“Is it going to rain?” asked Miro. To a piggy this meant: are you interrupting me for my own sake, or for yours?
“It rained fire today,” said Leaf-eater. “Out in the prairie.”
“Yes. We have a visitor from another world.”
“Is it the Speaker?”
Miro didn't answer.
“You must bring him to see us.”
Miro didn't answer.
“I root my face in the ground for you, Miro, my limbs are lumber for your house.”
Miro hated it when they begged for something. It was as if they thought of him as someone particularly wise or strong, a parent from whom favors must be wheedled. Well, if they felt that way, it was his own fault. His and Libo's. Playing God out here among the piggies.
“I promised, didn't I, Leaf-eater?”
“When when when?”
“It'll take time. I have to find out whether he can be trusted.”
Leaf-eater looked baffled. Miro had tried to explain that not all humans knew each other, and some weren't nice, but they never seemed to understand.
“As soon as I can,” Miro said.
Suddenly Leaf-eater began to rock back and forth on the ground, shifting his hips from side to side as if he were trying to relieve an itch in his anus. Libo had speculated once that this was what performed the same function that laughter did for humans. “Talk to me in piddle-geese!” wheezed Leafeater. Leaf-eater always seemed to be greatly amused that Miro and the other Zenadors spoke two languages interchangeably. This despite the fact that at least four different piggy languages had been recorded or at least hinted at over the years, all spoken by this same tribe of piggies.
But if he wanted to hear Portuguese, he'd get Portuguese. “Vai comer folhas.” Go eat leaves.
Leaf-eater looked puzzled. “Why is that clever?”
“Because that's your name. Come-folhas.”
Leaf-eater pulled a large insect out of his nostril and flipped it away, buzzing. “Don't be crude,” he said. Then he walked away.
Miro watched him go. Leaf-eater was always so difficult. Miro much preferred the company of the piggy called Human. Even though Human was smarter, and Miro had to watch himself more carefully with him, at least he didn't seem hostile the way Leaf-eater often did.
With the piggy out of sight, Miro turned back toward the city. Somebody was moving down the path along the face of the hill, toward his house. The one in front was very tall– no, it was Olhado with Quara on his shoulders. Quara was much too old for that. Miro worried about her. She seemed not to be coming out of the shock of Father's death. Miro felt a moment's bitterness. And to think he and Ela had expected Father's death would solve all their problems.
Then he stood up and tried to get a better view of the man behind Olhado and Quara. No one he'd seen before. The Speaker. Already! He couldn't have been in town for more than an hour, and he was already going to the house. That's great, all I need is for Mother to find out that I was the one who called him here. Somehow I thought that a Speaker for the Dead would be discreet about it, not just come straight home to the person who called. What a fool. Bad enough that he's coming years before I expected a Speaker to get here. Quim's bound to report this to the Bishop, even if nobody else does. Now I'm going to have to deal with Mother and, probably, the whole city.
Miro moved back into the trees and jogged along a path that led, eventually, to the gate back into the city.
Chapter 7
The Ribeira House
Miro, this time you should have been there, because even though I have a better memory for dialogue than you, I sure don't know what this means. You saw the new piggy, the one they call Human– I thought I saw you talking to him for a minute before you took off for the Questionable Activity. Mandachuva told me they named him Human because he was very smart as a child. OK, it's very flattering that “smart” and “human” are linked in their minds, or perhaps offensive that they think we'll be flattered by that, but that's not what matters.
Mandachuva then said: “He could already talk when he started walking around by himself.” And he made a gesture with his hand about ten centimeters off the ground. To me it looked like he was telling how tall Human was when he learned how to talk and walk. Ten centimeters! But I could be completely wrong. You should have been there, to see for yourself.
If I'm right, and that's what SYLVESTERMandachuva meant, then for the first time we have an idea of piggy childhood. If they actually start walking at ten centimeters in height– and talking, no less! –then they must have less development time during gestation than humans, and do a lot more developing after they're born.
But now it gets absolutely crazy, even by your standards. He then leaned in close and told me– as if he weren't supposed to– who Human's father was: “Your grandfather Pipo knew Human's father. His tree is near your gate.”
Is he kidding? Rooter died twenty-four years ago, didn't he? OK, maybe this is Just a religious thing, sort of adopt-a-tree or something. But the way Mandachuva was so secretive about it, I keep thinking it's somehow true. Is it possible that they have a 24-year gestation period? Or maybe it took a couple of decades for Human to develop from a 10-centimeter toddler into the fine specimen of piggihood we now see. Or maybe Rooter's sperm was saved in a Jar somewhere.
But this matters. This is the first time a piggy personally known to human observers has ever been named as a father. And Rooter, no less, the very one that got murdered. In other words, the male with the lowest prestige– an executed criminal, even– has been named as a father! That means that our males aren't cast-off bachelors at all, even though some of them are so old they knew Pipo. They are potential fathers.
What's more, if Human was so remarkably smart, then why was he dumped here if this is really a group of miserable bachelors? I think we've had it wrong for quite a while. This isn't a low-prestige group of bachelors, this is a high-prestige group of juveniles, and some of them are really going to amount to something.
So when you told me you felt sorry for me because you got to go out on the Questionable Activity and I had to stay home and work up some Official Fabrications for the ansible report, you were full of Unpleasant Excretions! (If you get home after I'm asleep, wake me up for a kiss, OK? I earned it today.)
– Memo from Ouanda Figueira Mucumbi to Miro Ribeira von Hesse, retrieved from Lusitanian files by Congressional order and introduced as evidence in the Trial In Absentia of the Xenologers of Lusitania on Charges of Treason and Malfeasance
There was no construction industry in Lusitania. When a couple got married, their friends and family built them a house. The Ribeira house expressed the history of the family. At the front, the old part of the house was made of plastic sheets rooted to a concrete foundation. Rooms had been built on as the family grew, each addition abutting the one before, so that five distinct one-story structures fronted the hillside. The later ones were all brick, decently plumbed, roofed with tile, but with no attempt whatever at aesthetic appeal. The family had built exactly what was needed and nothing more.
It was not poverty, Ender knew– there was no poverty in a community where the economy was completely controlled. The lack of decoration, of individuality, showed the family's contempt for their own house; to Ender this bespoke contempt for themselves as well. Certainly Olhado and Quara showed none of the relaxation, the letting-down that most people feel when they come home. If anything, they grew warier, less jaunty; the house might have been a subtle source of gravity, making them heavier the nearer they approached.
Olhado and Quara went right in. Ender waited at the door for someone to invite him to enter. Olhado left the door ajar, but walked on out of the room without speaking to him. Ender could see Quara sitting on a bed in the front room, leaning against a bare wall. There was nothing whatsoever on any of the walls. They were stark white. Quara's face matched the blankness of the walls. Though her eyes regarded Ender unwaveringly, she showed no sign of recognizing that he was there
; certainly she did nothing to indicate he might come in.
There was a disease in this house. Ender tried to understand what it was in Novinha's character that he had missed before, that would let her live in a place like this. Had Pipo's death so long before emptied Novinha's heart as thoroughly as this?
“Is your mother home?” Ender asked.
Quara said nothing.
“Oh,” he said. “Excuse me. I thought you were a little girl, but I see now that you're a statue.”
She showed no sign of hearing him. So much for trying to jolly her out of her somberness.
Shoes slapped rapidly against a concrete floor. A little boy ran into the room, stopped in the middle, and whirled to face the doorway where Ender stood. He couldn't be more than a year younger than Quara, six or seven years old, probably. Unlike Quara, his face showed plenty of understanding. Along with a feral hunger.
“Is your mother home?” asked Ender.
The boy bent over and carefully rolled up his pantleg. He had taped a long kitchen knife to his leg. Slowly he untaped it. Then, holding it in front of him with both hands, he aimed himself at Ender and launched himself full speed. Ender noted that the knife was well-aimed at his crotch. The boy was not subtle in his approach to strangers.
A moment later Ender had the boy tucked under his arm and the knife jammed into the ceiling. The boy was kicking and screaming. Ender had to use both hands to control his limbs; the boy ended up dangling in front of him by his hands and feet, for all the world like a calf roped for branding.
Ender looked steadily at Quara. “If you don't go right now and get whoever is in charge in this house, I'm going to take this animal home and serve it for supper.”
Quara thought about this for a moment, then got up and ran out of the room.
A moment later a tired-looking girl with tousled hair and sleepy eyes came into the front room. “Desculpe, por favor,” she murmured, “o menino nao se restabeleceu desde a morte do pai–”
Then she seemed suddenly to come awake.
«O Senhor ‚ o Falante pelos Mortos!» You're the Speaker for the Dead!
“Sou,” answered Ender. I am.
“Nao aqui,” she said. “Oh, no, I'm sorry, do you speak Portuguese? Of course you do, you just answered me– oh, please, not here, not now. Go away.”
“Fine,” said Ender. “Should I keep the boy or the knife?”
He glanced up at the ceiling, her gaze followed his. “Oh, no, I'm sorry, we looked for it all day yesterday, we knew he had it but we didn't know where.”
“It was taped to his leg.”
“It wasn't yesterday. We always look there. Please, let go of him.”
“Are you sure? I think he's been sharpening his teeth.”
“Grego,” she said to the boy, “it's wrong to poke at people with the knife.”
Grego growled in his throat.
“His father dying, you see.”
“They were that close?”
A look of bitter amusement passed across her face. “Hardly. He's always been a thief, Grego has, ever since he was old enough to hold something and walk at the same time. But this thing for hurting people, that's new. Please let him down.”
“No,” said Ender.
Her eyes narrowed and she looked defiant. “Are you kidnapping him? To take him where? For what ransom?”
“Perhaps you don't understand,” said Ender. “He assaulted me. You've offered me no guarantee that he won't do it again. You've made no provision for disciplining him when I set him down.”
As he had hoped, fury came into her eyes. “Who do you think you are? This is his house, not yours!”
“Actually,” Ender said, “I've just had a rather long walk from the praca to your house, and Olhado set a brisk pace. I'd like to sit down.”
She nodded toward a chair. Grego wriggled and twisted against Ender's grip. Ender lifted him high enough that their faces weren't too far apart. “You know, Grego, if you actually break free, you will certainly fall on your head on a concrete floor. If there were carpet, I'd give you an even chance of staying conscious. But there isn't. And frankly, I wouldn't mind hearing the sound of your head smacking against cement.”
“He doesn't really understand Stark that well,” said the girl.
Ender knew that Grego understood just fine. He also saw motion at the edges of the room. Olhado had come back and stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen. Quara was beside him. Ender smiled cheerfully at them, then stepped to the chair the girl had indicated. In the process, he swung Grego up into the air, letting go of his hands and feet in such a way that he spun madly for a moment, shooting out his arms and legs in panic, squealing in fear at the pain that would certainly come when he hit the floor. Ender smoothly slid onto the chair and caught the boy on his lap, instantly pinioning his arms. Grego managed to smack his heels into Ender's shins, but since the boy wasn't wearing shoes, it was an ineffective maneuver. In a moment Ender had him completely helpless again.
“It feels very good to be sitting down,” Ender said. “Thank you for your hospitality. My name is Andrew Wiggin. I've met Olhado and Quara, and obviously Grego and I are good friends.”
The older girl wiped her hand on her apron as if she planned to offer it to him to shake, but she did not offer it. “My name is Ela Ribeira. Ela is short for Elanora.”
“A pleasure to meet you. I see you're busy preparing supper.”
“Yes, very busy. I think you should come back tomorrow.”
“Oh, go right ahead. I don't mind waiting.”
Another boy, older than Olhado but younger than Ela, shoved his way into the room. “Didn't you hear my sister? You aren't wanted here!”
“You show me too much kindness,” Ender said. “But I came to see your mother, and I'll wait here until she comes home from work.”
The mention of their mother silenced them.
“I assume she's at work. If she were here, I would expect these exciting events would have flushed her out into the open.”
Olhado smiled a bit at that, but the older boy darkened, and Ela got a nasty, painful expression on her face. “Why do you want to see her?” asked Ela.
“Actually, I want to see all of you.” He smiled at the older boy. “You must be Estevao Rei Ribeira. Named for St. Stephen the Martyr, who saw Jesus sitting at the right hand of God.”
“What do you know of such things, atheist!”
“As I recall, St. Paul stood by and held the coats of the men who were stoning him. Apparently he wasn't a believer at the time. In fact, I think he was regarded as the most terrible enemy of the Church. And yet he later repented, didn't he? So I suggest you think of me, not as the enemy of God, but as an apostle who has not yet been stopped on the road to Damascus.” Ender smiled.
The boy stared at him, tight-lipped. “You're no St. Paul.”
“On the contrary,” said Ender. “I'm the apostle to the piggies.”
“You'll never see them– Miro will never let you.”
“Maybe I will,” said a voice from the door. The others turned at once to watch him walk in. Miro was young– surely not yet twenty. But his face and bearing carried the weight of responsibility and suffering far beyond his years. Ender saw how all of them made space for him. It was not that they backed away from him the way they might retreat from someone they feared. Rather, they oriented themselves to him, walking in parabolas around him, as if he were the center of gravity in the room and everything else was moved by the force of his presence.
Miro walked to the center of the room and faced Ender. He looked, however, at Ender's prisoner. “Let him go,” said Miro. There was ice in his voice.
Ela touched him softly on the arm. “Grego tried to stab him, Miro.” But her voice also said, Be calm, it's all right, Grego's in no danger and this man is not our enemy. Ender heard all this; so, it seemed, did Miro.
“Grego,” said Miro. “I told you that someday you'd take on somebody who wasn't afraid of you.”
> Grego, seeing an ally suddenly turn to an enemy, began to cry. “He's killing me, he's killing me.”
Miro looked coldly at Ender. Ela might trust the Speaker for the Dead, but Miro didn't, not yet.
“I am hurting him,” said Ender. He had found that the best way to earn trust was to tell the truth. “Every time he struggles to get free, it causes him quite a bit of discomfort. And he hasn't stopped struggling yet.”
Ender met Miro's gaze steadily, and Miro understood his unspoken request. He did not insist on Grego's release. “I can't get you out of this one, Greguinho.”
“You're going to let him do this?” asked Estevao.
Miro gestured toward Estevao and spoke apologetically to Ender. “Everyone calls him Quim.” The nickname was pronounced like the word king in Stark. “It began because his middle name is Rei. But now it's because he thinks he rules by divine right.”
“Bastard,” said Quim. He stalked out of the room.
At the same time, the others settled in for conversation. Miro had decided to accept the stranger, at least temporarily; therefore they could let down their guard a little. Olhado sat down on the floor; Quara returned to her previous perch on the bed. Ela leaned back against the wall. Miro pulled up another chair and sat facing Ender.
“Why did you come to this house?” asked Miro. Ender saw from the way he asked that he, like Ela, had not told anyone that he had summoned a Speaker. So neither of them knew that the other expected him. And, in fact, they almost undoubtedly had not expected him to come so soon.
“To see your mother,” Ender said.
Miro's relief was almost palpable, though he made no obvious gesture. “She's at work,” he said. “She works late. She's trying to develop a strain of potato that can compete with the grass here.”
“Like the amaranth?”
He grinned. “You already heard about that? No, we don't want it to be as good a competitor as that. But the diet here is limited, and potatoes would be a nice addition. Besides, amaranth doesn't ferment into a very good beverage. The miners and farmers have already created a mythology of vodka that makes it the queen of distilled intoxicants.”
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