Novinha. “But you should sleep again. Navio said that the more you sleep for a while–”

  “Mm. Mm. Mm.”

  “Doesn't want to sleep, either,” said Quim.

  Novinha stifled her immediate response, to snap at Quim and tell him that she could hear his answers perfectly well for herself. This was no time for quarreling. Besides, it was Quim who had worked out the system that Miro was using to communicate. He had a right to take pride in it, to pretend that he was Miro's voice. It was his way of affirming that he was part of the family. That he was not quitting because of what he learned in the praqa today. It was his way of forgiving her, so she held her tongue.

  “Maybe he wants to tell us something,” said Olhado.

  “Mm.”

  “Or ask a question?” said Quim.

  “Ma. Aa.”

  “That's great,” said Quim. “If he can't move his hands, he can't write.”

  "Sem problema," said Olhado. "Scanning. He can scan. If we bring him in by the terminal, I can make it scan the letters and he just says yes when it hits the letters he wants.

  “That'll take forever,” said Quim.

  “Do you want to try that, Miro?” asked Novinha.

  He wanted to.

  The three of them carried him to the front room and laid him on the bed there. Olhado oriented the terminal so it displayed all the letters of the alphabet, facing so Miro could see them. He wrote a short program that caused each letter to light up in turn for a fraction of a second. It took a few trial runs for the speed to be right– slow enough that Miro could make a sound that meant this letter before the light moved on to the next one.

  Miro, in turn, kept things moving faster yet by deliberately abbreviating his words.

  P-I-G.

  “Piggies,” said Olhado.

  “Yes,” said Novinha. “Why were you crossing the fence with the piggies?”

  “Mmmmm!”

  “He's asking a question, Mother,” said Quim. “He doesn't want to answer any.”

  “Aa.”

  “Do you want to know about the piggies that were with you when you crossed the fence?” asked Novinha. He did. “They've gone back into the forest. With Ouanda and Ela and the Speaker for the Dead.” Quickly she told him about the meeting in the Bishop's chambers, what they had learned about the piggies, and above all what they had decided to do. “When they turned off the fence to save you, Miro, it was a decision to rebel against Congress. Do you understand? The Committee's rules are finished. The fence is nothing but wires now. The gate will stand open.”

  Tears came to Miro's eyes.

  “Is that all you wanted to know?” asked Novinha. “You should sleep.”

  No, he said. No no no no.

  “Wait till his eyes are clear,” said Quim. “And then we'll scan some more.”

  D-I-G-A F-A-L–

  “Diga ao Falante pelos Mortos,” said Olhado.

  “What should we tell the Speaker?” asked Quim.

  “You should sleep now and tell us later,” said Novinha. “He won't be back for hours. He's negotiating a set of rules to govern relations between the piggies and us. To stop them from killing any more of us, the way they killed Pipo and L– and your father.”

  But Miro refused to sleep. He continued spelling out his message as the terminal scanned. Together the three of them worked out what he was trying to get them to tell the Speaker. And they understood that he wanted them to go now, before the negotiations ended.

  So Novinha left Dom Crist o and Dona Crist to watch over the house and the little children. On the way out of the house she stopped beside her oldest son. The exertion had worn him out; his eyes were closed and his breathing was regular. She touched his hand, held it, squeezed it; he couldn't feel her touch, she knew, but then it was herself she was comforting, not him.

  He opened his eyes. And, ever so gently, she felt his fingers tighten on hers. “I felt it,” she whispered to him. “You'll be all right.”

  He shut his eyes against his tears. She got up and walked blindly to the door. “I have something in my eye,” she told Olhado. “Lead me for a few minutes until I can see for myself.”

  Quim was already at the fence. “The gate's too far!” he shouted. “Can you climb over, Mother?”

  She could, but it wasn't easy. “No doubt about it,” she said. “Bosquinha's going to have to let us install another gate right here.”

  * * *

  It was late now, past midnight, and both Ouanda and Ela was getting sleepy. Ender was not. He had been on edge for hours in his bargaining with Shouter; his body chemistry had responded, and even if he had gone home right now it would have been hours before he was capable of sleep.

  He now knew far more about what the piggies wanted and needed. Their forest was their home, their nation; it was all the definition of property they had ever needed. Now, however, the amaranth fields had caused them to see that the prairie was also useful land, which they needed to control. Yet they had little concept of land measurement. How many hectares did they need to keep under cultivation? How much land could the humans use? Since the piggies themselves barely understood their needs, it was hard for Ender to pin them down.

  Harder still was the concept of law and government. The wives ruled: to the piggies, it was that simple. But Ender had finally got them to understand that humans made their laws differently, and that human laws applied to human problems. To make them understand why humans needed their own laws, Ender had to explain to them human mating patterns. He was amused to note that Shouter was appalled at the notion of adults mating with each other, and of men having an equal voice with women in the making of the laws. The idea of family and kinship separate from the tribe was “brother blindness” to her. It was all right for Human to take pride in his father's many matings, but as far as the wives were concerned, they chose fathers solely on the basis of what was good for the tribe. The tribe and the individual– they were the only entities the wives respected.

  Finally, though, they understood that human laws must apply within the borders of human settlements, and piggy laws must apply within the piggy tribes. Where the borders should be was entirely a different matter. Now, after three hours, they had finally agreed to one thing and one thing only: Piggy law applied within the forest, and all humans who came within the forest were subject to it. Human law applied within the fence, and all piggies who came there were subject to human government. All the rest of the planet would be divided up later. It was a very small triumph, but at least there was some agreement.

  “You must understand,” Ender told her, “that humans will need a lot of open land. But we're only the beginning of the problem. You want the hive queen to teach you, to help you mine ore and smelt metals and make tools. But she'll also need land. And in a very short time she'll be far stronger than either humans or Little Ones.” Every one of her buggers, he explained, was perfectly obedient and infinitely hardworking. They would quickly outstrip the humans in their productivity and power. Once she was restored to life on Lusitania, she would have to be reckoned with at every turn.

  “Rooter says she can be trusted,” said Human. And, translating for Shouter, he said, “The mothertree also gives the hive queen her trust.”

  “Do you give her your land?” Ender insisted.

  “The world is big,” Human translated for Shouter. “She can use all the forests of the other tribes. So can you. We give them to you freely.”

  Ender looked at Ouanda and Ela. “That's all very good,” said Ela, “but are those forests theirs to give?”

  “Definitely not,” said Ouanda. “They even have wars with the other tribes.”

  “We'll kill them for you if they give you trouble,” offered Human. “We're very strong now. Three hundred twenty babies. In ten years no tribe can stand against us.”

  “Human,” said Ender, “tell Shouter that we are dealing w
ith this tribe now. We'll deal with other tribes later.”

  Human translated quickly, his words tumbling over each other, and quickly had Shouter's response. “No no no no no.”

  “What is she objecting to?” asked Ender.

  “You won't deal with our enemies. You came to us. If you go to them, then you are the enemy, too.”

  It was at that moment that the lights appeared in the forest behind them, and Arrow and Leaf-eater led Novinha, Quim, and Olhado into the wives' clearing.

  “Miro sent us,” Olhado explained.

  “How is he?” asked Ouanda.

  “Paralyzed,” said Quim bluntly. It saved Novinha the effort of explaining it gently.

  “Nossa Senhora,” whispered Ouanda.

  “But much of it is temporary,” said Novinha. “Before I left, I squeezed his hand. He felt it, and squeezed me back. Just a little, but the nerve connections aren't dead, not all of them, anyway.”

  "Excuse me," said Ender, "but that's a conversation you can carry on back in Milagre. I have another matter to attend to here. "

  “Sorry,” Novinha said. “Miro's message. He couldn't speak, but he gave it to us letter by letter, and we figured out what went in the cracks. The piggies are planning war. Using the advantages they've gained from us. Arrows, their greater numbers– they'd be irresistible. As I understand it, though, Miro says that their warfare isn't just a matter of conquest of territory. It's an opportunity for genetic mixing. Male exogamy. The winning tribe gets the use of the trees that grow from the bodies of the war dead.”

  Ender looked at Human, Leaf-eater, Arrow. "It's true," said Arrow. "Of course it's true. We are the wisest of tribes now. All of us will make better fathers than any of the other piggies. "

  “I see,” said Ender.

  “That's why Miro wanted us to come to you now, tonight,” said Novinha. “While the negotiations still aren't final. That has to end.”

  Human stood up, bounced up and down as if he were about to take off and fly. “I won't translate that,” said Human.

  “I will,” said Leaf-eater.

  “Stop!” shouted Ender. His voice was far louder than he had ever let it be heard before. Immediately everyone fell silent; the echo of his shout seemed to linger among the trees. “Leaf-eater,” said Ender, “I will have no interpreter but Human.”

  “Who are you to tell me that I may not speak to the wives? I am a piggy, and you are nothing.”

  “Human,” said Ender, “tell Shouter that if she lets Leafeater translate words that we humans have said among ourselves, then he is a spy. And if she lets him spy on us, we will go home now and you will have nothing from us. I'll take the hive queen to another world to restore her. Do you understand?”

  Of course he understood. Ender also knew that Human was pleased. Leaf-eater was trying to usurp Human's role and discredit him– along with Ender. When Human finished translating Ender's words, Shouter sang at Leaf-eater. Abashed, he quickly retreated to the woods to watch with the other piggies.

  But Human was by no means a puppet. He gave no sign that he was grateful. He looked Ender in the eye. “You said you wouldn't try to change us.”

  “I said I wouldn't try to change you more than is necessary.”

  “Why is this necessary? It's between us and the other piggies.”

  “Careful,” said Ouanda. “He's very upset.”

  Before he could hope to persuade Shouter, he had to convince Human. “You are our first friends among the piggies. You have our trust and our love. We will never do anything to harm you, or to give any other piggies an advantage over you. But we didn't come just to you. We represent all of humankind, and we've come to teach all we can to all of the piggies. Regardless of tribe.”

  “You don't represent all humankind. You're about to fight a war with other humans. So how can you say that our wars are evil and your wars are good?”

  Surely Pizarro, for all his shortcomings, had an easier time of it with Atahualpa. "We're trying not to fight a war with other humans," said Ender. "And if we fight one, it won't be our war, trying to gain an advantage over them. It will be your war, trying to win you the right to travel among the stars." Ender held up his open hand. "We have set aside our humanness to become ramen with you." He closed his hand into a fist. "Human and piggy and hive queen, here on Lusitania, will be one. All humans. All buggers. All piggies.

  Human sat in silence, digesting this.

  “Speaker,” he finally said. “This is very hard. Until you humans came, other piggies were– always to be killed, and their third life was to be slaves to us in forests that we kept. This forest was once a battlefield, and the most ancient trees are the warriors who died in battle. Our oldest fathers are the heroes of that war, and our houses are made of the cowards. All our lives we prepare to win battles with our enemies, so that our wives can make a mothertree in a new battle forest, and make us mighty and great. These last ten years we have learned to use arrows to kill from far off. Pots and cabra skins to carry water across the drylands. Amaranth and merdona root so we can be many and strong and carry food with us far from the macios of our home forest. We rejoiced in this because it meant that we would always be victorious in war. We would carry our wives, our little mothers, our heroes to every corner of the great world, and finally one day out into the stars. This is our dream, Speaker, and you tell me now that you want us to lose it like wind in the sky.”

  It was a powerful speech. None of the others offered Ender any suggestions about what to say in answer. Human had half-convinced them.

  “You dream is a good one,” said Ender. “It's the dream of every living creature. The desire that is the very root of life itself: To grow until all the space you can see is part of you, under your control. It's the desire for greatness. There are two ways, though, to fulfil it. One way is to kill anything that is not yourself, to swallow it up or destroy it, until nothing is left to oppose you. But that way is evil. You say to all the universe, Only I will be great, and to make room for me the rest of you must give up even what you already have, and become nothing. Do you understand, Human, that if we humans felt this way, acted this way, we could kill every piggy in Lusitania and make this place our home. How much of your dream would be left, if we were evil?”

  Human was trying hard to understand. “I see that you gave us great gifts, when you could have taken from us even the little that we had. But why did you give us the gifts, if we can't use them to become great?”

  “We want you to grow, to travel among the stars. Here on Lusitania we want you to be strong and powerful, with hundreds and thousands of brothers and wives. We want to teach you to grow many kinds of plants and raise many different animals. Ela and Novinha, these two women, will work all the days of their lives to develop more plants that can live here in Lusitania, and every good thing that they make, they'll give to you. So you can grow. But why does a single piggy in any other forest have to die, just so you can have these gifts? And why would it hurt you in any way, if we also gave the same gifts to them?”

  “If they become just as strong as we are, then what have we gained?”

  What am I expecting this brother to do, thought Ender. His people have always measured themselves against the other tribes. Their forest isn't fifty hectares or five hundred– it's either larger or smaller than the forest of the tribe to the west or the south. What I have to do now is the work of a generation: I have to teach him a new way of conceiving the stature of his own people. “Is Rooter great?” asked Ender.

  “I say he is,” said Human. “He's my father. His tree isn't the oldest or thickest, but no father that we remember has ever had so many children so quickly after he was planted.”

  “So in a way, all the children that he fathered are still part of him. The more children he fathers, the greater he becomes.” Human nodded slowly. “And the more you accomplish in your life, the greater you make your father, is that true?”

  “If his children do well, then yes, it's a great hono
r to the fathertree.”

  “Do you have to kill all the other great trees in order for your father to be great?”

  “That's different,” said Human. “All the other great trees are fathers of the tribe. And the lesser trees are still brothers.” Yet Ender could see that Human was uncertain now. He was resisting Ender's ideas because they were strange, not because they were wrong or incomprehensible. He was beginning to understand.

  “Look at the wives,” said Ender. “They have no children. They can never be great the way that your father is great.”

  “Speaker, you know that they're the greatest of all. The whole tribe obeys them. When they rule us well, the tribe prospers; when the tribe becomes many, then the wives are also made strong–”

  “Even though not a single one of you is their own child.”

  “How could we be?” asked Human.

  “And yet you add to their greatness. Even though they aren't your mother or your father, they still grow when you grow.”

  “We're all the same tribe.”

  “But why are you the same tribe? You have different fathers, different mothers.”

  “Because we are the tribe! We live here in the forest, we–”

  “If another piggy came here from another tribe, and asked you to let him stay and be a brother–”

  “We would never make him a fathertree!”

  “But you tried to make Pipo and Libo fathertrees.”

  Human was breathing heavily. “I see,” he said. “They were part of the tribe. From the sky, but we made them brothers and tried to make them fathers. The tribe is whatever we believe it is. If we say the tribe is all the Little Ones in the forest, and all the trees, then that is what the tribe is. Even though some of the oldest trees here came from warriors of two different tribes, fallen in battle. We become one tribe because we say we're one tribe.”

  Ender marveled at his mind, this small raman. How few humans were able to grasp this idea, or let it extend beyond the narrow confines of their tribe, their family, their nation.

  Human walked behind Ender, leaned against him, the weight of the young piggy pressed against his back. Ender felt Human's breath on his cheek, and then their cheeks were pressed together, both of them looking in the same direction. All at once Ender understood: “You see what I see,” said Ender.