Speaker for the Dead

by Orson Scott Card

  "Pipo was dead."

  "But he loved you."

  "You don't know anything, Speaker! You were twenty-two lightyears away! Besides, it wasn't me I was calling worthless, it was Marcao!"

  "But you don't believe that, Novinha. Because you know the one act of kindness and generosity that redeems that poor man's life."

  Novinha did not understand her own terror, but she had to silence him before he named it, even though she had no idea what kindness of Cao's he thought he had discovered. "How dare you call me Novinha!" she shouted. "No one has called me that in four years!"

  In answer, he raised his hand and brushed his fingers across the back of her cheek. It was a timid gesture, almost an adolescent one; it reminded her of Libo, and it was more than she could bear. She took his hand, hurled it away, then shoved past him into the room. "Get out!" she shouted at Miro. Her son got up quickly and backed to the door. She could see from his face that after all Miro had seen in this house, she still had managed to surprise him with her rage.

  "You'll have nothing from me!" she shouted at the Speaker.

  "I didn't come to take anything from you," he said quietly.

  "I don't want anything you have to give, either! You're worthless to me, do you hear that? You're the one who's worthless! Lixo, ruina, estrago--vai fora d'aqui, nao tens direito estar em minha casa!" You have no right to be in my house.

  "Nao es estrago," he whispered, "es solo fecundo, e vou plantar jardim ai." Then, before she could answer, he closed the door and was gone.

  In truth she had no answer to give him, his words were so outrageous. She had called him estrago, but he answered as if she had called herself a desolation. And she had spoken to him derisively, using the insultingly familiar tu for "you" instead of o Senhor or even the informal voce. It was the way one spoke to a child or a dog. And yet when he answered in the same voice, with the same familiarity, it was entirely different. "Thou art fertile ground, and I will plant a garden in thee." It was the sort of thing a poet says to his mistress, or even a husband to his wife, and the tu was intimate, not arrogant. How dare he, she whispered to herself, touching the cheek that he had touched. He is far crueler than I ever imagined a speaker might be. Bishop Peregrino was right. He is dangerous, the infidel, the anti-Christ, he walks brazenly into places in my heart that I had kept as holy ground, where no one else was ever permitted to stand. He treads on the few small shoots that cling to life in that stony soil, how dare he, I wish I had died before seeing him, he will surely undo me before he's through.

  She was vaguely aware of someone crying. Quara. Of course the shouting had wakened her; she never slept soundly. Novinha almost opened the door and went out to comfort her, but then she heard the crying stop, and a soft male voice singing to her. The song was in another language. German, it sounded to Novinha, or Nordic; she did not understand it, whatever it was. But she knew who sang it, and knew that Quara was comforted.

  Novinha had not felt such fear since she first realized that Miro was determined to become a Zenador and follow in the footsteps of the two men that the piggies had murdered. This man is unknotting the nets of my family, and stringing us together whole again; but in the process he will find my secrets. If he finds out how Pipo died, and speaks the truth, then Miro will learn that same secret, and it will kill him. I will make no more sacrifices to the piggies; they are too cruel a god for me to worship anymore.

  Still later, as she lay in bed behind her closed door, trying to go to sleep, she heard more laughter from the front of the house, and this time she could hear Quim and Olhado both laughing along with Miro and Ela. She imagined she could see them, the room bright with mirth. But as sleep took her, and the imagination became a dream, it was not the Speaker who sat among her children, teaching them to laugh; it was Libo, alive again, and known to everyone as her true husband, the man she had married in her heart even though she refused to marry him in the Church. Even in her sleep it was more joy than she could bear, and tears soaked the sheet of her bed.

  9

  CONGENITAL DEFECT

  CIDA: The Descolada body isn't bacterial. It seems to enter the cells of the body and take up permanent residence, just like mitochondria, reproducing when the cell reproduces. The fact that it spread to a new species within only a few years of our arrival here suggests that it is wildly adaptable. It must surely have spread through the entire biosphere of Lusitania long ago, so that it may now be endemic here, a permanent infection.

  GUSTO: If it's permanent and everywhere, it isn't an infection, Cida, it's part of normal life.

  CIDA: But it isn't necessarily inborn--it has the ability to spread. But yes, if it's endemic then all the indigenous species must have found ways to fight it off--

  GUSTO: Or adapt to it and include it in their normal life cycle. Maybe they NEED it.

  CIDA: They NEED something that takes apart their genetic molecules and puts them back together at random?

  GUSTO: Maybe that's why there are so few different species in Lusitania. The Descolada may be fairly recent--only half a million years old--and most species couldn't adapt.

  CIDA: I wish we weren't dying, Gusto. The next xenobiologist will probably work with standard genetic adaptations and won't follow this up.

  GUSTO: That's the only reason you can think of for regretting our death?

  --Vladimir Tiago Gussman and Ekaterina Maria Aparecida do Norte von Hesse-Gussman, unpublished dialogue embedded in working notes, two days before their deaths; first quoted in "Lost Threads of Understanding,"

  Meta-Science, the Journal of Methodology, 2001: 12:12:144-45

  Ender did not get home from the Ribeira house until late that night, and he spent more than an hour trying to make sense of all that happened, especially after Novinha came home. Despite this, Ender awoke early the next morning, his thoughts already full of questions he had to answer. It was always this way when he was preparing to speak a death; he could hardly rest from trying to piece together the story of the dead man as he saw himself, the life the dead woman meant to live, however badly it had turned out. This time, though, there was an added anxiety. He cared more for the living this time than he ever had before.

  "Of course you're more involved," said Jane, after he tried to explain his confusion to her. "You fell in love with Novinha before you left Trondheim."

  "Maybe I loved the young girl, but this woman is nasty and selfish. Look what she let happen to her children."

  "This is the Speaker for the Dead? Judging someone by appearances?"

  "Maybe I've fallen in love with Grego."

  "You've always been a sucker for people who pee on you."

  "And Quara. All of them--even Miro, I like the boy."

  "And they love you, Ender."

  He laughed. "People always think they love me, until I speak. Novinha's more perceptive than most--she already hates me before I tell the truth."

  "You're as blind about yourself as anyone else, Speaker," said Jane. "Promise me that when you die, you'll let me speak your death. Have I got things to say."

  "Keep them to yourself," said Ender wearily. "You're even worse at this business than I am."

  He began his list of questions to be resolved.

  1. Why did Novinha marry Marcao in the first place?

  2. Why did Marcao hate his children?

  3. Why does Novinha hate herself?

  4. Why did Miro call me to speak Libo's death?

  5. Why did Ela call me to speak her father's death?

  6. Why did Novinha change her mind about my speaking Pipo's death?

  7. What was the immediate cause of Marcao's death?

  He stopped with the seventh question. It would be easy to answer it; a merely clinical matter. So that was where he would begin.

  The physician who autopsied Marcao was called Navio, which meant "ship."

  "Not for my size," he said, laughing. "Or because I'm much of a swimmer. My full name is Enrique o Navigador Caronada. You can bet I'm glad the
y took my nickname from 'shipmaster' rather than from 'little cannon.' Too many obscene possibilities in that one."

  Ender was not deceived by his joviality. Navio was a good Catholic and he obeyed his bishop as well as anyone. He was determined to keep Ender from learning anything, though he'd not be uncheerful about it.

  "There are two ways I can get the answers to my questions," Ender said quietly. "I can ask you, and you can tell me truthfully. Or I can submit a petition to the Starways Congress for your records to be opened to me. The ansible charges are very high, and since the petition is a routine one, and your resistance to it is contrary to law, the cost will be deducted from your colony's already straitened funds, along with a double-the-cost penalty and a reprimand for you."

  Navio's smile gradually disappeared as Ender spoke. He answered coldly. "Of course I'll answer your questions," he said.

  "There's no 'of course' about it," said Ender. "Your bishop counseled the people of Milagre to carry out an unprovoked and unjustified boycott of a legally called-for minister. You would do everyone a favor if you would inform them that if this cheerful noncooperation continues, I will petition for my status to be changed from minister to inquisitor. I assure you that I have a very good reputation with the Starways Congress, and my petition will be successful."

  Navio knew exactly what that meant. As an inquisitor, Ender would have congressional authority to revoke the colony's Catholic license on the grounds of religious persecution. It would cause a terrible upheaval among the Lusitanians, not least because the Bishop would be summarily dismissed from his position and sent to the Vatican for discipline.

  "Why would you do such a thing when you know we don't want you here?" said Navio.

  "Someone wanted me here or I wouldn't have come," said Ender. "You may not like the law when it annoys you, but it protects many a Catholic on worlds where another creed is licensed."

  Navio drummed his fingers on his desk. "What are your questions, Speaker," he said. "Let's get this done."

  "It's simple enough, to start with, at least. What was the proximate cause of the death of Marcos Maria Ribeira?"

  "Marcao!" said Navio. "You couldn't possibly have been summoned to speak his death, he only passed away a few weeks ago--"

  "I have been asked to speak several deaths, Dom Navio, and I choose to begin with Marcao's."

  Navio grimaced. "What if I ask for proof of your authority?"

  Jane whispered in Ender's ear. "Let's dazzle the dear boy." Immediately, Navio's terminal came alive with official documents, while one of Jane's most authoritative voices declared, "Andrew Wiggin, Speaker for the Dead, has accepted the call for an explanation of the life and death of Marcos Maria Ribeira, of the city of Milagre, Lusitania Colony."

  It was not the document that impressed Navio, however. It was the fact that he had not actually made the request, or even logged on to his terminal. Navio knew at once that the computer had been activated through the jewel in the Speaker's ear, but it meant that a very high-level logic routine was shadowing the Speaker and enforcing compliance with his requests. No one on Lusitania, not even Bosquinha herself, had ever had authority to do that. Whatever this speaker was, Navio concluded, he's a bigger fish than even Bishop Peregrino can hope to fry.

  "All right," Navio said, forcing a laugh. Now, apparently, he remembered how to be jovial again. "I meant to help you anyway--the Bishop's paranoia doesn't afflict everyone in Milagre, you know."

  Ender smiled back at him, taking his hypocrisy at face value.

  "Marcos Ribeira died of a congenital defect." He rattled off a long pseudo-Latin name. "You've never heard of it because it's quite rare, and is passed on only through the genes. Beginning at the onset of puberty, in most cases, it involves the gradual replacement of exocrine and endocrine glandular tissues with lipidous cells. What that means is that bit by bit over the years, the adrenal glands, the pituitary, the liver, the testes, the thyroid, and so on, are all replaced by large agglomerations of fat cells."

  "Always fatal? Irreversible?"

  "Oh, yes. Actually, Marcao survived ten years longer than usual. His case was remarkable in several ways. In every other recorded case--and admittedly there aren't that many--the disease attacks the testicles first, rendering the victim sterile and, in most cases, impotent. With six healthy children, it's obvious that Marcos Ribeira's testes were the last of his glands to be affected. Once they were attacked, however, progress must have been unusually fast--the testes were completely replaced with fat cells, even though much of his liver and thyroid were still functioning."

  "What killed him in the end?"

  "The pituitary and the adrenals weren't functioning. He was a walking dead man. He just fell down in one of the bars, in the middle of some ribald song, as I heard."

  As always, Ender's mind automatically found seeming contradictions. "How does a hereditary disease get passed on if it makes its victims sterile?"

  "It's usually passed through collateral lines. One child will die of it; his brothers and sisters won't manifest the disease at all, but they'll pass on the tendency to their children. Naturally, though, we were afraid that Marcao, having children, would pass on the defective gene to all of them."

  "You tested them?"

  "Not a one had any of the genetic deformations. You can bet that Dona Ivanova was looking over my shoulder the whole time. We zeroed in immediately on the problem genes and cleared each of the children, bim bim bim, just like that."

  "None of them had it? Not even a recessive tendency?"

  "Gracas a Deus," said the doctor. "Who would ever have married them if they had had the poisoned genes? As it was, I can't understand how Marcao's own genetic defect went undiscovered."

  "Are genetic scans routine here?"

  "Oh, no, not at all. But we had a great plague some thirty years ago. Dona Ivanova's own parents, the Venerado Gusto and the Venerada Cida, they conducted a detailed genetic scan of every man, woman, and child in the colony. It's how they found the cure. And their computer comparisons would definitely have turned up this particular defect--that's how I found out what it was when Marcao died. I'd never heard of the disease, but the computer had it on file,"

  "And Os Venerados didn't find it?"

  "Apparently not, or they would surely have told Marcos. And even if they hadn't told him, Ivanova herself should have found it."

  "Maybe she did," said Ender.

  Navio laughed aloud. "Impossible. No woman in her right mind would deliberately bear the children of a man with a genetic defect like that. Marcao was surely in constant agony for many years. You don't wish that on your own children. No, Ivanova may be eccentric, but she's not insane."

  Jane was quite amused. When Ender got home, she made her image appear above his terminal just so she could laugh uproariously.

  "He can't help it," said Ender. "In a devout Catholic colony like this, dealing with the Biologista, one of the most respected people here, of course he doesn't think to question his basic premises."

  "Don't apologize for him," said Jane. "I don't expect wetware to work as logically as software. But you can't ask me not to be amused."

  "In a way it's rather sweet of him," said Ender. "He'd rather believe that Marcao's disease was different from every other recorded case. He'd rather believe that somehow Ivanova's parents didn't notice that Marcos had the disease, and so she married him in ignorance, even though Ockham's razor decrees that we believe the simplest explanation: Marcao's decay progressed like every other, testes first, and all of Novinha's children were sired by someone else. No wonder Marcao was bitter and angry. Every one of her six children reminded him that his wife was sleeping with another man. It was probably part of their bargain in the beginning that she would not be faithful to him. But six children is rather rubbing his nose in it."

  "The delicious contradictions of religious life," said Jane. "She deliberately set out to commit adultery--but she would never dream of using a contraceptive."

 
"Have you scanned the children's genetic pattern to find the most likely father?"

  "You mean you haven't guessed?"

  "I've guessed, but I want to make sure the clinical evidence doesn't disprove the obvious answer."

  "It was Libo, of course. What a dog! He sired six children on Novinha, and four more on his own wife."

  "What I don't understand," said Ender, "is why Novinha didn't marry Libo in the first place. It makes no sense at all for her to have married a man she obviously despised, whose disease she certainly knew about, and then to go ahead and bear children to the man she must have loved from the beginning."

  "Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind," Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head."

  Miro carefully picked his way through the forest. He recognized trees now and then, or thought he did--no human could ever have the piggies' knack for naming every single tree in the woods. But then, humans didn't worship the trees as totems of their ancestors, either.

  Miro had deliberately chosen a longer way to reach the piggies' log house. Ever since Libo accepted Miro as a second apprentice, to work with him alongside Libo's daughter, Ouanda, he had taught them that they must never form a path leading from Milagre to the piggies' home. Someday, Libo warned them, there may be trouble between human and piggy; we will make no path to guide a pogrom to its destination. So today Miro walked the far side of the creek, along the top of the high bank.

  Sure enough, a piggy soon appeared in the near distance, watching him. That was how Libo reasoned out, years ago, that the females must live somewhere in that direction; the males always kept a watch on the Zenadors when they went too near. And, as Libo had insisted, Miro made no effort to move any farther in the forbidden direction. His curiosity dampened whenever he remembered what Libo's body looked like when he and Ouanda found it. Libo had not been quite dead yet; his eyes were open and moving. He only died when both Miro and Ouanda knelt at either side of him, each holding a blood-covered hand. Ah, Libo, your blood still pumped when your heart lay naked in your open chest. If only you could have spoken to us, one word to tell us why they killed you.